Family split apart on holiday seeks compensation

Jenny Sykes says her family want "fair" compensation after her family was split up for the first few days of their holiday

“No room at the inn,” sounds like a line from a nativity play, but is what a family from Cheshire said happened when it tried to check into a hotel in Kos.

Jenny Sykes and eight members of her family spent the first three days of their break in different hotels and had to use taxis to meet up each day.

Ms Sykes, from Nantwich, has been offered some compensation but said she had been battling with Easyjet Holidays ever since over a “fair” amount for the disruption to her getaway.

Easyjet Holidays has been contacted by the BBC for a response.

“I’d love all the money back, but if that isn’t an option half would be a reasonable request,” Ms Sykes said.

“I don’t think that’s too greedy to say half our week was disrupted.”

She added: “The other half was kind of a bit tainted – they were lovely times, we did have some nice times, but there was an undercurrent.”

Ms Sykes said the family holiday in July had cost almost £7,500 and was booked a year in advance.

Ms Sykes and eight members of her family travelled together for the holiday in Kos

Although the family were apart – four in one hotel, and five in another – for the beginning of their break, they were eventually reunited in the same hotel for the last four days.

“You don’t expect to be going back and to, liaising with hotel management, on the phone to EasyJet, you don’t expect to be doing that on a holiday," said Ms Sykes.

“You just want to fully switch off and relax, and we couldn’t really do that.”

Ms Sykes said she was initially offered £350 in compensation – which she felt was not enough for the trouble they had encountered.

She was then offered £1,100 which worked out to be approximately £120 per person when divided between Jenny, her husband, three children, sister, her sister’s partner and her parents.

She has recently been offered £2,000 after escalating the complaint further, but felt this was not good enough as half their holiday was disrupted.

It was Ms Sykes' birthday during the trip, but she was unable to open her cards with all of her family there

A spokesperson for the travel agent association ABTA said it had been in touch with Ms Sykes about her complaint.

“As is always the case, if a member of the public is unhappy with a subsequent compensation offer from one of our members, they have the option to use our arbitration scheme,” a spokesperson said.

Ms Sykes added she understood mistakes could happen, but wanted Easyjet Holidays to consider a more generous compensation offer.