Furious about Credit Card fees on a Thomson Holiday Booking

Dais10

Really annoyed about a situation we encountered yesterday with a Thomson Holiday booking. We booked our forthcoming and expensive trip to the USA last autumn through Thomsons and after paying our deposits we were notified that the holiday balance would be required 10 weeks before departure -22.06.11. Then on the 18th June we received a ‘Final Reminder’ letter stating that we had not responded to the previous two reminders which had been sent, I must stress that we had not received any other reminders other than the ‘very final demand’ letter on the 18th June. I immediately telephoned the store, as the letter was rather strong and worrying, stating that our holiday may be cancelled if immediate payment was not received.

I was advised by an assistant that there had been changes in the Thomson Holiday system recently and now all holiday deposits were required 12 weeks before departure. She also said that it appeared from her system that the first two letters had not been sent and that just the final reminder had been sent out to us. She apologised for the inconvenience and I said that we would come into the store on the 22nd of June (exactly 10 weeks before departure) and pay the remaining balance of the holiday, to which she agreed.
We then visited the store after work on Wednesday 22nd June at 7pm. We decided at this point in time the easiest thing to do was to split the balance across two credit cards as due to the short amount of time between the receipt of the final reminder letter at the weekend and the trip to the store only a few days later. We are all busy professionals so due to prior commitments, none of us had had the time to transfer any funds to be able to use debit cards or to pay in cash, so we assumed paying via a credit card would be the quickest way to resolve the payment issue. How wrong we were! We were informed by an assistant that there would be a credit card charge applied to each card of £77.50!! As you can imagine we were all outraged by this, as having to pay such an additional unnecessary large amount, on top of our already costly holiday, was simply out of the question. Surely under the circumstances one more day wouldn’t have made any difference, as due to the time of day, the banks were closed, so we had no way of being able to settle the balance using an alternative payment method and therefore avoid the ridiculous charges. We asked if we could return the following day to pay the balance of the holiday in cash, as it was simply a matter of avoiding paying unnecessary and unfair credit card fees. We would never have risked having our trip cancelled so would have happily and promptly returned the following day to finalise the payment of our holiday. We were literally talking about delaying our payment by hours not days, something which seemed perfectly reasonable to us.

It was at this point that the store manager came over and point blankly refused to delay the payment any further, because of the fact that the holiday payment was due today, ten weeks before, and she had already extended our payment! This completely infuriated us as in line with our original booking, today was the exactly ten weeks before our departure and as far as we were concerned we had received NO payment extension! She then stated that the situation was ‘out of her control’ and added that the holiday payment had to be cleared from the system today, otherwise our £7,400 holiday would be cancelled. I can honestly say were we all both flabbergasted and disgusted with her curt nonchalant attitude.

Her approach couldn’t have been colder or more disinterested, it was a case of pay the charges or we’ll cancel your holiday, just like that. She would not budge at all on giving us the extra few hours we needed to return the following morning and use an alternative payment method to avoid the huge credit card fees. Her only solution was to reduce the amount of the charges to £47.50 per card through manipulating the Thomson payment system, something which seemed rather strange to us and made the charges seem almost ‘negotiable’. This was continued to be unacceptable to us as it meant we were still paying an additional charge of almost £100! It just seemed so unreasonable. It felt even more so when the amount was suddenly reduced from £150 to £95 through manipulating the system as it were, and to try and appease us!

We again expressed our disgust but were simply told that the charges were unavoidable if we wished to proceed via credit card and that she would be unable to grant us an extension of the payment. At this point we really had no choice other than to cancel the trip, so we’d paid the balance of our holiday along with the additional charges – a bitter pill to swallow I must say. It rather dampened the excitement of finalising the trip and the celebratory meal we had planned the same evening.

Aside from paying excessive credit card charges, I must say I was highly disappointment with the lack of flexibility and compassion we received in light of the situation. I could appreciate if we’d been a couple of weeks late in paying our balance and we’d been standing there 8 weeks prior to departure but to simply have asked for what was no more than 15 hours and be refused, seemed so disobliging.

I have never in my life experienced a situation like this and the holiday companies we have used in the past such as Thomas Cook and Virgin have proved to be far more flexible and accommodating. A friend of mine works for Thomas Cook and she told me told that ALL managers have the ability to waiver credit card fees should they have a good enough reason so I don’t see how this would be any different at Thomsons. This was our first trip booked through Thomson’s and will be if this isn’t resolved to our satisfaction. We travel twice yearly and spend a lot annually on holidays, currency and insurances, so I would have thought our business would have been much appreciated in these tough economic and highly competitive times, especially within the travel industry! Has anyone else encountered a situation like this before and if so what was the outcome??

Incapuppy

I feel fairly certain that the T&Cs regarding payment via credit card would have been on your booking confirmation, invoice or demand for payment.

lfc84

tough. didnt you read the t's and c's when you booked?

its your responsibility to pay not theirs to chase you. if i was spending over £7000 on a holiday i wouldnt rely on them chasing me for the balance. id have a calender note to go in and do it (or pay the balance by phone)

richardw

It appears they did it because they could, some businesses behave like that.

Murphy_The_Cat

its a roughlyish 2% charge for making the payment via credit card - don't all of the Travel Agents / Holiday Companies levy a similar charge ? (I'll admit to being a bit out of touch, as I've not uesd a TA for quite a while)

jackieblack

I believe approx 2-3% fee to settle by credit card is fairly typical, this is the fee charged by Visa to the merchant for processing the transaction, since the 'credit crunch' more companies have been passing these costs on to the customer.

Virgin Holidays charge 2.5%, so do First Choice

Details on Thomson Holidays online CC fees here, can't see why paying instore would be any different

In your post you state that you knew when you booked that the final payment was due on 22nd June

Dais10 wrote: »

. We booked our forthcoming and expensive trip to the USA last autumn through Thomsons and after paying our deposits we were notified that the holiday balance would be required 10 weeks before departure -22.06.11

so I don't really understand why, even though you had the 'final reminder' letter (that you weren't expecting) a few days earlier, you hadn't made provision to pay by some other method when you went into the TA on 22nd June, the date that, from the day you booked, you knew the final payment was due.

You didn't end up having to pay the balance any earlier than you had anticipated when you made the booking, even without the 'final reminder' letter you were still expecting to make the final payment on 22nd so your comment

Dais10 wrote: »

We then visited the store after work on Wednesday 22nd June at 7pm. We decided at this point in time the easiest thing to do was to split the balance across two credit cards as due to the short amount of time between the receipt of the final reminder letter at the weekend and the trip to the store only a few days later. We are all busy professionals so due to prior commitments, none of us had had the time to transfer any funds to be able to use debit cards or to pay in cash,

doesn't really make any sense.

malkie76

As others say those fees are pretty standard, and leaving it until the very last minute to pay leaves yourself open to unforeseen issues. (eg had your card been refused you may have lost your entire holiday).

I'm surprised you didn't realise this if you travel regularly, I'm also surprised you don't have phone or internet banking set up which would have allowed you to transfer funds immediately over the phone, or even using a smartphone.

photome

First post so we must be nice..BUT come on, you knew it had to be paid on the 22nd but you had not sorted out any other method other than paying by CC and I suspect you knew there would be a charge for doing so, I dont know any TA that wouldnt make a charge especially on that amount.


You say they could have waived the fee but that would have meant the store having to pay £150 plus to visa and eating in to the profit they are making from you

So sorry but I dont get your anger!

Murphy_The_Cat

photome wrote: »

First post so we must be nice..

I think we are, aren't we ?
We may not be saying what the OP wpould like to hear, but we are all playing nicely together :beer:

Mr_Wang

You have learnt a valuable lesson:

Travel Agents are con artists. They have been conning the public for years and you are pretty much 100% guaranteed to save money by booking travel independently.

johnnyroper

Mr_Wang wrote: »

You have learnt a valuable lesson:

Travel Agents are con artists. They have been conning the public for years and you are pretty much 100% guaranteed to save money by booking travel independently.

+1 to that.

they all charge the cc fee,the thing i cannot understand is you thought balance was due on 22/6 yet when paying on 22/6 you had to use CC as no time to transfer funds???

so even though you had letter saying it is now due 12 weeks before instead of 10 it still got paid on the same date anyway.