Thomson Holiday Complaint

paulofcambs

My wife and I booked a holiday at Metochi Cottage, Kamilari, Crete in August 2011. The reason for booking the holiday was that it was described in the brochure as ‘romantic and secluded and great for relaxing’. The cottage came with a swimming pool. A car was also included as part of the holiday which included Collision Damage Waiver. The cost was almost £2,200.
The plan was to spend the majority of our holiday around the cottage swimming and sunbathing and having the odd beer and going on the odd drive sight-seeing, given that we were both completely stressed out.
When we landed in Crete, we went to pick up the car. We were informed by the car hire company that we were responsible for the first 700 Euro of any damage to the car. It therefore appeared that Collision Waiver Damage was not included after all. We tried to contact the Rep but were informed that they had already left. The car hire company informed us that the Collision Damage Waiver would cost 160 Euro for me and a further 140 Euro for my wife.
Eventually, we arrived at the cottage.
A romantic and secluded cottage it wasn’t.
It was physically attached to a two-story holiday apartment block. Less than 50 yards away was a second two-story holiday apartment block. What definition of ‘secluded’ was Thomson using when they described the cottage in the brochure?
The next issue we came across was that the garden was overgrown with trees to the extent that sunbathing was impossible.
When we went into the bathroom, we couldn’t believe it. The toilet was what is referred to as a long drop – it had no U-bend. The aroma coming from it was something else. It was also inhabited by a number of cockroaches, some of which got quite aggressive at times. The bathroom was next to the kitchen!!
At least, we thought, we have the swimming pool, or so we thought. It was so cold, we could only spend a couple of minutes in it. Why? It was completely in the shade of huge trees and therefore little/no sun could reach the water to warm it up.
On day 3 of the holiday, the pool water became foul due to the constant deluge of leaves and berries falling from the trees into the pool. The maid that cleaned the cottage arranged for the pool to be emptied, cleaned and re-filled. On day 5 of the holiday, the pool was fit for use and still freezing.
On day 10 of the holiday, the pool water became foul again. The pool was emptied again, cleaned and refilled and was fit for use on day 13 of our holiday.
The apartment block adjoining the cottage was owned by an Italian family who had their grandchildren staying with them. The grandmother spent much of her day screaming at her grandchildren at the top of her voice.
Given that the cottage was noisy, had nowhere to sunbathe, had a pool that was too cold to swim in, we spent much of our time driving around Crete – which wasn’t part of the plan.
We rang the phone number provided by the rep several times a day but got no answer until day 11 of our holiday. When, finally, it was answered, it turned out that the phone was allocated to a rep that had left Crete six months earlier. The person that answered the phone finally provided me with the number of a rep who was still on the island. When I contacted them, reception was so bad that we could barely hear one another. We managed to arrange to meet at the airport on the day of departure – which we did.
When we discussed our complaints with her, we were initially offered 20 Euro as compensation. This was increased to 40 Euro when we refused. When we refused 40 Euro, the rep informed us that 40 Euro was the last and final offer.
We took up our complaints with Thomson when we arrived back in the UK.
We were told that the temperature of the water in the swimming pool was not their problem, nor were the trees in the cottage garden, nor was the noise coming from the nearby apartments and were told to take up the car issue with the car rental company. Eventually, after several letters and several heated exchanges with Thomson staff, we were offered £160 cash or £200 in holiday vouchers.
We have been in touch with a solicitor who has told us that all these issues are the responsibility of Thomson since it is they who supplied the holiday package and that they are responsible for each and every aspect of the holiday, including the car.
Dealing with Thomson staff has been a worse experience than the holiday. Trying to get them to accept responsibility and liability has been a nightmare.
It is now November and it is still unresolved.
Thomson have now told us that they will respond by 17 November.
My guess is that their offer will be inadequate, will be in the form of holiday vouchers (which I’ve already told them are unacceptable) and we will have to take them to court in order to get satisfaction.
This year, Thomson have had so many complaints that they have had to inform ABTA that they are unable to deal with complaints within the statutory 28 days.
Stay tuned.

cubegame

I'd say that you have a very valid complaint for most of it but I would imagine you will not have much chance with the car.

Most probably there was a 700 euro excess on the collision damage waiver and the extra money was to reduce this to zero. All pretty standard practice unfortunately and sadly all you can take from that is the knowledge that you should never hand money over again at a hire car counter if you've prepaid.

paulofcambs

On 17 November, we received a reply from Tina Sole of the Thomson After Travel team. I think I understood the reply, but I’m not completely convinced. Here are two actual quotes from Tina’s letter:

“I appreciate that you are unhappy with the service it seems the booking branch supplied. As our travel shops are empowered to deal with their own complaints you will need to contact them should you feel the service to be incorrect.”

“If you remain unhappy with the compensation offer from the after travel team as this is our final offer then we would have to leave you to take what ever action you deem appropriate.”

It would appear that Ms Sole needs to take lessons in English Grammar and punctuation and Thomson needs to quality assure letters before they are sent out to customers. The letter, in our opinion, only needed to contain an ‘innit?’ and a ‘Ya get me?’ for it to be considered a complete grammatical disaster. Little wonder then that Thomson’s After Travel Care is a complete and utter disgrace.

It also appears that there is an element of buck-passing in that the After Travel Team are blaming the branch for our holiday disaster. This doesn’t look good for Thomson, to say the least.

I did contact the branch. They were a little disconcerted that the After Travel Team were blaming them for the issues that we experienced on our holiday. In spite of this, they offered us an additional £100 in compensation. The total compensation on offer is therefore £260 cash or £200 in travel vouchers.

This issue gets more and more bizarre.

Maybe, I should just take them to court and have done with it, although what a judge will think of this fiasco, heaven knows.

Stay tuned.

TOMMYTOM

My complaint is more of a moan than anything but have you tried making a complaint to thomson, the shop we booked with told use thomson don't have a customer service number anymore,could it be they were unindated with complaints so decided to make complaining difficult, i have traveled with them for years but this "little" problem has made me think twice,if i had a serious problem i now know they would'nt treat it properly me a thomson are going our different ways.