§ 21. Cancelling the package holiday for a fee
Machine-translated from Norwegian. The Norwegian text is the one that applies. Read the original in Norwegian.Norsk English العربية Polski Українська
In brief
- You can cancel before departure, but you must pay a cancellation fee (avbestillingsgebyr).
- Fixed fees in the contract must be reasonable. Without fixed fees, the fee must be the price of the trip minus the organiser's (arrangør) savings and income from reusing the services.
- The organiser must justify the fee if you ask.
The text of the law (unofficial translation)
§ 21. Cancellation by the traveller (avbestilling) of the package holiday (pakkereise) for a fee
What does this mean?
This section gives the traveller a general right to withdraw from the trip before it starts. The price is a cancellation fee. The right does not require that anything has happened to the trip. This sets it apart from § 22, which allows cancellation without a fee, but only in extraordinary circumstances.
The fee can be set in advance in the contract. Such fixed fees must be reasonable and take three things into account: how long it is until departure, what the organiser expects to save, and what the organiser can earn by using the services again.
If the contract has no fixed fees, the amount is calculated differently. The fee must then correspond to the price of the trip, minus the savings and income the organiser gets from alternative use of the services. If you ask, the organiser must explain why the fee is as high as it is.
After the cancellation, you are to get your money back. This follows from § 24: the organiser pays back everything that has been paid, but can deduct the cancellation fee when the cancellation takes place under this section. The money must be returned to you without undue delay, and no later than 14 days after the contract ended.
The chapter has two other ways out of the contract before departure. § 22 allows cancellation without a fee in the event of unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances (uunngåelige og ekstraordinære omstendigheter).
Example: The traveller regrets buying the package holiday without anything having happened. The contract has no fixed fees. The fee then corresponds to the price of the trip, minus what the organiser saves and earns by using the services again.