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Holiday from hell? Tips to resolve a dispute

Adding Travel Dispute Cover to your travel insurance can help

Suffering a holiday from hell can be devastating, it not only wastes our hard earned cash, but more importantly it ruins precious leisure time with our loved ones.

When we book a holiday we trust our money and our precious leisure time with a tour operator, travel or accommodation supplier and we have to wait and see if they deliver what they promised.

We've all seen pictures of hotels that turn out to building sites, or bathrooms covered in damp or cockroaches, but what can we do if it happens on our holiday?

Adding Travel Dispute (Professional Fees) Cover to your travel insurance can help if you don't manage to get a satisfactory resolution from your holiday supplier.

How to resolve a complaint with your holiday supplier

Obviously for a claim against your holiday supplier to succeed, it's not enough that you just didn't enjoy your holiday because the weather was bad, or you chose a destination you didn't like. The complaint must relate to something that was under the holiday supplier's control, such as the standard and safety of accommodation or facilities, where it can be shown that they have broken their contract with you.

While you are on holiday:

• Raise your complaint as soon as possible with the holiday supplier, whilst you are still in resort. This will give them the opportunity to put things right.
• Complete a complaint form in resort, or get some form of written evidence of your complaint from your holiday supplier.
• Take photographs or video evidence of problems in case you need evidence later.
• Collect names and addresses of other hotel guests or visitors who could act as independent witnesses.

When you return home:

If your complaint was not resolved to your satisfaction whilst you were away you should take the following action:

• If you have bought Travel Dispute (Professional Fees) Cover, notify your insurer of a potential claim within 30 days of returning from your holiday
• Contact your holiday supplier and follow their complaints procedure. You can ask for compensation for loss of value, out of pocket expenses and loss of enjoyment.
• Keep copies of all correspondence

If your holiday supplier does not respond to your satisfaction you can consider independent arbitration or taking legal action.

How does adding Travel Dispute (Professional Fees) Cover to your travel insurance help?

Many people don't pursue legal action because they don't know how to go about it or they are worried about the cost - if you take out this cover you won't have that worry.

Buying Travel Dispute (Professional Fees) Cover makes things easier because you don't have to worry about finding your own lawyer - if we believe your claim has a reasonable prospect of being successful our legal experts will appoint a specialist to act on your behalf and cover the cost, up to the amount specified in the policy.*

You must notify our legal specialists within 30 days of returning from a holiday where you have had a dispute and there may be a potential claim. This is likely to be before you have completed the complaints procedure for the relevant supplier.

If you receive an unsatisfactory response you're your holiday supplier our legal experts will assess whether you have a case for legal action. If you have a legal case, our specialists will take over the claim and appoint a specialist to act on your behalf.

Our travel disputes cover includes the appointment of an appropriate legal professional to act on your behalf, however you can also choose your own solicitor, provided they are approved by our legal experts.

Travel Dispute (Professional Fees) Cover provides the following cover and benefits:

Legal costs up to £25,000, to cover the pursuit of compensation from the following holiday suppliers if they fail to fulfil their contract with you:

• Tour operator
• Holiday company
• Travel agent
• Car hire company
• Airline, ferry, train, cruise liner
• Hotelier or property owner

You can add travel dispute cover to any of our single trip or annual travel insurance policies.

It's easy to add travel dispute cover to your travel insurance policy

Insurewithease.com provides flexible travel insurance policies that can be tailored to your needs. Once you have entered your travel details to get a quote and chosen between silver, gold and platinum cover you will be presented with a range of policy options to enhance your cover. You can choose to add travel dispute cover to your policy at this point.

*We may limit the Professional Fees we will pay where we consider it unlikely that a reasonable settlement for your claim will be obtained. Please read the policy wording for full terms and conditions.

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