Travel Agents Say MoneySaving Is Immoral!

TRAVELMAN_2

Bs7-Do we agree on something??!!!!

I'll agree-without naming names your comment re: service does ring true. Likewise (have a look at a previous post I made re: ghost selling & conversion rates) many (not all-before I'm sued!) call centres provide equally shoddy service.

This is why self-packaging & Agents that are willing to go the extra bit & look at all options by packaging for the customer.

Longshot is-customer is king. If they like your price & service they'll book-if not they won't! Shame all Moneysavers wern't in the pub-it'd be very interesting to hear all views!

Whilst i wouldn't go so far to say the Industry is despised it has done itself no favours with the 'extra' add-ons like flt meals, transfers, etc. Tje sad thing is it's LEGAL to advertise 'lead-in prices' (as long as a tiny abreviation to explain is on the ad-usually tiny/hard to see & no-one understands it!) without these extras included.

It does give us a bad name-I agree!

Phew....at 38 this is way past my bedtime!

Chris

TRAVELMAN_2

Martin,

Glad you cleared that up. As I've said-I agree with you re: the package deals in the 'vertically-integrated' main High Street Agents. One of the main reasons I started posting on her (wow-a year now!) was to show people these is a different way....the packaging way!

I do think though, that consumer protection (ATOL/ABTA) is SO important.

What use is the best deal ever if the Hotel or Apartment either does not exist OR company has gone bust or overbooked you!

Chris

MSE_Martin

Yes but an Thomson holiday is a thomson holiday whether bought via Going Places or Thomas cook - the main point of the prog, hence the protection issue is irrelevant

Martin

sd8974

Just to let you know that I couldn't open the main article as the "file is damaged and could not be repaired" - anyone else had the same thing?

Shane.

hedonista

Coo! So you've received the First Direct accolade of Consumer Terrorist, then? THAT'S BRILLIANT! I shall be doing my best to become a consumer terrorist too!!!!!!!

TRAVELMAN_2

100% agreed Martin. The subject of this thread IS the same PACKAGE deal at different prices.

Has gone a bit off-topic re; protection-although v. important-still not the reason for this thread.

Chris

ceylon_2

first time poster, sorry if anything is wrong.
early january i was looking @ taking my family to the canaries for a week in mid febuary (half term).
so i looked on the internet and found a holiday £259 per person, i thought that was a bit to much so i looked around at differnet times and dates.
well early febuary same holiday £139 per person, late febuary same £259 per person holiday now £139 per person.
this shows me they are out rip us for everything they can get.
£139 per person i would of taken my family away for a week but @ nearley double because the schools are om holiday is as blatent a rip-off as i have ever seen.
we wont be going on holiday in feb.
i hope they have lots of unsold holidays this febuary. :mad:

DaveO

hedonista wrote:

Coo! So you've received the First Direct accolade of Consumer Terrorist, then? THAT'S BRILLIANT! I shall be doing my best to become a consumer terrorist too!!!!!!!

If First Direct are moaning then that is hilarious.

Recently looking for a holiday to Menroca I went to the FD web site and priced a holiday at a resort we have stayed at before and it came to a total of £1920 for a family of four. Not bad I thought given it was in the school holidays.

Then I went to the Eclipse web site having read on a forum on the Internet that they were FD's "discount" arm.

I priced the same resort, same flights - basically the exact same holiday and it came to £1750.

So you have FD selling a holiday for £1920 and a company they own selling the same holiday for £1750 and they have the cheek to complain!!!

What is more when you use the Eclispe web site it is blindingly obvious you are using the exact same computerised booking system. All the otpions are exactly the same the only difference is the amount you pay.

I then went to Lunn Poly (now Thomson owned of course) and the best they could do was about £2300. And yes, as someone else posted all the "agent" did was key in the details and relay the price back to me. No service there!

We didn't book in the end because the resort is one bedroom apartments and we decided we wanted two bedrooms this time being fed up of the sofa bed so we have booked direct with an owner.

Having read what Travleman says, yes there is a risk but there is also a risk booking with a travel agent.

I know for a fact at the place we are staying some owners use the major tour companies to let their apartments and that some of them are not in the best of repair. It is pot luck if you get a good one or a poor one. I believe by booking direct I have booked an apartment that has been well looked after having coresponed with the owner. I could be wrong of course but what if I am?

Last year we went to Florida with the kids and on arrival found there had been a screw up with the accomodation. The company, Kuoni, had for some reason booked us in, cancled the booking and when they tried to re-book the place was full. They didn't tell us any of this before we left or on arrival. They just handed us a welcome pack but having researched where we were staying we just picked the car up and went right to the accomodation.

We turned up at where we thought we should be staying to find they had no knowledge of us at all. We were in fact booked in some sub-standard alternate accomodation. can you imagine what that was like especially after a long flight with two kids one of whom is Autistic?

Lunn Poly with whom we booked were useless. We had to sort out getting moved to suitable accomodation with the local Kuoni agent ourselves.

On my return I was told by Lunn Poly my contract was with Kuoni and I was left to persue them for compensation myself which I obtained with the help of Which? legal service.

So as you can see the idea of paying for the security of booking through recognised travel agents didn't really pan out very well in practice.

Finally, for our "self-build" holiday this year we booked flights through a bonded company andf the flights are with Thomson. They are over £200 cheaper than booking direct with Thomson on their web site. The company we booked with is owned by.....Thomson.

Dave

dbilsborough

I'm sure I will get flamed for not toeing the party line. but anyway.....

I agree with 99% of the stuff that Martin does, for example some of the banking stuff etc, but I'm not 100% sure about this one.

I think that people these days feel they are being ripped off when they find something cheaper somewhere else, yet if they didn't know about the other cheaper deal they would be more than happy. It's human nature, if you would be happy to pay £200 for something but find it on sale for £100 you are overjoyed, until you look in another shop and see it for £50.

I like to haggle myself, and will always try my luck when buying something. In this case I am sure that some people are comparing apples and pears. You cannot expect to get holiday from a high street travel agent at the same price as an Internet only agent as the cost base will be vastly different.

Even trying to play one high street operator off against another is not a perfect science as TA1 might be cheaper for the holiday you want against the price of TA2 yet on another holiday they might be more expensive. It's a bit like Tesco and Asda, it seems that Asda is cheaper than Tesco, yet there are certain products that are cheaper at Tesco than Asda.

I always book holidays over the Internet these days, so this particular "rip off" is not an issue for me, but I do think that the high street agencies provide a valuable service to the people in society that do not have access to the Internet, and I fear the time when they all shut their doors and retreat to the Internet where they can provide lower prices in line with everyone else.

so for my 2p I don't think that this is immoral, but it needs to be seen in the context of business, and if this further erodes the high street of services, especially in small towns and villages then people have to make their own minds up as to whether or not it is a price worth paying.

TRAVELMAN_2

Comedymartin,

LOADS of companies charge the 2% as do many low-cost flight companies. Any Agent who wants the competitive edge can of course offer to discount this off.

This threadd is about buying the same PACKAGE holiday at different Agents at different prices-I think the overall thread has gone WAY off-topic. Let's stick to the original post from Martin.

Chris