Beware Online Travel Agents Ripoff?

beer4maria

Be gentle, I'm feeling a bit bruised. Booked a holiday from a net 'discount, last minute' agency and when I looked up the apartment we will be staying in on thomas cookes own website, realised I had paid £89, (aaargh, £89!) more than their price for EXACTLY THE SAME HOLIDAY by phoning up the 'discount holiday' site.
Was advised and encouraged to book immediately to take advantage of this 'deal.'
Naively, foolishly, booked and now kicking myself.
Have written to the 'discount dealer' after telephone call brought no joy, so not publishing their name..........yet!
any advice?

Smiley_Mum

Name and shame them... go on, you know you want to. Go over to the vent board and name and shame them in BIG, BOLD, CAPITAL LETTERS.

PS, Put this down to bad experience, it won't happen again so long as you sign up with MSE and check in here on a daily basis. :-)

ManAtHome

Before you do too much jumping up+down - are the flight time the same? Daytime flights can add quite a bit to the price (apologies if this is a UK hol).

barron_2

Hum !!!

Any chance of changing the thread title to :

BEWARE (of some )ONLINE TRAVEL AGENT'S RIPOFF'S .!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Were not all like that. !?

GO ON NAME AND SHAME THEM. !! I AGREE WITH _MUM!
But i dont know how to do the BIG letters!.

barron_2

ManAtHome wrote:

Before you do too much jumping up+down - are the flight time the same? Daytime flights can add quite a bit to the price (apologies if this is a UK hol).

Now that is a sensible question.!!

I should have thought of that!.

Getting a bit late ,so its up the wooden hill i go !.

Good night.!

budgetflyer

To be fair.It was a late deal.By the time you checked with Thomas cook,it would be a LATER deal .they maybe dropped the price.
I certainly dont think youve been "ripped off"
If you were happy to pay it then, leave it at that.Prices go up and down like a yo yo

magentadreamer

I have this deal with myself -once I've hunted out the cheapest flight/hotel etc I NEVER ever go and see once it's been booked if I could have got it cheaper but can imagine you're a bit miffed!

oldrimes

Last couple of times I've booked holidays, the local high street (independent) travel agent has produced the best price holidays, beating teletext prices and online prices - approx 10% cheaper.

I wanted to travel with daytime flights, during school holidays, and the online (very cheap) prices I found were for overnight flights - they will also quote same packages with daytime flights, but these were higher than the local travel agent (from £50 - £100).

beer4maria

thanks all. so annoyed with myself!
it was EXACTLY the same holiday, in every respect, same flights, apartment etc, and i found it within 20 minutes of booking with...................giving them a chance, I have written to the agent to see if they would like to cancel with a full refund, as of course they may not have realised the extent of the discrepance (89 of my hard earned squid!!!) ahem, or they might like to knock of the £89 as a good will gesture.
will keep you posted. Much cheered up by helpful, supportive comments!
maria

zappahey

Why on earth should they cancel or refund anything? You were happy with the price, you booked, paid and entered into a contract. So long as they were not dishonest then they have no obligation, legally or morally, to do anything.

You didn't look hard enough and now you're paying the price, maybe better to call it a lesson learned.

stratford_2

While I appreciate it's annoying to pay more than you could have done, I agree with zappahey and really don't see any reason to "name and shame" them.
It's hardly the fault of the company that you booked with that you didn't shop around enough. Did you expect them to say, here are the telephone numbers for our competitors, perhaps they'll have a better price?