Thomsons mid-booking price hike

Munchkin1981

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forums but am a huge fan of this site so I'm hoping someone out there might be able to help me.

I preface this by saying I used to be a travel agent some years ago, before the internet really took off, so I have some understanding of how agencies and operators work. However, I am not 100% sure whether my complaint is outside travel operators terms & conditions or not.

I recently booked a summer holiday for my sister and I and I'm hugely disappointed with the service I got from the Thomsons group, TUI, while going through the process. I knew the exact holiday I wanted - flights, hotel, dates - and I knew where I could get the best price. Finding the best rates on Holiday Hypermarket, I watched for a couple of weeks for the price to get to something I wanted to pay. Finding my holiday for £766 p/person I went ahead and started the booking process. I got to the confirmation page (rooms & flights selected and names of passengers typed in) and as I went to confirm the details and move to the payment page the "Continue Booking" button changed from a button to a phone number that said "Call this number to book this holiday".

I called the number and the agent, who was very kind and helpful, told me that this usually happened when online prices were changing but they couldn't book that holiday at that price over the phone. I explained what I had done and the button on the website changing to a telephone number and she apologised profusely but the only advice was to try again.

Long story short, when I finally managed to get the website to display the "Continue Booking" button the price of my holiday had gone up by £30 per person.

I called Holiday Hypermarket twice more before booking, including speaking to one of the Sales Managers. No-one was able to help me address the problem or offer the holiday at the price I was in the process of booking at.

I took to Facebook and the Thomsons Social Media team were quick to respond. They asked me to send them the details of my holiday. I did this and they seemed to indicate that they could do something for me.

By the time they had gone through all the usual "We're sorry for the confusion" etc etc I had already decided to book to avoid the price going up anymore. They then said:

"Unfortunately now that you've booked your holiday, we're unable to amend the price of this for you ... once you've booked your holiday, the amount you pay is frozen."

To me this says "Now you've given us your money you have no leverage so we're not going to help you any further but thanks for trying."

Can anyone tell me if it is worth me pursing this or whether here is some kind of Code of Conduct for this kind of process that might help me? I know it's only £60 but if this happened at John Lewis with an expensive TV for example there would be just cause to complain about the price increase at the time of purchase.

Can anyone offer advice?

Thanks!
~ Rachel.

FreddieFrugal

I'm afraid that if you've paid for it after raising a complaint, then you have basically suggested to the company that your complaint no longer stands as you have accepted the new price.

I understand why you did it though, they may not have been able to get it for you at the original price you saw and by the time you found out the price probably would have rocketed up more. But because you've paid it's too late to do anything. Nothing shady has happened as you agreed to pay for the holiday at the advertised price at the time of booking.

We had to really rush to buy our holiday as the number of rooms available on the day was dropping very quickly. I stopped part way through because I'd forgotten to do it via quidco for the £5 cashback. When I got back on the number of rooms had dropped in those two minutes, so I was very quick to finish the whole process off.

I understand why you feel a bit irritated by the price increase and being mucked around on the phone. But holiday prices change constantly, especially if you're booking very near to the time. The phone message popping up will have been a system problem due to the change in price trying to take effect while you were mid booking.

I think it's just one of those things you're going to have to put up with. Try to forget it and focus on the holiday. Where are you heading to by the way?

Hope you have a great time!

Munchkin1981

Hi IanRi!

Thanks for your thoughts.

IanRi wrote: »

I'm afraid that if you've paid for it after raising a complaint, then you have basically suggested to the company that your complaint no longer stands as you have accepted the new price.

It's not totally obvious from my rambling message above, but I did raise the complaint before I booked the holiday. I called HH twice because of the issue I was having completing the booking on the website. Even after the price went up I couldn't complete the booking online. The site kept delivering a phone number.

IanRi wrote: »

I understand why you did it though, they may not have been able to get it for you at the original price you saw and by the time you found out the price probably would have rocketed up more. But because you've paid it's too late to do anything. Nothing shady has happened as you agreed to pay for the holiday at the advertised price at the time of booking.

It's not so much that the price went up that has left a bad taste in my mouth, it's the fact that I was booking the holiday at a price and then in order to complete the booking I was told to call a phone number that Thomson/HH/TUI knew full well would not be able to complete the booking at that price (or even near that price) because they say as much on their websites with instructions like "The best prices will always only be available online". When you call a customer service rep you have to pay for their time and their service.

So why deliver an instruction like that when they *know* full well the price isn't available to a phone agent?

It just seems a bit underhanded to me, that's all. Do you know what I mean?

IanRi wrote: »

I think it's just one of those things you're going to have to put up with. Try to forget it and focus on the holiday. Where are you heading to by the way?

Hope you have a great time!

I agree. I would be more annoyed if the price had gone down again, but so far it's only going up :beer: ... but that's not really the point of course.

We're off to Turkey for the 4th time. Bodrum. Really looking forward to it as we love the area and the people. :j

flutterby_lil

We went to Bodrum, stayed at the WOW Bodrum Resort, 3 years ago, loved it, one of our favourite holidays. Have a great time.