Thomson cancelled flight booking

pampam

This is a sample of an email I have sent to Thomson regarding a flight cancellation.

I would appreciate any views or advice on the matter.
Also does anyone have a direct email address for Thomson complaints?
Thanks

Pam


My original flight booking from Humberside was cancelled so I had to phone to rearrange my flight details.

The flight change you offered me in your letter was not acceptable, as it would have incurred a 3-hour journey to Manchester.
Before phoning your office I looked on your website and found a replacement flight from my next nearest airport which is Doncaster. This is a 45-minute drive away from my home.
I phoned your offices and spent more than 80 minutes being passed from department to department and listening to endless music. The phone calls have cost me in excess of £8.50 according to the telephone company.
Your staff informed me that I couldn’t have the flight of my choice from Doncaster, as they could not book through Thomsonfly!!
This amazed me as when I try to book a flight via the Thomson website it automatically transfers me to the Thomsonfly website!!
As a result of this I had to change my holiday dates and accept a flight from East Midlands.
I was charged an extra £79.92 for the privilege.
I was told you were making me an allowance of £660 towards the change.
Strangely enough I can book the same flight on your website for £1032.64.
I originally paid £956.
Where is my £660 allowance??
I complained bitterly about this, as I really wanted to fly from Doncaster.
I was told if I was not happy I should formally complain to Thomsonfly???
I had already been told I couldn’t book through Thomsonfly.
(I checked the postal address to send my complaint to and found that Thomson and Thomsonfly have the same address!!) Confused? So am I!
Needless to say this does not make any sense to me at all.
If you check your records you will see that I am a loyal and regular customer. I book many flights with your company as I often go away with groups of friends.
Because I have had to change my holiday dates I have been charged a £35 admin fee by the Accommodation Company in Tenerife.
All in all your cancellation has cost me dearly.
If I had cancelled the flight myself I would have accepted that I would have to pay for any changes. However, I don’t feel I have been treated fairly seeing as your company have made the cancellation.
I am asking you to please look at my booking again and in the interest of customer relations allow me to have the flight of my choice from Doncaster.
The flight I would like is
Tom 4627 – Doncaster to Tenerife on 19th December 2007
And
TOM 4628 – Tenerife to Doncaster on 2nd January 2008
I hope you can make sense of this, as I am totally confused myself.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards

dmg24

Hi Pam,

I'm sorry, but I don't really understand your email? x

pampam

Sorry.
The complaint is that Thomson have cancelled my flight from Humberside that I had booked back in March.
They will not give me the flight from my second choice of airport as they say that will cost me another £500.
However, when I look on the Thomsonfly website I can get the flight for only an extra £200. This is well within the £660 they say they are awarding me towards the change.
My original flights were booked on the Thomsonfly website but they say they cant make the changes using this site.
I know this sounds totally confusing but this is exactly what they are saying!!
Thanks for your interest
Pam

dmg24

That makes more sense! x

How much did you originally pay, and how much would the new flights cost?

pampam

I can book the flight on the Thomsonfly website for £1032.64.
I originally paid £956.
Thomsons ammendment team say it will cost me more than £500.

pampam

I can book the flight on the Thomsonfly website for £1032.64.
I originally paid £956.
Thomsons ammendment team say it will cost me more than £500 EXTRA

dmg24

That does seem nonsense (on their part), have you asked where they are getting their figures from?

Perhaps they could agree that you book the new flights as a fresh booking, and then they could refund your original booking, plus the difference? Alternatively, could you take a screen shot of the price you have found, and forward that to them?

pampam

I have allready sent the screen shot to Thomson.
They say that theyn (the ammendment team) cannot get the same prices as I can get on the Thomsonfly website! Strange!! Thomsonfly is Thomson.
I checked the Doncaster flight price this afternoon. Would you believe the price has gone up by £600 for the 4 seats I require.
Looks like I will be travelling to East Midlands!!.
Thanks for your advice.
Kindest regards
Pam

dmg24

That seems very strange, even if a few more people have booked since you checked it is a big increase!

Nevermind, I'm sure you'll have a good time once you get there! x

slim_bird

Hi
We too had a nightmare experience with Thomsonfly this year.
We had our flight changed from 0700 to 1500.We had booked Travelodge the night before and rail tickets, together we lost £102.00 as we a) perferred to sleep in own beds and b) the original return flight times were also changed which meant we would have missed the last train out.As a result we had to hire a minibus to collect us from the airport, another £70.00.

Like you i did contact them to see if they could arrange us to fly from another airport but guess what, tey could, but it would have cost us another £170.00 each!! Disgraceful, when it was them who took the flight off in the first place.

When we got to the airport there was a delay of 2 hours. We were given 3 different reasons why the original flight had been cancelled. One poor couple had received no correspondance from Thomson's and so arrived for the 0700 fllight and had to wait around 8 hours!!.

I think that they just took the 0700 flight off as there weren't seats filled. This was evident on the flight as it was only half full.

I have received a letter from them, after complaining, but as ever they're full of excuses and sorries blah,blah!

I've never experienced this before and hope not to get caught out again.

You have my sympathy

Sharon

ronald_cookson

Pam: Why don't you sue them, report them to some aviation authority or try to get Press publciity. You could also consider reporting them to Trading Standards. The same thing happened to my party in April, 2008. We booked Doncaster to Gran Canaria then the return flight was changed to Manchester. They wanted to charge several hundred pounds for the switch but we complained in advance and they waived the charge. But the additional taxi fare cost us more than £100 and added almost two hours to our return journey. I'm 80 and didn't appreciate that.
I'm going to Gran Canaria again in November and the return flight they have booked us on does not exist (according to their timetable). But the staff at Thomsonfly insists that it does. I suspect that when it gets nearer the date they will try to switch us to Manchester again. If they do I'll blow my top.

Ron