Package holiday claim after your return: price reduction and damages (Germany)
Published byDocMuse
This document is in German
The PDF you download is in German — that is the language it has to be filed in, so it is not translated. Everything on this page is here to tell you what it says.
The claim letter to the tour organiser after a defective package holiday, under the German Civil Code (BGB). You set out the defects and how you reported them on the spot, calculate the price reduction (§ 651m BGB), claim the cost of remedies you arranged yourself and other damage — where the holiday was seriously impaired, compensation for wasted holiday time too (§ 651n BGB) — and set a payment deadline. Claims expire two years after the agreed end of the trip (§ 651j BGB); the old one-month deadline is gone. In German.
What you fill in
The details the document asks for.
- Traveller
- Traveller's address
- Tour organiser (travel agency)
- Tour organiser's postal address
- City
- Date
- Booking reference
- Trip (country, resort, hotel)
- Travelling from
- Travelling until
- Price
- Travellers covered by the complaint
- Failures to perform and the days they occurred
- When and to whom the failures were reported on the spot
- Amount of the reduction
- Costs and damage claimed (items and amounts, or “none”)
- Amount claimed
- Payment deadline
- IBAN
- Attachments
Preview
This document is produced for you. Your answers are typed into it and the finished PDF is yours to keep.
Common questions
- By when must package holiday claims be made in Germany?
- Claims for a price reduction and damages become time-barred after two years, counted from the day the trip was due to end under the contract (§ 651j of the German Civil Code, BGB). The former duty to notify claims within one month of the trip no longer exists. Still, do not wait: receipts and memories are most useful while fresh, and many organisers pay on a well-documented claim.
- How is the price reduction for a German package holiday worked out?
- For as long as the defect lasted, the price is reduced by law in proportion to the loss in value of the trip (§ 651m BGB). In practice the daily price of the trip is multiplied by a percentage for each defect and by the number of days affected; courts draw on published collections of judgments. Costs of remedies you arranged yourself, such as another hotel, are claimed on top (§ 651k(2) BGB).
- Must a package holiday claim in Germany be in writing, and what happens after a refusal?
- No form is required; an email is enough, and a signed letter works as well. Send the claim to the tour organiser, not the hotel, and keep proof that it arrived; the travel agency that sold the trip may also receive it on the organiser's behalf (§ 651v(4) BGB). If the organiser refuses, check which consumer conciliation body it names on its website or in its terms (§ 36 of the German Consumer Dispute Resolution Act, VSBG); a claim at the local court (Amtsgericht) also remains open.
How you can sign this document
- Print it and sign by hand. The signature lines in the document are left blank on purpose — sign on them in ink.
- Sign it yourself with a qualified electronic signature. If you already hold a QES — Evrotrust, B-Trust, StampIT, ZealiD or any qualified provider on the EU Trusted List, on a card, a USB token, in a mobile app or in the cloud — our signing guide explains step by step how to sign this exact file without invalidating it. Step-by-step help, and a way to check it worked
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