JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Four Israeli women travelled to Italy last year and arranged for a hotel near the airport to end their trip. However despite their protestations, the hotel refused to let them in and they had to spend a night in the airport lounge. The family sued Booking, the company they had used to order the trip – and won.
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The incident occurred last winter when coronavirus rules were still in effect. The women, all members of one chareidi family including one with a small baby, travelled to Rome. Due to their departure time being early in the morning at the end of the trip, the group ordered the hotel near the airport.
When entering the hotel, the women were asked to present negative coronavirus tests, and showed the ones they had done at the beginning of that week prior to leaving Israel. The hotel refused to accept the tests since they had not done them in Italy and had done them a few days before. The women claimed that the previous hotel had accepted the tests and stressed that local laws allowed them to enter the hotel.
However the hotel stood its ground and the women were forced to spend the night at the airport.
One of the women told the court that “we planned our trip carefully and therefore allowed time for significant sightseeing on the last day in order to see all of Rome. We arrived exhausted at the hotel, knowing that we would get a shower and some rest before our flight, but what happened afterwards was a total flop. We acted exactly according to the instructions of Booking and still had to undergo the humiliating experience of ‘sleeping’ in the airport, with a baby needing a shower after a long day.”
Upon their return, the women sued the Booking company, which claimed that they have no responsibility for the information on their site and were not the address for such a claim.
However the judge ruled that their arguments were void and ordered them to compensate the chareidi women with 2000 NIS each ($600) as well as paying court costs of 10,000 NIS. The judge also criticized the company for acting with lack of fidelity towards customers.
A member of the family said that “we did everything by the book and read all of the instructions, it was really irritating, we were thrown out the hotel like paupers even though we had paid in full beforehand. I am happy at the ruling and hope that all those involved will learn for the future.”
These travel agents always try to weasel out of travel arrangements, when things go wrong. For years, they would insert the phrase onto travel documents, that “itinerary subject to change”, to cover their tracks, including the lack of a booking, on the local parties, and not themselves. It is the same thing in the building industry, whereby contractors try to blame the manufacturers of defective products, instead of themselves. They fail to realize that an agent is responsible for the errors and omissions of the principal parties.
Great story. That they were Charedi is completely irrelevant. Smart women could be a good substitute.
They should sue the hotel
“the chareidi women with 2000 NIS each ($600) as well as paying court costs of 10,000 NIS”
The court got more then the victims, only in the modern ‘izchrreli’ court.
Chareidim site seeing in Rome ?
Very similar to the shtick a Brooklyn “heimishe” travel agent pulled on my sister 50 years ago. The supposed airline ticket was not accepted at JFK and my Dad had to drive all the way up from Philly to straighten things out.
its ,antisemtism.
Why didn’t they just do another rat test?
Proving that you re “right” and “winning” is sometimes the worst way for a Jew to loose in galus. Hashem yishmor!!