Sunbed wars are flaring up again this summer, from Tenerife pool decks to a German courtroom two thousand miles away.
If you have ever spent the first morning of a package holiday hunting for a free lounger, both stories will feel painfully familiar.
One tourist has just gone viral for fighting back. Another has proved in court that missing sunbeds can be worth real money.
The Key Facts
- €986.70 is what a Hanover court ordered a tour operator to pay one family over a defective Greek holiday.
- Mediterranean Palace hotel, Tenerife is where a British tourist’s towel-clearing video went viral.
- Over nine million views is how far a single repost of that clip travelled on X in days.
- €250 is the fine some Spanish resorts, including parts of the Costa Blanca, now hand out for hogging a lounger with towels.
- Around 28 days is the window most tour operators expect a written complaint within once you are home.
What Is Actually Happening
In Tenerife, a British holidaymaker named Rachael Rogers filmed herself walking along a row of sun loungers at the Mediterranean Palace hotel in Playa de las Américas.
She lifted towels off at least eight beds that had been reserved but left empty for hours, then posted the clip to TikTok.
“All week the same people would bag their spot by the pool,” she said in the video, adding that her family decided to give them a surprise and take the towels back.
The clip spread fast. On X, a single repost passed nine million views within days.
Reactions split sharply, between people cheering her on and people asking why she bothered when so many other beds nearby were free.
Two thousand miles away, a German family had already turned the same frustration into a legal case. A district court in Hanover ruled in their favour.
They had spent their Greek package holiday fighting the same towel system, chasing sunbeds from 6am and still losing.
Judges decided the tour operator should have made sure the resort on the island of Kos kept a reasonable ratio of loungers to guests.
It also knew the hotel had a towel-reservation ban it never actually enforced.
What Passengers Are Saying Right Now
The reaction to both stories shows how differently holidaymakers feel about tackling the problem themselves.
She said the same people had bagged their spot by the pool all week, so she and her family decided to give them a little surprise and take the towels back.
@rachaelrogers11 All week the same people would bag their spot by the pool. So today we decided to give them a little surprise and take them.
24 Jun 2026
“After like 30 minutes, I’d move them into the little table thing and set up shop,” they wrote, in a thread that has since picked up thousands of upvotes.
Comment from r/mildlyinfuriating
by u/TwoAccomplished4043 in r/mildlyinfuriating
The post described a British tourist going viral for removing an entire row of towels from poolside sun loungers to give hoggers what it called a nasty surprise at a Tenerife hotel.
A British tourist has gone viral after removing an entire row of towels from poolside sun loungers to give hoggers a ‘nasty surprise’ at a Tenerife hotel.
— G R I F T Y (@GriftReport) June 23, 2026
Not everyone in the comments agreed with the towel removal. One person pointed out there were plenty of empty chairs nearby, questioning why Rogers singled out eight reserved ones.
Another said the reaction would depend entirely on how busy the pool actually was.
What You Can Actually Do
Filming yourself clearing other people’s towels is not the only option, and it is not the one most hotels would recommend. These steps carry less risk of an awkward poolside confrontation.
- Note the time. If a lounger has sat empty and unused for more than an hour, most hotels’ own unwritten rules no longer protect the towel on it.
- Ask reception directly. Several Tenerife resorts now run a grace period, often 15 to 60 minutes, after which staff will clear unattended items themselves.
- Photograph the problem. A timestamped photo of empty, towel-reserved loungers is the single most useful piece of evidence if you complain later.
- Report it while you are still there. Telling a rep or the front desk during the holiday gives the operator a chance to fix things on the spot.
- Keep every email if you complain once home, and do it in writing promptly after you return.
What You Are Owed
The Hanover ruling is a German case, so it does not automatically apply here. But the legal logic behind it exists in British consumer law too.
That logic is simple: a holiday can be defective if the facilities you were promised are not actually usable.
Package holidays booked in the UK are protected by the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018.
If your booking implied normal access to the pool and its loungers, and that access was consistently blocked by unenforced towel reservations, you may have grounds to complain.
Your Package Holiday Rights
UK package holidays are covered by the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018, the same type of protection a German court just used against a tour operator.
The sum a Hanover court ordered for one family’s defective Greek holiday, on top of a €350 refund the operator had already paid.
- Loss of value: the gap between what you booked and what you actually got.
- Out-of-pocket expenses: anything you paid for yourself because the operator failed to deliver.
- Loss of enjoyment, inconvenience or disappointment: the category most likely to cover a holiday spent fighting over sunbeds.
Complain to your tour operator in writing as soon as you can after getting home. If the company is an ABTA member, its complaints hub is the next step.
After that comes ABTA’s ADR scheme, a two-stage conciliation and arbitration process for package disputes. Small claims court is the last resort, capped at £10,000 in England and Wales.
Why This Keeps Happening
Germans reserving sunbeds with towels before sunrise has been a running joke for decades, the subject of tabloid columns and the odd academic paper. This summer, the joke landed in a courtroom instead.
“Think this is clearly the one sport the Germans invented and are now losing to the Brits,” wrote one commenter. “We always win when it counts.”
Comment from r/2westerneurope4u
by u/VeeJack in r/2westerneurope4u
Some Spanish resorts have already moved past jokes and signage. Along the Costa Blanca, tourists can now be fined up to €250 for reserving a lounger and disappearing for hours.
Tenerife has no equivalent official fine. Hotels there are relying on their own house rules instead, from towel removal after a set grace period to newly nicknamed “sunbed police” at peak times.
Whether you fix it yourself, like Rogers did, or wait and put it in writing once you are home, the sunbed wars are no longer just an annoyance.
They are starting to carry an actual price tag.
