Changing of Date or refund

We spoke to Nobela and Patricia. They made a booking for us to write learners for the 8th of January. When we spoke to our boss about the date he refused to give us off on that day. Both of them refused to assist us to move the date. Merely said come back at another date and pay your monies again. We paid 500.00 and just to loose it. We were at the facilities when we wanted to change it and got rejected. That is not fair. We did not even come back then next day we wanted to change the same day. They also said you needed to look on the board for dates but they told us the 8th is the only date available. So would this mean we just lost 500 like that??? Its not fair.