dril1@lineone.net (psg) wrote in message news:<12649381.0406280023.49bb42ca@posting.google.com>...
hi
i am based in UK and booked seven night stay at holiday inn in new
york.
the price was $1.50 a night instead of $150.
can i force them to honor the booking.
here in uk there would be offer-acceptance but knowing that there was
a 'mistake' it would not be enforcable.
thanks
reply online only
thanks
paul
An answer based on very general principles would be that the contract
was based on a unilateral mistake: Holiday Inn's typographical error
resulted in them offering a rate of $1.50 a night. A contract based on
a unilateral mistake can be unenforceable in the US as well as the UK.
Common criteria for unenforceability are:
* The other party knew, or should have known, that there was a
mistake. Here it is plain that you should have known of the mistake.
* The mistake is an innocent error. If Holiday Inn were trying to use
the $1.50 a night offer in some sort of scheme to shut out
competition, it would not be so innocent.
There was a notorious case in 1999, in which e-tailer Buy.com
mispriced some expensive monitors. By the time the mistake was caught,
some 1,600 orders had been placed. Buy.com was not forced to sell the
monitors at the mistaken price, even though the mistake was not so
obvious as your Holiday Inn mistake.
--
Not a lawyer,
Chris Green
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