Lay My Hat

Ryanair cancelled their FR1344 due to land today in the afternoon.
I'm sorry for my guests - but who pays me? I have balance on arrival.
Thank you in advance

Do you have a clause in your t&cs covering cancellation at a late date? We're 'balance on arrival' too, but in the case of a cancellation or no show within a month of arrival, guests are expected to pay the full amount.

Hopefully your guests will be able to arrive tomorrow and you can chat to them directly (assuming you live on site)... they should be able to pay you in full and claim for the delay in their holiday off of their travel insurance company.

Without some written term to cover this situation, I think "pay balance on arrival" means exactly that. I expect your guests will arrive a day or two late, through the airline's fault and not theirs, but that doesn't mean they can ask for the missed days to be deducted, because you have already made them aware that it is "pay balance on arrival".

Thank you for your reply. Guests are expected to pay full amount.
Well, it's not their fault, nor is it mine. They say it is out of their control - and I guess they have no insurance who will cover this.
I offered 50% - to share the loss. They denied. End of story.

If they don't have insurance then it IS their fault they aren't covered for this.

No, it isn't your fault and it isn't theirs and it isn't the airline's fault either. So, who pays? A hurricane is a natural disaster.

As an example: we had a hailstorm (natural disaster) here four years ago and as the Velux windows were smashed and most of the roof blown off or smashed the guests had to leave and we had to cancel the remainder of the season.

The guests' travel insurance said it was down to us. Our insurance company wriggled. We had to refund all the money from our own resources to placate the guests and prevent them taking legal action against us and are now engaged in legal action ourselves for compensation from our own insurance company - four years on ...............

Do you not have a 'force majeure' in your T&C's?
It's a bit of a catch all but wouldn't it cover issues such as this. I vaguely recall that we had a similar situation a few years back with the Icelandic volcano thingy causing flight havoc across Europe, long delays, cancellations etc. Admittedly we never had a pay on arrival scenario but both affected bookings (a homebound that couldn't fly home & an inbound vice versa) dealt with their insurers at no financial loss or gain to us.
They are liable to pay IMO but we all know how that works out. Send a formal invoice & start from there.

Unfortunately, it is the mentality of these people not to feel responsible, to not respond to my emails. OK, the money is lost.
I used the opportunity to re-tile the whole house! Thus made the best of this unpleasant story. This work was planned for November - so, I still have a little chance to rent the other week.

You are in business and therefore you have to take risks every now and again.

volcano wrote:Unfortunately, it is the mentality of these people not to feel responsible, to not respond to my emails. OK, the money is lost.
I used the opportunity to re-tile the whole house! Thus made the best of this unpleasant story. This work was planned for November - so, I still have a little chance to rent the other week.

I really love your postive spin on this unfortunate scenario. You will hopefully now get rental for the period you thought you would be closed for redecorating.

A real lesson in how to turn a negative into a positive...I will smile all day thinking of that!