BOOKING CONDITIONS 2010/11

1. Your Holiday Contract

Your contract is with MERCIAN TRAVEL CENTRE LIMITED (ATOL Licence 1869, ABTA Membership V2471), trading as MERCIAN BRIDGE & BOWLING HOLIDAYS, hereafter referred to as the "the Company", whose Registered Office is 109 Worcester Road, Hagley, Stourbridge, West Midlands. DY9 0NG.

When you make a booking you guarantee that you have the authority to accept and do accept on behalf of your party the terms of these booking conditions.  You must send a deposit as shown below together with a signed booking form which must be received by the Company and a written confirmation account must be despatched to you before a legally binding contract can exist between us. Such a contract will exist as soon as a written confirmation account is issued to you. Please note that all such contracts are in accordance with the booking conditions and information, which is clearly stated in this brochure.  We cannot contract for sunny rooms or specific positions of bedrooms when entering into a contract, it is purely in accordance with the booking conditions and information stated in this brochure, which we would ask you to thoroughly read before signing the booking form. Your tickets and travel documents will not be despatched until we have received a signed booking form confirming that you have read and agreed to abide by the booking conditions.  (However, if for any reason a booking form is not sent to Mercian, it will be deemed that you have read the booking conditions and agree to abide by them).  This contract is made on the terms of these booking conditions which are governed by English Law and subject to the jurisdiction of the English Courts at all times. You may however, choose the law and jurisdiction of Scotland or Northern Ireland if you wish to do so.

It must be understood that by signing the booking form, you accept responsibility for all those persons whose names appear thereon and as such are liable for all payments as they become due and are the only person authorised to make any amendment or cancellation on their behalf or to receive any refunds that might subsequently become payable unless it is otherwise agreed in writing.

2. Your Financial Protection

Your money is fully protected by ATOL and ABTA. In the unlikely event of our insolvency, the Civil Aviation Authority or ABTA will ensure that you are not stranded abroad and will arrange to refund any money you have paid to us for an advance booking.  For further information visit www.atol.org.uk or www.abta.co.uk. When you buy an ATOL protected air package or flight from Mercian Travel Centre Limited, trading as Mercian Bridge Holidays, you will receive a confirmation invoice from us confirming your arrangements and your protection under our Air Travel Organiser’s Licence number 1869.  Our membership of ABTA, membership number V2471, also means that we maintain a high standard of service to you according to ABTA’s Code of Conduct and we can offer you an arbitration scheme for the resolution of disputes, see clause 9 below.

3. Your Holiday Price

Save in the case of late bookings booked within 10 weeks of departure where the Company will require you to pay in full for your holiday at the time of booking, the payment of a deposit of £150 for a European holiday, or £180 for a long haul holiday, 15% for cruising or £50 for a domestic holiday.

The price of your travel arrangements was calculated using exchange rates quoted by the NatWest Bank on 19 January 2010 in relation to the following currencies:

Euro: 1.05    Canadian $1.68         U.S. $1.47

Changes in transportation costs, including the cost of fuel, dues, taxes or fees chargeable for services such as landing taxes or embarkation or disembarkation fees at ports and airports and exchange rates means that the price of your travel arrangements may change after you have booked. However there will be no change within 30 days of your departure.

We will absorb and you will not be charged for any increase equivalent to 2% of the price of your travel arrangements, which excludes insurance premiums and any amendment charges. You will be charged for the amount over and above that, plus an administration charge of £2.00 per person together with an amount to cover agents’ commission.  If this means that you have to pay an increase of more than 10% of the price of your travel arrangements, you will have the option of accepting a change to another holiday if we are able to offer one (if this is of equivalent or higher quality you will not have to pay more but if it is of lower quality you will be refunded the difference in price), or cancelling and receiving a full refund of all monies paid, except for any amendment charges.

We will consider an appropriate refund of insurance premiums paid only if the insurance has been taken through Mercian Travel.  Regrettably we cannot refund premiums if you have made your own arrangements for insurance or any ancillary travel such as overnight at an airport hotel or airport car parking.  However, if the reservation is done through Mercian a refund could be made.

Should you decide to cancel for this reason, you must exercise your right to do so within 14 days from the issue date printed on your final invoice.

Should the price of your holiday go down due to the changes mentioned above, by more than 2% of your holiday cost, then any refund due will be paid to you. However, please note that travel arrangements are not always purchased in local currency and some apparent changes have no impact on the price of your travel due to contractual and other protection in place.

4. If You Change Your Booking

If you wish to make any changes to your holiday, such changes must be requested in writing and any changes that we agree to make will only be effective on the date on which we confirm such changes to you.  The Company reserves the right to pass on to you any charges it incurs as a result of changes to the holiday, including a nominal administration charge of £25 to cover the Company's administration costs. 

Certain travel arrangements involve restricted tickets where the airlines prohibit name change or any variation. In such cases there would be a 100% cancellation charge for the ticket originally booked on your behalf.

5. If You Cancel Your Holiday

If you, or any member of your party, wish to cancel your travel arrangements it can be done at any time by giving written notification signed by the person who made the original booking. Since we incur costs in cancelling your travel arrangements it will be necessary to apply cancellation charges as follows:-

1. when received more than 56 days before the date of departure, loss of  deposit.
2. when received within the period of 56 days to 29 days before the date of  departure, 50% of the total price of the holiday.
3. when received within 28 days to date of departure 100%.

If you find that you (or anyone else named on the booking form) are prevented from going on your holiday for a good reason and wish someone else to take your place, this can be normally be organised at an administration fee of £25 per person to cover the cost of making the changes plus any other costs that may be imposed on us by our suppliers, subject to the Company agreeing that the person taking your place satisfies all the conditions applicable to the holiday. Where we agree to a person taking your place, both you and that person will be responsible to the Company for payment of the price of the holiday and any additional costs arising from the transfer.

6. If We Change or Cancel Your Holiday

Whilst the Company does not expect to have to make any changes to the brochure, it reserves its right to do so at any time. It must be appreciated that in some cases the brochure is prepared some twelve months prior to the event and it is therefore possible that changing circumstances, such as the re-scheduling of flights to a different day or other such factors could significantly change the original holiday, in which case we will inform you of such changes before we accept your booking. Any changes to the brochure will be communicated to you in a brochure ‘update’.

The Company also reserves the right to change or cancel your booking after it has been confirmed, for any reason. If the minimum number of 20 participants for bridge holidays hasn’t been reached by the date the balance of payment is due (56 days before travel) then we will cancel the holiday.

If we cancel or make a major change to your holiday you will have the choice of either accepting an offer of alternative travel arrangements of comparable standard from us if available (we will refund any price difference if the alternative is of a lower value), or receiving a full refund of all monies paid. We will also pay compensation where appropriate, see below.

Examples of major changes are alteration of your outward/return flights by more than 12 hours, change of accommodation to another of a lower standard. A change of carrier is a minor change. In accordance with EU Regulation 2111/2005 we are required to advise you of the actual carrier operating your flight/connecting flight/transfer. We do this by listing carriers to be used or likely to be used on the relevant page of each holiday. Any changes to the actual airline after you have received your tickets will be notified to you as soon as possible and in all cases at check-in or at the boarding gate.

Compensation payments:

Prior to 56 days before departure Nil
More than 21 days prior to departure £20
Within 21 days of departure £40

Note that these will not be paid where the holiday is cancelled due to low numbers or the cancellation or major change arises due to reasons of force majeure.

Force Majeure

This means that we will not pay you compensation if we have to cancel or change your travel arrangements in any way because of unusual or unforeseeable circumstances beyond our control. These can include, for example, war, riot, industrial dispute, terrorist activity and its consequences, natural or nuclear disaster, fire, adverse weather conditions.

7. Who is Eligible for a Mercian Holiday

To participate in a Mercian Bridge holiday a basic knowledge of ACOL is needed and a general knowledge of duplicate bridge.  Mercian Travel cannot guarantee the standard of play of other clients on the holiday, but everyone should have that basic knowledge to enjoy the game provided on our holidays.  However, we will accept non-playing clients but we do not give a reduction in price as the services of Mercian are available to all on these holidays. We reserve the right to terminate a bridge or bowling holiday without compensation where there has been unreasonable behaviour, which might impair the enjoyment, comfort or health of other members of the group. The final word in the absence of a representative of Mercian Travel would lie with the Bridge or Bowling Director who represents Mercian Travel on these bridge and/or bowling holidays. We also reserve the right to refuse to accept any reservations or bookings from clients.

8. The Invoice For Your Holiday

The final invoice for your holiday will normally be despatched with the receipt for the deposit within a few days of the booking being received at Mercian. Payment is due 84 days prior to departure. Statements are not sent and Mercian reserve the right to cancel at that point in time and retain the deposit if the balance has not been paid.

9. If You Have a Complaint

If you have a problem during your holiday, please inform our group representative (the Bridge Director or a member of the team) immediately, who will ask you to complete an Incident Report form, the original of which you should retain, one copy will be retained by the group representative who will endeavour to rectify the problem, the third copy will be despatched to the Company for appropriate action.

If it cannot be resolved satisfactorily on site the Bridge Director will refer to the Mercian office and if the matter is still not resolved the facts should be put in writing to Mercian Travel within 28 days of returning home giving your booking reference, all relevant information, including details of our representatives endeavours to rectify the problem and supported by any documentation relating to the affair. Any such problems will receive immediate attention from the staff at Mercian.

Mercian reserve the right to reject any complaint if this procedure is not followed, it must be documented at resort as failure to do so deprives us of the opportunity to investigate and rectify the problem and therefore could affect your rights under this contract.

If the complaint cannot be settled amicably between us then, if you so wish, the matter can be referred to arbitration through ABTA and administered quite independently by IDRS, part of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

The scheme provides for a simple and inexpensive method of arbitration on documents alone with restricted liability on the customer in respect of costs. Full details will be provided on request or can be obtained from the ABTA website (www.abta.com)

The Scheme does not apply to claims for an amount greater than £5,000 per person. There is also a limit of £25,000 per booking form. Neither does it apply to claims which are solely in respect of physical injury or illness or their consequences.   The Scheme can however deal with compensation claims which include an element of minor injury or illness subject to a limit of £1,000 on the amount the arbitrator can award per person in respect of this element.  

The application for arbitration and Statement of Claim must be received by the IDRS within nine months of the date of return from the holiday.  Outside this time limit arbitration under the Scheme may still be available if the company agrees, but the ABTA Code does not require such agreement.

For injury and illness claims, you may like to use the ABTA / Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Mediation Procedure. This is a voluntary scheme and requires your tour operator to agree for mediation to go ahead. The aim is to help you resolve your dispute in a quick and cost effective way. Details on request or from www.abta.com.

10. Conditions of Carriage


This brochure is our responsibility, as your tour operator.   It is not issued on behalf of, and does not commit the airlines mentioned herein or any airline whose services are used in the course of your travel arrangements.  Please note that in accordance with Air Navigation Orders in order to qualify for infant status, a child must be under 2 years of age on the date of its return flight.

11. The Mercian Pledge to You

Your booking is made and accepted by Mercian on the terms of the above conditions which no employee or agent of the company is authorised to vary in any manner whatsoever. The recommended EBU rules and regulations apply to the administration of the bridge, whilst the rules of the relevant Bowls Associations apply to the bowling unless otherwise agreed. We therefore accept your booking on the condition that you agree to abide by and comply with these rules and regulations.

All aspects of the Mercian holidays are carefully checked; wherever possible we do an inspection visit to ensure the venue is up to standard. However, we must ask you to bear in mind that a change in staff at a hotel after an inspection visit can made a difference to the standard of service provided but Mercian undertake to do all that is reasonably in its power to ensure that suppliers exercise all proper care and attention at all times in the services supplied to you. Details of the location, tourist category, degrees of comfort, main features are set out in the brochure with additional information in the information booklet supplied for each holiday. Please note that whilst we pass on all special requests that we receive on the booking form we cannot guarantee that these requests will be met as it is the hotel, not Mercian, who allocate bedrooms. However, the team will put all possible pressure on the hotels to meet your requests. We cannot accept a booking on the condition that a certain Bridge or Bowling Director is officiating and we reserve the right to change the bridge team should it become necessary.

12. Our Liability to You

If the contract we have with you is not performed or is improperly performed by us or our suppliers we will pay you appropriate compensation if this has affected the enjoyment of your travel arrangements.  However we will not be liable where any failure in the performance of the contract is due to: you; or a third party unconnected with the provision of the travel arrangements and where the failure is unforeseeable or unavoidable; or unusual and unforeseeable circumstances beyond our control, the consequences of which could not have been avoided even if all due care had been exercised; or an event which we or our suppliers, even with all due care, could not foresee or forestall.  Clients have a duty of care to themselves not to take any action which could endanger themselves or others.  If such due care is not taken it would invalidate any subsequent complaints to Mercian.

Our liability, except in cases involving death, injury or illness, shall be limited to a maximum of two times the cost of your travel arrangements. Our liability will also be limited in accordance with and/or an identical manner to

    a  The contractual terms of the companies that provide the transportation for your travel arrangements. These terms are incorporated into this contract; and

    b  Any relevant international convention, for example the Montreal Convention in respect of travel by air, the Athens Convention in respect of travel by sea, the Berne Convention in respect of travel by rail and the Paris Convention in respect of the provision of accommodation, which limit the amount of compensation that you can claim for death, injury, delay to passengers and loss, damage and delay to luggage. We are to be regarded as having all benefit of any limitation of compensation contained in these or any conventions. 

You can ask for copies of the transport companies' contractual terms, or the international conventions, from our offices Mercian Travel Centre Limited, 109 Worcester Road, West Hagley, Worcestershire, DY9 0NG, telephone number 01562 883795.

Under EU law (Regulation 261/2004) you have rights in some circumstances to refunds and/or compensation from your airline in cases of denied boarding, cancellation or delay to flights. Full details of these rights will be publicised at EU airports and will also be available from airlines. However reimbursement in such cases will not automatically entitle you to a refund of your holiday cost from us. Your right to a refund and/or compensation from us is set out in clause 6. If any payments to you are due from us, any payment made to you by the airline will be deducted from this amount. If your airline does not comply with these rules you should complain to the Air Transport Users' Council on 020 7240 6061 www.auc.org.uk

13. Prompt Assistance in Resort

If the contract we have with you is not performed or is improperly performed as a result of failures attributable to a third party unconnected with the provision of the services, or as a result of failures due to unusual and unforeseeable circumstances beyond our control, the consequences of which could not have been avoided even if all due care had been exercised, or an event which we or our suppliers, even with all due care, could not foresee or forestall, and you suffer an injury or other material loss, we will offer you such prompt assistance as is reasonable in the circumstances.

14.  Passport, Visa and Immigration Requirements

Your specific passport and visa requirements, and other immigration requirements are your responsibility and you should confirm these with the relevant Embassies and/or Consulates. We do not accept any responsibility if you cannot travel because you have not complied with any passport, visa or immigration requirements.  However, Mercian Travel does provide a visa service.

If your passport is valid for less than 6 months after the completion of your travel, then please contact Mercian Travel as many countries require six months validity after completion of travel.

Foreign Office advice and visa requirements can be found on the home page of the Mercian website - www.merciantravel.co.uk.

15.  Excursions

Any excursions or other tours that you book other than the Bridge/Bowling holiday shown in this brochure are not a part of the holiday provided by Mercian Travel and are, therefore, not a part of the contract with Mercian, being the responsibility of the local agent who is providing the local tours and excursions and complaints must be taken up with the said agent.

This brochure was produced February 2010.