I posted this in uk.legal.moderated earlier this afternoon but knowing the
wealth and breadth of knowledge washing around in here I thought I'd crave a
boon and ask your opinions as well )

Not sure if this is a travel industry thing, or a distance selling thing, or
whatever but I'm hoping that some kind soul here may be able to help.

On 11th October we used www.gtahotels.com to book four hotel rooms and the
room rate given was a grand total of 880 GBP (110 GBP per room per night,
for two nights). Gtahotels.com trade in Euro's as their base currency and at
that time they quoted an exchange rate of 1 EUR = 0.79174 GBP.

As you can see in this picture here
http://www.natureswayhealthandbeauty.co.uk/gta1a.jpg their system appears to
be converting incorrectly as they say we owe them 1260 EUR, which is the
equivalent (at their quoted exchange rate) of 998 GBP and not the 880 GBP
quoted (which would be 1112 EUR).

We ring the helpline and speak to a foreign-sounding person who tells us
that there is a technical problem with the website. She advises us to
complete the transaction because, if we wait for the problem to be sorted
the rooms may no longer be available, and she will refund the difference to
my credit card later - so we do.

We also follow this up with an email to the person concerned and ask for the
refund to be applied as soon as possible, but hear nothing. Incidentally,
that person no longer works there - or so the manager told me yesterday.

Yesterday (12 Nov, and four weeks after we made the booking), my credit card
statement arrives and an entry states "Gtahotels.Com, Lefkose, 1,260 EUR,
Turkey."

So, I call the helpdesk again and escalate it to a manager, following up
with email confirmation, and he promises to look into it.

This morning I get an email reply from them and they are saying that the
conversion calculations are correct - the actual problem was with the room
rates quoted. They say that the room rate was supposed to be 124.75 GBP per
night (instead of the quoted 110) which gives the 998 GBP (1260 EUR) that
they have (in their eyes, correctly) charged us and so we are not going to
get a refund.

OK, I know it is only an extra 30-quid per room over the two-night stay, but
given the current economic situation, that's not good. None of us can really
afford to be making this trip anyway really. We're all pushing ourselves
because it's a milestone birthday for our dad, and for various medical
reasons he may not be around much longer.

If it helps, I found this on their website:

* Gtahotels.com is accredited by the travel industry and is a proud to be
member of IATA, ASTA and TURSAB. *

Are we stuck with paying the extra or is there something I can do to get the
rooms for the original quoted price?

TIA,

John.