Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Okay,

Here is the update. It appears Balkan were busy phoning their lawyers, ABTA and also ATOL. They phoned my partner back and said that they don't have to honour the price, so I phoned ATOL who put me through to ABTA and ABTA bascially said that it's up to Balkan what they do, regardless of the fact that they have a disclaimer on their site which clearly states that in case of any discrepancy, the price quoted during booking will be taken as the valid price for the holiday. You can see this here - http://www.balkanholidays.co.uk/disclaimer.htm. ABTA also said that I could make a complaint to the trading standards office about the advertisement of false information (i.e. their disclaimer). I told this to my partner who phoned back and as soon as she repeated back to the woman about the trading standards, the woman again went off to see her managing director immediately. Apparently now we need to know from ABTA whether the booking confirmation e-mail I was sent (plus the stuff on screen) is infact a booking confirmation. Believe me I know that sounds daft, but apparently if it is then we might be in a better situation. As far as I'm concerned the information I printed off says that my booking has been confirmed.

I've also looked at the trading standards site and there's a few contradicting bits of information for what appears to be a bit of a grey area. It says, "You cannot insist that a shop sells you anything at a marked price, whether or not they have made a mistake" but then it continues to say "It is illegal for shops to sell things at more than their advertised price. Our advice would be that the business should have a checking system to prevent pricing errors and ensure that any identified are quickly corrected" and, "If you order goods, and later the shop says the price has gone up, you should only have to pay the price you saw when you ordered". It's all a bit crazy. What I'm more bothered about than anything is the disclaimer which appears to be a load of old Balkan bullsh*t.

Jonty

P.S - Stick with Thomson and Crystal Ski.....

Yes that's right, a price by law is an 'offer to treat' as you say, I've seen this information online from trading standards.

But.........I've also seen the following, "Shortly after you have made your initial booking through the travel agent, the tour operator will send out the confirmation notice - it is ESSENTIAL to check this carefully as this is your proof of the contract and what you have booked" which is very interesting indeed since it obviously means that a contract is in place for my holiday at the price I have paid.

It's still on-going so I'll keep updating as and when I hear more from Balkan etc.

Jonty