Travel Republic

Moobucket

So I made a mistake with a booking on travel republic where I tried altering the last date and instead of going from the 30th Jan to the 3rd I had clicked on 4th and then 3rd, so while I blissfully thought I was looking at hotels for 4 nights I was actually looking for the single night of the 3rd.... not ideal considering that my train home was on the afternoon of the 3rd. Anyway, I got my confirmation email through, realised my awful error and phoned them within 5 minutes assuming it would be ok to alter the issues. They said in their email that I had 2 days to rectify incorrect details.

"Please check that all names, dates and timings are correct on receipt of all documents and advise us of any errors within two days of receipt of your documents by contacting our Customer Support department. "

They then told me my ticket was uncancellable and put me on hold while they spoke with another agency who refused to alter the dates or cancel the ticket? They were very clear on this, despite me explaining that I had just lost £260. The money had already gone from my card, so I phoned the hotel, thinking if I pleaded with them, they would maybe alter the dates. They told me there would be no problem both altering the tickets or cancelling them but they currently had no record of the booking on their system. I phoned Marriot hotels customer service who also said you always have 24 hours to cancel a booking regardless of the type of ticket and to NEVER book through a travel company as Marriot would match their price regardless. I don't understand why Travel Republic thought it would be acceptable customer service to leave me believing I had lost my £260 on irreplaceably badly booked tickets when this wasn't the case :mad:. So I phoned them back, and they now say they might be able to do something to cancel them. What are peoples thoughts on this???

Moobucket

They also don't have an email address to contact them!

Puzzcat

I had a lot of dealings with them earlier this year about a cancelled booking.
This is the email contact I was using, you could try it?


[EMAIL="hhughes@travelrepublic.co.uk"]hhughes@travelrepublic.co.uk[/EMAIL]

grumbler

I don't know how Distance Selling Regulations apply to travel, but it's worth checking. This site says that DSR do apply:

When buying a holiday online, you are still covered by your consumer rights, providing that the website is UK-based, and therefore within the jurisdiction of UK law. These basic rights are as follows:

• ...
• The company's cancellation policy and your rights in relation to cancelling a product or serviceHowever, when purchasing online you are also entitled to rights as set out by the EU's Distance Selling Directive. In the UK this translates as the Distance Selling Regulations (2000). These regulations stipulate that you should have several key pieces of information made available to you before you buy, namely:
• That you have what is known as a 7 working day 'cooling off' period, where if you change your mind you are entitled to a refund. Further to the Distance Selling Regulations regarding the 7-day cooling off period, you should always check the company's cancellation policies and the affect they have on refunds.

eskbanker

Unfortunately Marriott's Ts & Cs aren't relevant if you book through a third party such as Travel Republic (or any other intermediary agent), so even if Marriott allow changes it doesn't necessarily follow that TR do.

Also, I believe the two-day error correction clause that is quoted above relates to errors made by TR rather than by the customer, i.e. it's only a window for the customer to identify any errors that TR made in the issued documentation, rather than an opportunity for the customer to change anything in the booking.

However, you may be able to persuade TR to change the booking (was the quoted rate listed as non-refundable/non-changeable, etc?) or if not then find out when the booking hits Marriott's system and plead with them instead at that stage!

I do sympathise, having done a very similar thing myself a few years ago (different agent but same principle) and thought I'd waved goodbye to a substantial sum of money on a flawed booking (my fault too) but the hotel themselves were more amenable to accepting a change....

YorkshireBoy

Moobucket wrote: »

They also don't have an email address to contact them!

You can contact them by secure message from within the 'manage my booking' area, as stated in the e-mailed confirmation(s) they've sent you.


If you include your e-mail address in the message you may be able to continue negotiations that way (for a paper trail), although I suspect the quickest way would be to get someone on the phone to deal with it...if you can!?

jacques_chirac

grumbler wrote: »

I don't know how Distance Selling Regulations apply to travel, but it's worth checking. This site says that DSR do apply:

That site is wrong - whilst some of the DSRs apply to travel bookings, the cooling off period does not.