Thomas Cook Complaint...

tinodwg

Hi I just wondered if anyone could help, I recently registered a complaint to Thomas cook regarding my holiday, the main issue been I spent 3 days in bed with food poisoning. They have made me an offer of £300 compensation. We spent roughly £200 on a trip we were unable to attend and eating out after the food poisoning event. So that leaves £100 to comensate the 3 lost days plus all other issues. Just wondered whether I should peruse it further or be happy with the offer?? If anyone cares to read my essay of a complaint then here it is...

Following our ten night holiday at the Hi Bouganvilla Park, Sa coma, on 18th June 2013 I am compelled to write this letter in the hope that it will allow you to make significant improvements to the service delivered by your company.

Before we departed, in fact, the day after we booked the holiday we noticed a problem with the booking. I read on trip advisor that there was no air conditioning in the one bedroom apartments. I was very annoyed at myself that I had missed this important fact but upon revisiting the Thomas Cook website we realised that the lack of air conditioning wasn't clear. The website reads; "studios have air conditioning. Fans are available to hire for apartments." This is not a clear explanation of the facilities, something so significant should be highlighted, air conditioning is one if the basic standards you expect from a package holiday. I work in a regulated industry where all the information we provide must be clear and concise, I believe this should be the case for the travel industry. Upon noticing this problem we proceeded to contact our travel agent RBS Royalties Gold, they contacted Thomas Cook several times on our behalf but did not get a satisfactory outcome for us as all the Thomas Cook staff were able to suggest to the issues we were raising were "refer to the brochure". We were not permitted to speak directly to Thomas Cook due to data protection, something I find very bizarre when they are the tour operator providing all accommodation and travel arrangements. We were then advised by your staff to raise a complaint once we had travelled, this is something we wouldn't have done if there hadn't have been other issues our holiday.

We arrived at the hotel around 1pm and after an hour long queue to the reception desk and a rather unfriendly check in we finally found our room on the huge complex. We had missed lunch so headed down to the pool for a snack. This is when we discovered the 'snacks' on offer, hot dogs, crisps and some stale bread rolls. Not only were the snacks so poor they were only available in the dining room, there were no pool side snack bars and you weren't even allowed to remove any food from the dining area. This was something we found hugely inconvenient and made our holiday much less relaxed than we hoped. Between queuing for food and waiting for a 2 year old to finish their food we lost about an hour in the middle of the day. We certainly would not have booked this resort had we known there were no outdoor snacks. This leads me to refer you back to the brochure and I would like you to inform me why you advertise this complex to have a 'snack bar' when this quite clearly isn't the case? Also whilst covering the inaccurate brochure information, could you please inform me of your interpretation of a pool bar? As a boarded up hut, surrounded in rubble from ground works is not we were expecting. Whilst the self service system worked well and you didn't have to queue for long, the bars were quite a long way from the sun loungers, unless you were willing to get up at 5am to beat all the people reserving beds. This was not one of our major issues but was still disappointing when the reality does not match the description.


The selection of drinks for young children is extremely poor, no fresh juice, the closest thing was some vile tasting orange from a machine and the water from the same machine tasted awful. There is a 'slush' machine that never once produced anything other than a sugary juice. Everywhere we have holidayed previously provide 'fresh' juice and some form of flavoured milk. On the one day I did request chocolate milk from the bar we were charged €1.80. My understanding of all inclusive has always been that locally sourced items are included and imported, premium brands are subject to an additional charge.

The dinner time experience wasn't much better than the lunch time one. The dining room isn't big enough for the amount of people staying. As soon you open the door the chaos begins, no one assists you with finding a table and the tables are only set for the first sitting meaning you are left to search for your own cutlery and serviettes. As we arrived to dinner late on the first night there wasn't much choice left as they stopped replenishing items a while before the finishing time. We were left hungry and had to purchase food from on site shop. The following morning (Wednesday 19th June) after witnessing the 'entertainment', a poor night’s sleep in a clammy room and a mediocre breakfasting experience we decided to contact the hotel reps. We spoke to a young male called Charlie, whose opinion was "if you think the food here is bad you should try the others". He told us he had checked a few days earlier for another party and there were only 2 hotels on the island available, one I don't remember the name of and the other been the 'Sol Katmandu'. Luckily I had come across this hotel when booking our holiday so was aware that this would have been the complete opposite of what I would like for our family. We asked Charlie to find out if there had been any changes to availability and gave him the names of two particular hotels we would be interested in. We also agreed that we would be willing to pay the extra price to upgrade to a 4* hotel. Charlie initiated an enquiry with Thomas Cook in the UK, took our room number and asked where we would be during the day so he could let us know the outcome. We had no received no contact from the reps so asked for an update the next day but were told he was still waiting for a response. By Friday we still hadn't had any form of contact but had discovered the beautiful beach and some lovely off site restaurants so made the decision to enjoy our holiday, rather than spending another day chasing uncaring staff and losing a day packing and travelling.


We were shocked by the low standard of house keeping provided. Maid service was three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This entailed a towel change but no cleaning at all and a sheet change once a week. There was some form of bird or reptile excrement on the balcony that was only eventually cleaned after we left a note for the maid. We often found ants in the apartment which I am aware is extremely hard to avoid, however if the floors were cleaned as standard this may reduce the problem. We did contact the reception regarding the ant problem and they always attended quickly, after the third time they did leave us some insect spray which we found extremely useful.


The main factor that really ruined our already disappointing holiday occurred on Monday 24th June. That evening I ate some meat described as 'turkey in gravy' however the consistency, taste and colour were not what I expected. I went to bed early that night feeling extremely unwell and awoke a couple of hours later vomiting. I was the only person from my family to consume the meat and was the only one to get ill. I informed the reception what had happened and requested for the bed linen to be changed the next day and the bathroom disinfected to which they obliged. The sickness continued until Tuesday afternoon and I did not feel completely better until I was home in the UK. I didn't consume any alcohol for the rest of my holiday, ate barely anything due to a weak stomach and my family lived on chips and pasta for the last few days to avoid the chances of them getting ill. I did manage to leave the apartment on the Wednesday but felt very weak as I had consumed very little food since the Monday evening. Unfortunately this meant we were unable to attend the 4 hour glass bottom boat trip that we had already booked and paid for. Not only did we miss out on the trip, we all lost two whole days together, something that is rare and priceless to our hard working family.

We are very upset by our whole experience, we have felt nothing but let down by your company from start to finish. We have travelled with First Choice several times and have stayed in a selection of their Holiday Villages, I have nothing but praise for the First Choice/Thomson company. However, we decided to try something new this year, a decision I can now say we well and truly regret. We will be sure to never underestimate the value of good customer service again.


Finally I would just like to give you some customer feedback on how you are performing on your company 'values'.


DELIVER FOR OUR CUSTOMERS
"offering value, flexibility and choice" Value ... I feel sick thinking that we wasted so much money on this holiday and received so little. There was so much excluded from the 'all inclusive' and we spent much more money than anticipated whist we were there due to the awful food and desire to be away from the complex. Flexibly was not something I experienced before travelling and attempting to resolves issues with the company or whilst in Sa Coma and requesting help from the reps. Choice? If you count Sol Katmandu in a clubbing resort as a choice then maybe, although even that poor, suggested option was never confirmed.


ENGAGE EACH OTHER
Yes, I think Charlie engaged extremely well with the other Male rep that was on board our return transfer. They had a lovely chat about their nights out and were so engaged he actually failed to wish anyone a safe journey or thank them for their stay.


DRIVE FOR RESULTS
I'm assuming this must mean driving the Thomas Cook income as driving the sales of day trip tickets is the only thing I saw the staff act passionately about.


ACT WITH INTEGRITY "We keep our commitments, are honest, fair and trustworthy" As you will have read above, commitments were not kept. It isn't very honest and fair when the brochure and online information is incorrect. Trustworthy, well, as this is my first real encounter with Thomas Cook I can't especially say I had trust in you to begin with, but I did have hope, now I don't even have that.


I can only wish that this complaint will be brought to the attention of an individual who has the desire to restore customer faith and improve the service delivered. I shall await your full response.

jonesMUFCforever

Far too much anger in there - you are deviating from the main points - the letter is far too long!

Enough said from me.

GwylimT

Did you not bother reading any reviews about the hotel before booking?

stephb34

You know the saying "You get what you pay for" i'll think you'll find this is the case. The Bouganvilla is about one of the cheapest properties TC sell, First choice holiday villages are probably double the price of what you paid. Although that doesn't excuse getting food poisoning, did you ask about if anyone else had food poisoning, could you have had too much sun, drink etc. Did you see a doctor if so maybe you could claim off your insurance for the loss of your trip.

deva

Much of what you include in your letter is due to personal taste issues. Did you see a doctor and get a diagnosis if so that is reasonable evidence for compensation. The majority of things appear to have been resolved in house by the hotel.

Cleaning, air con and entertainment sound standard for a mailine holiday. Did you see rep about cancelling trip costs as refund should have been possible or could now be claimed again using doctors note as proof.

I would redraft with essentials and outline what you want and by when so you can begin negotiations. Other holiday makers who were ill at the same time would further support our claim.

Hth

peachyprice

And really, you didn't need to lose £200 for the trip, the others could have gone without you, it's what we would have done, and have done many times when one of us has become ill on holiday.

Were there other confirmed cases of food poisoning at the hotel? If it were the meat dish therre would have been dozens and dozens of people ill, perhaps TC will be able to find out for you. Otherwise, it's not unusual for people to become ill due to other non-food related causes, such as the heat, a virus, something in the sea etc.,

Mr_Wang

That letter will get filed, you need to pull out the important bits.
All the rest like 'queued for an hour' etc can be summed up in one sentence with 'treated badly from the outset'
Its all just irrelevant detail.

I would take the £300, and join the rest of us who ditched high street travel agents some ten years ago.

Using a travel agent is a bit like having an argument with your partner through a friend.
Pointless.

_Andy_

Way too long, way too emotive, way too many details.

Also you ended it "I can only wish that this complaint will be brought to the attention of an individual who has the desire to restore customer faith and improve the service delivered. I shall await your full response."

This is the sort of non-specific thing that leads people to not getting the outcome they wanted from the complaint.

If you had given them a specific amount of compo you wanted it would have been way easier.

mick_vandick

it is too long and taking the p out of their values is never going to endear you to the recipient!
As someone else has mentioned, you have no proof that it was food poisoning and if it had of been there would have been lots of people ill.
I would take the money they have given you and run.