Our complaints procedure

When booking a holiday, you must accept on behalf of all your party the terms of these conditions of booking and pay the appropriate deposit shown on the booking form per person for all holidays.

The deposit paid in respect of each holiday is accepted as a first instalment of the charge. The receipt or banking of a deposit or the making of a provisional reservation does not imply final acceptance of the booking; neither is a verbal quotation confirmation of final cost. If a booking cannot be accepted, notification and refund of any deposit will be sent as soon as possible.

If accepted a confirmation invoice will be forwarded to you normally within 2 weeks of receipt of your booking. The contract is made between us when we send this confirmation.

Any money you pay to your travel agent will be held by him as your agent until we despatch our confirmation, from which point money will be held as agent for HF Holidays. All monies paid to your travel agent for holidays by air are at all times held on behalf of HF Holidays.

If after your booking has been confirmed you wish to transfer to a different holiday or departure date, we will make every effort to satisfy your requirements provided that written notification is received at our offices from the person who signed the booking form or their travel agent, not later than the date on which balance of the original holiday price is due for payment. Alterations made within the balance due period will be regarded as a cancellation by you of the original holiday and a new booking for a different holiday, and the cancellation charges set out in paragraph 4 will apply.

If after your booking has been confirmed you are unavoidably prevented from proceeding and wish to transfer your confirmed booking to another person, you can do so, provided that this is not later than 30 days before departure. You, as transferor of the holiday, and the transferee shall be jointly and severally liable to us for the payment of the balance due, together with all additional charges of whatever sort imposed by the suppliers providing component parts of your holiday.

In all cases, you will be required to pay an administration fee of up to £20 per person plus appropriate holiday insurance premium, if applicable.

Should you, or any member of your party, be forced to cancel your holiday booking you must do so in writing and this letter must be signed by the person who made the booking. Alternatively, you may advise by email. A cancellation will take effect from the date that written notice is received at our office. All such cancellations will be subject to a charge of a percentage of the total holiday price, and the following scale indicates the maximum which will be charged in any circumstance.

Note: If the reason for cancellation is covered under the terms of your holiday insurance policy you may be able to reclaim these charges. Cancellation charges are exclusive of holiday insurance premiums.

If we have to alter your holiday before departure, any alteration will either be major or minor. Where an alteration is minor, we will, if practicable, advise you before departure, but we are not obliged to do so or to pay you compensation. A minor alteration is any alteration apart from a major alteration as defined below. When an alteration is a major alteration (and a major alteration is an alteration which involves changing your tour or time of departure by more than 6 hours, offering accommodation with a lower rating, or changing your resort or airport), we will advise you as soon as is reasonably possible. You will then have the choice of accepting the alteration, taking an alternative holiday (and where this is of a lower price, we will refund the difference), or withdrawing from the contract and accepting a full refund of all monies paid. In addition, in appropriate cases, we will pay you compensation on the scale shown below (on the assumption that the full balance has been paid).

Brochure descriptions are provided by us in good faith and every care is taken to ensure accuracy. Between brochure publication and your holiday, changes can and do occur. We feel it is right to point out that advertised facilities may be subject to change by the various suppliers concerned. There may be occasions when an advertised facility or activity is not available during your own holiday. This may be due to insufficient numbers, weather, operational or maintenance reasons. All hotel gradings are those provided by the countries concerned, as are distinctions between pensions and hotels.

We cannot guarantee that any specific Leader or number of guests or Leaders will be present on any holiday at any particular time. We cannot give any firm information about an airline on which you may travel until tickets are issued and we are not in a position to state aircraft type.

We make every endeavour to operate all of our holidays. If we have to cancel your holiday before the date of departure, you will have the choice of taking an alternative holiday (and where this is of a lower price we will refund the difference) or withdrawing from the contract and accepting a full refund of all monies paid. We shall not cancel a holiday or travel arrangements after the date when the payment of the balance becomes due, unless you, the guest, defaults in payment of an outstanding balance or unless it is necessary to do so as a result of force majeure.

Force majeure means unusual and unforeseeable circumstances beyond our control, the consequences of which neither we nor our suppliers could avoid, examples of which are war or threat of war, riots, civil strife, terrorist activities, industrial disputes, natural or nuclear disaster, fire or adverse weather conditions, level of water in rivers or other similar events beyond our control.

(i) Where you do not suffer death or personal injury, we accept liability should any part of your holiday arrangements booked with us in the UK not be as described in the brochure and not be of a reasonable standard, and, subject to (iii), (iv) and (v) below, will pay you compensation of an amount which could be reasonably and properly expected, taking into account all the relevant circumstances. Any sums received by you from suppliers, such as from airlines due to the Denied Boarding Regulations 1992 (in this case sums paid by the airline constitute the full amount of your entitlement to compensation for all matters flowing from the airline's actions) will be deducted from any sum paid to you as compensation by us.
(ii) Where you suffer death or personal injury as a result of an activity forming part of your holiday arrangements booked with us before departure, we accept responsibility subject to (iii), (iv) and (v) below.
(iii) We accept liability in accordance with (i) and (ii) above and subject to (iv) and (v) below except where the cause of the failure in your holiday arrangements or any death or personal injury you may suffer is not due to any fault on our part or that of our servants, agents or suppliers, and is your own fault, or arises from the actions of someone unconnected with your holiday arrangements or due to unusual or unforeseeable circumstances or events which neither we, nor our servants, agents or suppliers could have anticipated or avoided even with the exercise of all due care.
(iv) Where a claim (whether for personal injury or non personal injury) arises out of loss or damage suffered during the course of air travel, rail travel, sea travel, road travel or hotel accommodation, the amount of compensation you will receive will be limited in accordance with the provisions of any relevant International Conventions, namely the Warsaw Convention 1929 (including as amended by the Hague Protocol 1955), the Berne Convention 1961, the Athens Convention 1974, the Geneva Convention 1973 and the Paris Convention 1962.
(v) It should be noted that our acceptance of liability in (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv) above is conditional upon you assigning any rights to us that you may have against any of our servants, agents or suppliers which is in any way responsible for the failure of your holiday arrangements or any death or personal injury you may suffer. Finally, it is a condition precedent of such acceptance of liability that you follow the procedures for the notification of complaints set out in clause 17.
(vi) Other than as set out above, and as is detailed elsewhere in these conditions of booking, we shall have no legal liability whatsoever to you for any loss, damage, personal injury or death which you suffer arising directly or indirectly from any aspect of any holiday arrangements booked with us.