Refunds from large holiday company

disgruntled1234

My wife and I booked private car transfer to our hotel on a recent holiday.

However, when we landed at the airport, it turns out that the booking was never made (for whatever reason).

No big problem, we paid for a taxi instead, having spoken to someone at the travel company who advised that this would be the quickest way to get to our hotel.

However, it's been nearly a month since the departure date and despite several phone calls and also sending an e-mail to their complaints department, we're still no closer to having the cost refunded to our credit card (over £100.00).

I rang again today and the lady I spoke to could not give me any indication as to when we might receive the money as she said the matter was still being looked at.

I explained that I failed to see what matter needed to be looked at. Either the travel company has our money or the car transfer company has our money.

Surely it should be simple to verify this and refund the money.

My question is, how long is an acceptable period of time to wait before starting to make an official complaint (with ABTA or ATOL?)

HAYLEY8005

Hi there most travel complaints procedures have 28 working days to respond so it may be just a tiny bit early yet. Also the response may be an acknowledgement letter and they then get a further 28days to reply in full.
Hayley

Alan_Bowen

ABTA's own Code of Conduct guidance to its own members says that refunds should be issued without delay, which they consider to be 10 working days, i.e. 2 weeks. If it is now twice that length of time, you should contact them once more and if they do not react, make a formal complaint to ABTA, the CAA ATOL scheme is not relevant here. It is not your concern what enquiries they have to make, if you paid for something which they admit was not arranged, you should eb put back in the position you were at the beginning, i.e not out of pocket. I wonder if the initials of the company are TC?

delwynshd

Did you not have a transfer voucher to take with you on holiday

This would of proven you had a taxi transfer sorted, you would of needed this to meet the transfer company at the airport giving you information on who to look for

There would also of been an emergency number on the voucher for you contact the agent in resort if they were not there

Im guessing you didnt have a voucher

They may argue the fact that you should of taken this with you and followed the terms on conditions of that company

If above is the case and there was nobody to pick you up then your travel agent will be in the process of contacting the company to make sure this was the case and refund you once they have the money back from them

Although this was a while since you first contacted them and wasnt a major complaint it is taking them quite some time, I would call them and explain you want to know what is going on

Del

disgruntled1234

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

I wonder if the initials of the company are TC?

Interesting that you ask this. I'm trying not to drop names here, but can I ask why you mention TC?

disgruntled1234

delwynsholidaydeals wrote: »

Did you not have a transfer voucher to take with you on holiday

This would of proven you had a taxi transfer sorted, you would of needed this to meet the transfer company at the airport giving you information on who to look for

There would also of been an emergency number on the voucher for you contact the agent in resort if they were not there

Im guessing you didnt have a voucher

They may argue the fact that you should of taken this with you and followed the terms on conditions of that company

If above is the case and there was nobody to pick you up then your travel agent will be in the process of contacting the company to make sure this was the case and refund you once they have the money back from them

Although this was a while since you first contacted them and wasnt a major complaint it is taking them quite some time, I would call them and explain you want to know what is going on

Del

Hi,

We did have a voucher which we took with us. The problem initally was that we could not see anyone holding up a plaque with our name or the name of the travel company on.

Eventually, we actually found a gentleman at the airport who worked for the limousine company who the booking was supposed to be made with. My wife spoke to him, whilst I spoke with the travel company.

He was actually very helpful and he contacted his office, but there was no record of the car being booked, despite us showing him our voucher. I relayed this back to the person I was speaking to at the travel company and she agreed that although they'd sent the e-mail requesting the booking, it had clearly not been booked.

The gentleman that my wife was speaking with tried all he could, but he explained that there were no free drivers or cars to take us to our hotel.

I don't really understand how more clear cut this could be. The booking was obviously not made and both the limousine company and the travel company have acknowledged this.

I really do think they're stalling. I guess money in their bank is better than money in my bank (for them at least).

disgruntled1234

Just another quick question.

Because we booked with the travel company over the telephone, would I still be within my rights to go to one of their high street shops to pursue this if I needed, or does all communication have to be via the telephone/email/post?

Many Thanks for the useful advice so far.

bylromarha

This happened to us in 2005 - landed in NZ at 5am with a 15 month old baby after a 27 hour flight.

We had a voucher. No driver with a board. We rang. No answer. We rang the emergency number - "sorry, the car office isn't open, you'll need to make your own way there"

Took a LOT of to-ing and fro-ing over 3 months to get the money back from the company. All the best OP - be prepared for the long haul on this.

Alan_Bowen

The mention of High Street shops increases my worry that your booking is with a business whose first name is Thomas. If so, you may have to wait a long time as other websites report endless chasing and a suggestion that unless you get to the stage of issuing proceedings, they do nothing at all. I hope they are wrong but you should certainly now contact ABTA to complain that nothing is happening. Their address is 3rd Floor, 30 Park Street, London SE1 9EQ

disgruntled1234

First of all, apologies for resurrecting an old thread.

My wife and I finally received our cheque late last week from Thomas Cook (a gold star to everyone who guessed the company name correctly).

I had actually recieved a letter from them within 28 days of me raising the issue. The letter stated that they didn't think there was a case to answer. In fairness, there was confusion on their part in that they thought we'd swapped the transfers around, i.e., we'd taken the free helicopter transfer to the resort and then re-booked the car transfer for our return journey. In reality, we'd tried to do this, but bad weather grounded all helicopter flights on the afternoon that we arrived.

Of course, when they wrote to me they closed the case.

I immediately rang them and explained they we didn't have the option of re-booking the private car transfer and asked them to re-open the case to investigate further. This naturally meant that they had another 28 days to reply.

To be safe, I actually wrote a letter, detailing absolutely everything, including times of calls I made and times when they rang me back. I sent this recorded delivery to ensure I could check that it had arrived safely.

Early last week (more than 28 days from when the case was re-opened), I'd heard nothing and so I rang them. Amazingly, they told me that they were in the process of raising the cheque that week!! I asked them if this would have been the case if I had not rung them.

Laughably, they actually offered me the option of taking holiday vouchers because (apparently) they would have a higher value. I politely declined. I'm not sure how they could have been in the process of raising a cheque when they were now offering me vouchers, but there you go.

I'm still out of pocket because of the mobile phone calls I was forced to make whilst abroad and also the cost of sending the letter recorded delivery, but it was never about the money. I don't like paying for a service, not receiving that service and then having real difficulty getting my money back for that service.

I've learned 2 things.

1. Would I ever book another holiday with Thomas Cook (or any of it's associated companies)......NO
2. Would I ever book another holiday over the telephone as opposed to at a travel agent......NO

Anyway, many thanks to everyone who replied and for all the useful information.