On the beach - yay or nay?

holidaysforme

Archergirl wrote: »

Or if unsure about booking and you want to use a TA, I would use one that you can go into on the high street.

I've read on another forum that Thomas Cook are shaky and could go out of business in the not too distant future.. I really dont know how true this is!
Either way, i now book my holidays indepndantly, and dont use TA's.
Their prices are usually inflated, and they dont offer me anything that i cant already get myself, with a bit of research and by using my common sense.

claire16c

NikkiOTB wrote: »

With any airlines or TA's sometimes prices can increase slightly, this is often driven by the airline flight prices but if it does happen, our customers get the option to take it or leave it


Kind regards
Nikki
on the Beach

Er no they don't. Once you've booked a flight that's it. The price does not go up after. I've booked hundreds of flights direct with airlines & strangely enough the price doesn't magically change later on.

You wouldn't buy a coat from a shop thrn get home & have the shop call you & send you an invoice for more money. This is no different!

Steviek_2

NikkiOTB I happen to work on the same business park as you are based and would quite happily meet with you to tell you my issues with your company but feel it would be a complete waste of time as was my letter of complaint! Consequently I vote with my feet and wouldnt dream of ever using your company again. As I said I used your company twice. The first time we had a lot of issues with the hotel such as they ran out of food 1 night and as it was in the middle of nowhere we simply couldnt eat. The room wasnt cleaned for days on end so we had no loo roll towels etc. Whilst you advertised the hotel as having 4 A la carte restaurants it didnt the list goes on. Your company just sent me a kiss off letter saying not your problem hotel booked through a sub contractor da de da. We decided to put that down to experience and the following year booked with you again. After booking the holiday and paying for it in full your company rang back and said the flight chosen didnt match the number of nights the hotel was booked for Kerching more money please! Then the hotel booked us 1 room instead of 2. They didnt even have a room the first night so we had to stay in a waiting area until 4pm the next day when (after much haggling and complaining) they gave us the 2 rooms we had booked. We were not the only people in this position at the hotel others who had booked through you were as well. Any point complaining no save the money you would spend on stamps. Use your company again absolutely not!
Trust that makes the position clear for you!

Steviek_2

I agree with you completely "Holidays" I have had a couple of issues with travel agents and now intend to book directly from now on. You can see my issues with OTB as above and again this year went on a really expensive cruise booked through Adore (which incidentally are part of Co Op travel) they were to put it mildly useless! Didnt want to know when luggage went missing put us in a back packers hostel miles out of Singapore post cruise. They just rip you off and dont want to know when things go wrong

stephb34

holidaysforme wrote: »

I've read on another forum that Thomas Cook are shaky and could go out of business in the not too distant future.. I really dont know how true this is!
Either way, i now book my holidays indepndantly, and dont use TA's.
Their prices are usually inflated, and they dont offer me anything that i cant already get myself, with a bit of research and by using my common sense.

What forum is this that you read this on so we can have a read, is this recent information or 6 months to a year old. Since Harriet Green took over at TC they're going from strength to strength. It may look to an outsider that they're not doing very well with all these shops closing but Manny Fontelanova should never have bought the Co ops so now Harriets getting rid of the weakest links to make TC more profitable. What company need 3, 4 or 5 shops on the High street within 10 yards of each other. You only have to look at the share price going from 10p to £1.40 in months to realise that TC are trading well.

Booking independantly isn't for every one, but getting back to the point i wouldn't use OTB as they just put the components together which if you were confident you could do yourself cheaper.

Nirvana9

Never book through otb. When you hit the 'book' button all you're actually doing is making an offer to buy. Nothing is booked for you at this point.

This is why the price ends up going up - usually the flight cost has changed between making an offer to book and otb actually trying to book it.

You then have to wait up to 48 hours to find out whether or not the holiday is yours. You'll either get an email confirming it is, or a phone call asking for more money because the flight cost has increased. How strange that i've never heard of anyone getting a call to tell them the flight cost has gone down.....

Of course you can cancel at that point, but booking through them really isn't worth the hassle of wondering whether or not your holiday is booked. Just book direct and you'll have confirmation within a minute or two.

I could go on with the problems with otb - like how your flight booking could get cancelled because they shouldn't even be booking with ryanair. That'll do for now though.

Steviek_2

Nirvana I admire your restraint! Apologies I turned my post into a full size rant! It was the post having the nerve to suggest I should send in a complaint like I didnt in the 1st place! I will refrain from paying them a personal visit!

Nirvana9

Steviek wrote: »

Nirvana I admire your restraint! Apologies I turned my post into a full size rant! It was the post having the nerve to suggest I should send in a complaint like I didnt in the 1st place! I will refrain from paying them a personal visit!

Why not pay them a personal visit if you don't even need to go out your way? You wouldn't be the first person to try that tactic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/jun/01/get-bt-listening-visit-hq

ferf1223

NikkiOTB wrote: »

With any airlines or TA's sometimes prices can increase slightly, this is often driven by the airline flight prices but if it does happen, our customers get the option to take it or leave it.

I take this to mean that OTB doesn't operate a system that offers or doesn't have the ability to provide live quotes - is that correct?

Nirvana9

ferf1223 wrote: »

I take this to mean that OTB doesn't operate a system that offers or doesn't have the ability to provide live quotes - is that correct?

Hope you don't mind me answering as i'm not from otb but that's definitely correct