Mary-Ann Mullord

Took full amount as a deposit iso 50% and did not refund when cancellation due to hospitalization and thus breached section 17(5) of the CPA in SA

On 19 October 2017 my sister let me know she would drive down to Cape Town from Johannesburg with her 3 young adult children (aged 16, 18 and 20) and 2 of their friends, staying at my house in Durbanville. To give them a bit of a seaside experience I booked 3 nights away outside of Cape Town near the beach. Due to late arrangement for high summer season in Western Cape I found a place in Langebaan using the Booking.com website. This was at the Albatross Guesthouse for 3 night for 7 people in 3 rooms. The cost was R13200. The guesthouse confirmed the booking on 21/10/17. The guesthouse deducted the full amount from my credit card. I thought this a bit strange as expected only a deposit to be taken of up to 50%, which is what the booking website implied. I did not worry too much about this as would need to pay sometime anyway. Then on 25/11/2017 my sisters children had a car accident in Johannesburg. Her eldest son was driving and skidded on an oil slick hidden under the water deluge in Johannesburg on that day. The car was written off. 5 of the people the booking was for were in the accident. My sister’s 18 year old son ended up in ICU with brain bleed and shattered jaw. He was kept in a coma for 3 days for brain bleed monitoring and then had maxillo facial surgery on his jaw. Her 16 year old daughter was also in ICU but for one day only as she only had internal bruising, but could not walk for a day, which caused some alarm. My sister waited as long as possible to see if the trip to Cape Town could still take place. She confirmed on 1/12/2017 that the trip was to be cancelled. I informed the Albatross Guesthouse on 2/12/2017, including reason. I was told to cancel via booking.com. I did this and the cancellation fee was the full 100% of the bill. I queried this with guesthouse and was offered options of taking the booking another time or getting 25% back. As I would never use 3 rooms for myself, I took the option of the cancellation. The guesthouse promised to refund within the next week. Which has not happened yet. Subsequently my sister provided me with the details her legal department supplied her re the section 17(5) mentioned above. She used this information to get refunded the 18 year old’s week long matric trip to Port Elizabeth on 2/12/17. She suggested I let the guesthouse know about this section of the CPA, include the medical note I attach here as well, and inform them there should be a full refund. I did so and as told to refer this query to the booking.com website and not directly with the guesthouse. On no response on this query, my sister suggested I query with the National Consumer Commission whether this section of the act also applies to my guesthouse booking via the booking.com website. I informed the guesthouse I would be submitting this query. Booking,com have said no to refund in terms of their T&C's and have left it to guesthouse. Guesthouse had promised 25% within a week and not paid yet. I would recommend people in SA to be aware that booking,com does not apply the CPA and that the guesthouses using booking,com hide behind this fact. I would recommend SA citizens to avoid both booking,com and the Albatross Guesthouse in Langebaan if they are depending on these venues to apply SA law in SA.