KATIE MORLEY INVESTIGATES

CONSUMER CHAMPION OF THE YEAR If a company has let you down, Katie is here to fight your corner

LETTER OF THE WEEK I slept on a corrugated iron bed on board £8k cruise

I never imagined I’d need to ask for your help, Katie, but here I am. Last year, I booked a cruise for me and my husband, which was due to set sail in December. It was supposed to be a fortnight of blissful rest in the warm Canary Islands sunshine. We would watch the New Year fireworks in Madeira and return home feeling refreshed.

My 82-year-old husband is disabled and I am his carer. We’ve been together for 44 years, but normal holidays are difficult now, because he gets very tired. Cruises have given us both a lifeline. I get a bit of a rest and he gets to see more of the outside world. But quite unexpectedly, our holiday with P& O Cruises became a nightmare.

Unbeknown to us, P& O had installed new mattresses on the ship that were so super-soft that my husband nearly fell off the bed several times and I was reduced to being crippled with back pain and barely able to walk. After complaining to P& O and asking for a firmer mattress, P& O had me sleep on the corrugated iron base of my twin bed, covered with three polyester duvets and a folded blanket, instead of a mattress. P& O said it was that or nothing.

One impossible night later, I asked for cardboard to cover the corrugated iron, to at least make it a bit smoother. It was supplied, but in spite of that, I ended up sleep-deprived with severe pressure-point pain. It was more of an endurance test than a holiday, as sleep only came at the point of exhaustion. There were nights when my Fitbit tracker recorded no sleep at all.

This cruise cost us £8,178. I suggested to P& O that, as one normally sleeps one third of the time, it should refund one third of the holiday cost. So far it has offered £400 as a “gesture of goodwill”.

SM, VIA EMAIL

I can’t see that there was much goodwill about this £400 gesture. At less than 5pc of the £8,178 you paid for the cruise, it was nothing more than a good old-fashioned fob-off.

As a result of the uncomfortable bed, you suffered severe pain and sleep deprivation, which marred your entire holiday. It was supposed to provide two weeks of muchneeded respite from your everyday life, where you work tirelessly to look after your husband and run the household. But as it turned out, you were longing to go back home just so you could get a decent night’s sleep.

You say you’ve been on P&O cruises before and not encountered this problem with the saggy mattresses. I asked P&O for the

Write to Katie Morley, Telegraph Money, The Daily Telegraph, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT

Please do not send original documents. Include an address, phone number and separate notes addressed to all organisations authorising them to talk to Katie. For full terms see p3 or visit telegraph.co.uk/go/ consumerchampion. You can also email kminvestigates@ telegraph.co.uk make and model of the mattresses in question. It told me they were made by Matterol, which specialises in making beds for cruises, but declined to share the model. If you found this mattress so unbearably uncomfortable, I can’t imagine you were alone. But P&O remained tightlipped on the matter.

The problem could have been alleviated had P&O had a stash of alternative mattresses on board the ship, to cater for a range of tastes. It should know that many of its customers are elderly with physical difficulties, meaning they may be more sensitive to poor beds than average holiday-makers. But as it hadn’t had the foresight to think of this, you were forced to sleep on corrugated iron with just a few duvets for padding. The thought of this made me wince.

To make up for your lack of sleep, you asked P&O to refund a third of the value of your holiday, as this was the time you should have spent sleeping soundly, but didn’t. I understood your logic, but I disagreed with it. I actually thought you deserved more.

I asked P&O to refund the full price of your £4,089 ticket. This was on grounds that your sleep deprivation spoiled your entire holiday. This was not the case for your husband, who did sleep soundly after you had wedged him into the bed.

Days later, P&O called you and offered you £2,726, which was a third of your total holiday cost, as per your original request. Although a significant improvement on £400, this left both you and I feeling deflated. It fell short of what felt fair, especially given its handling of your complaint.

I told you I was going to stand firm, and I went back to P&O with a seven-point argument, asking it to reconsider for a second time.

An hour later, it phoned you back and said it wanted to refund the full £4,089 price of your ticket. After

My daughter and my grandson visited London earlier this week. She had booked tickets to see The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre.

She turned up the evening before to collect the tickets, and was horrified to realise she had made the disastrous error of booking for the wrong evening. She was only in London for a short time and her train tickets and hotel could not be changed. She was told transfers could not be made. She asked whether they could go to the following day’s matinee performance instead, but the theatre refused.

She emailed the ticket booking site and it responded saying once bookings are completed, they are final. It said it does not offer exchanges or refunds, especially within 48 hours of the show. Anyone can make a mistake when booking tickets online, but as it stands my daughter will pay a price of £71, which is a lot to her. I hope you also see this as an injustice.

AH, DERBYSHIRE

Your daughter made two mistakes here. She booked the tickets on the wrong day and she bought them through a third-party ticketing website. It is usually safer – and cheaper – to book directly through the theatre box office if possible.

Having said that, the Lyceum itself also operates an “all sales are final” policy. Theatres are sometimes more understanding in practice, though. I wonder whether it might have made an exception for her, had she purchased the tickets directly.

To me, it was clear your daughter bought the tickets in good faith. So I contacted Disney, which runs the show, to see if something could be done. To your delight, it has arranged for you, your daughter and your grandson to see The Lion King on a date of your choice at no extra cost.

You are very much looking forward to this three-generation family outing, which is happening as a result of you kindly taking the time to write to this column.

My daughter booked the wrong ‘Lion King’ tickets