compensation for wasted holiday time
noun · Entschädigung für nutzlos aufgewendete Urlaubszeit
Where a package is frustrated or substantially impaired, the traveller may claim reasonable compensation in money for holiday time spent in vain, § 651n Abs. 2 BGB. This is one of the few German claims for non-material loss outside personal injury, and English law has no settled counterpart, so the phrase has to be explained rather than matched.
Which translation, when
Why
Compensation for wasted holiday time renders the German Entschädigung für nutzlos aufgewendete Urlaubszeit, and it is worth an entry because the claim itself is unusual. German law grants compensation for non-material loss only where a provision expressly says so, and § 651n Abs. 2 BGB is such a provision: where the package travel is frustrated or substantially impaired, the traveller may also claim reasonable compensation in money for holiday time spent in vain. The word also matters, because the claim comes in addition to the ordinary damages of Abs. 1 and beside the price reduction rather than instead of it. Two triggers open it. A package is frustrated where the journey cannot be taken at all or must be abandoned at the very start. Substantial impairment is judged on an overall view, which in practice means that a defect affecting the whole stay qualifies while shortcomings on individual days usually do not, save in extreme cases. Quantification follows the travel price and, in serious cases, the percentage tables German practice has built for price reductions, and it does not matter how the traveller used the time he lost: staying at home or taking a substitute journey does not reduce the claim. Two limits belong in a translation. The claim depends on the traveller having notified the defect, so the notification duty held by the travel defect entry governs here too. And it is excluded where the defect was the traveller’s own fault or was caused by unavoidable extraordinary circumstances.
Typical mistakes
- The claim requires frustration or substantial impairment of the package, so shortcomings on individual days rarely open it.
- It stands beside the price reduction and the ordinary damages rather than replacing them, so treating it as an alternative understates the traveller’s position.
- How the lost time was actually spent is irrelevant, so a substitute journey does not reduce the compensation.
What matters
Quantifying a German package holiday claim: the calculation should separate the price reduction from the compensation for lost holiday time, test whether the journey was frustrated or substantially impaired, and confirm that the defect was notified on site.
What the machine misses
Left to a machine, compensation for wasted holiday time becomes Urlaubsentschädigung or Schadensersatz für verlorene Ferien, neither of which the statute uses, and the claim is the Entschädigung für nutzlos aufgewendete Urlaubszeit under § 651n Abs. 2 BGB, a rare statutory claim for non-material loss; the invented wording also suggests it replaces the price reduction, which it does not.
Examples
| compensation for wasted holiday time | Entschädigung für nutzlos aufgewendete Urlaubszeit |
| the journey was frustrated | die Reise wurde vereitelt |
| substantially impaired | erheblich beeinträchtigt |
| reasonable compensation in money | eine angemessene Entschädigung in Geld |