I had a disasterous holiday with TUI this year, won’t go into the details. I paid for the package holiday on my Visa credit card. After a lot of chasing, I finally got an unsatisfactory response to my complaint. As compensation, they are offering me a certain amount by bank transfer or much more if I accept vouchers. Has anyone succesfully used the dispute process via Visa to get a refund for an equivent cash amount that has been offered in vouchers by a retailer?
Vouchers don’t cost them much at all. Take the refund they offered and cut your losses.
You can attempt a chargeback but as TUI has already gave you a response and likely a fair one, it’s not likely you’ll win unless you get a good case handler who can scrutinize to the death.
Did you stay on your holiday?
Thanks for your reply. Like I say I’m not going into the details of the holiday or TUI’s reply as I don’t need my dispute, or their response, adjudicated here. Myself and the bank know on what grounds we’d raise the dispute. But I appreciate you asking all the same! 
Just wondering if anyone has succesfully used the dispute process to get a refund for a cash amount that has been offered in vouchers by a retailer? I ask because this is not something that’s very common. Perhaps someone in this community has had a similar experience 
.
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If the vouchers are on the table why not dispute it. Vouchers are the holiday equivalent of shops’ credit notes and the offers made by airlines during the height of the pandemic. Objectively, I think you’d have good grounds to expect cash. However, foreign travel does appear to be a law unto itself.
Are vouchers goodwill or strings attached / forfeit claims?
Some people managed to claim full purchase amount back, in cash, via credit card dispute. Vouchers in such case were not issued, even when previously offered.
Some people got goodwill vouchers, and managed to get the full cash back via credit card. Circa more than double money back (cash plus vouchers). They were nervous and only attempted to use vouchers after getting the cash back and it did work.
Note above cases were with other airlines, not TUI.
You are entitled to cash, obviously.
But if TUI were to go bust (not impossible) your vouchers would be worthless.
I’d think it unlikely that your card provider would offer more than TUI have already offered tbf.
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Thanks all.
Cash or vouchers are the compensation being offered. To clarify things, I’ll share what TUI are offering me…
"Firstly, may I apologise wholeheartedly for the disappointing experience at… . I can see that our holiday feedback scores are also not favourable and therefore, under a multi-topic compensation guideline, I would like to offer you the following:
- £650 Bank Transfer + a bonus of a £200 Holiday Voucher or
- a Holiday Voucher for £950 + a bonus of a £200 Holiday Voucher."
They’re offering me more “value” if I accept the vouchers (£1150), obviously because that’s in their interest.
Exactly this, so I’m trying to gauge if a dispute for a £1150 chargeback based on TUI’s voucher offer to me would be successful. The risk is that when I dispute through Visa, TUI will likely revoke this offer and, as my bank put it, refuse to play ball. So there is a risk here. The bank obviously can’t predict how Visa will judge this so I have to make the judgement call on what to do.
Thanks for your reply. I’m sure you know the answer.
Edit: I see you deleted this comment. I replied to the email I received with this post.
I didn’t know the answer, I wasn’t sure what you can and can’t use it for. I deleted it as it seemed too flippant (even for me!)
If your bank are saying that there’s a risk they dig their heels in, I would take the money and run, and then never use them again. You’re not going to want another holiday with them so vouchers don’t seem worthwhile.
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Thanks for recognising and clarifying this.
In exactly the same way for physical items or services purchased on your credit card, you can raise a chargeback or S75 for “not as described”, as one example.
S75 dispute can only be for the full amount of the original services or good bought. Just because TUI offers vouchers for more than the original invoice, does not mean you can S75 claim that higher amount.
An important distinction! I am currently looking at raising a chargeback as this can be for a specified amount.
This is not what I’m trying to do and I’m not sure where this information has come from as neither of TUI’s offers come close to the invoice amount.
I will need to decide what to do tomorrow anyway and it looks like there is no similar experiences here so far! Thanks all!
Oh! That’s no good.
From one company I was offered at most like 30% back. And I did succeed with S75 claim for the full amount.
Ignore their offers, or take them if they are goodwill. And proceed with S75 claim for the full amount of good bought to be compensated in cash.
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That is helpful to know, thank you!
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Not based on just that, no. They’ve been clear in what they have offered. If they had offered an amount and then not provided it a chargeback might recover that, but that’s not the case so it wouldn’t affect any chargeback claim as far as I can see.
Edit - however if you do put in an S75 claim, you can bolster it by saying they have offered compensation, which means they’ve accepted liability for the problems
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By the way, in fact afaik they can’t. As they have offered compensation, it’s not really an ‘offer’, it’s more an acceptance that money is due.
This is why customer service teams are encouraged to offer ‘goodwill gestures’ rather than ‘compensation’
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They’re offering me more “value” if I accept the vouchers
No, they are offering you what they would contend is an equivalent amount of value, which means the nominal amount in vouchers is higher because “1” voucher is less valuable than “1” GBP. It’s exactly as if they were offering you, say, 650 GBP or 786 USD. You have to decide what ‘exchange rate’ you think is fair, for their vouchers.
Often vouchers are at odds of value. As they can and do put the prices up. One cannot put vouchers into 5% savings account. Or use them to buy holiday elsewhere. After all one might want to self plan a trip instead of buying a packaged holiday.
Also bear in mind, if for whatever reason they went bust, those paper vouchers you’ve got are then worthless. The likelihood of them going bust anytime soon is unlikely, but stranger things have happened.
Personally I’d just get the cash back to the card and then put that towards whatever comes up when you’re ready to book another holiday
Goodwill gestures or GOGW (per CS shorthand) means they’re not to blame in any way and they’re doing you a big favour.
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