Groupon Mystery Getaway scam with Clearsky Holidays

AMDemps

Hello,

Basically 3 weeks ago I bought 2 Mystery Getaway vouchers from Groupon costing £139 each. I was then contacted by Sunny at Clearsky holidays who quoted me departure flight times of 23.55 and return flights of 6.30 however he then gave me a well thought out speech about how these flights are clearly inconvenient as I would miss the whole first day of the holiday so he offered me some alternative flight times however these would cost me £49 extra per person. I said I could not agree to that without speaking to my friend who was at work so Sunny put the pressure on saying these seats might not be available if I wait. As an alternative he offered me different flights returning to my second choice airport which would cost an additional £49 in total. As I felt pressured I agreed to this. As soon as I hung up the phone I researched the original flights he had quoted me to find out they did not exist at all, this is clearly just a tactic they are using to scam extra money out of people. I have managed to get Clearsky Holidays to drop the £49 charge by calling them frauds however I have asked Groupon for a full refund as I no longer feel comfortable having anything to do with this awful company. So far they have been very slow and unhelpful with their replies. I have been reading through their terms and conditions and I'm not sure if I have a case to receive a full refund from them and I very much doubt if I approached Clearsky Holidays for a refund that I would get anywhere. I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas on what my best approach would be? I have been approached by other people on twitter who have had the same thing happen to them.

Any help you could give would be much appreciated.

lammy82

Hello,
My partner bought a similar deal from ClearSky and they pulled the same trick. She managed to get a refund from GroupOn but had to be quite persistent.
Did they take your GroupOn voucher code before telling you that you'd have to pay extra to get reasonable departure times? That was an important point in getting our refund.

AMDemps

Hi, thanks for the reply. I had to fill in a form once i'd bought the voucher stating my voucher codes and preferred dates as part of the booking, so they had that information before they called me. And unfortunately i'd agreed to the £49 and they then booked the flights straight away before I had a chance to research the flights. I realise now my naivety and how I shouldn't have agreed to anything but hopefully I will still have a case for a refund.

AMDemps

Just had an email saying they'll give me a full refund! Emailing the VP is the way to go clearly !

hollydays

Yep teletext/truly travel do this " there's very few seats left" technique. I have found it to be an absolute lie- scam too

EasyTigrr

AMDemps wrote: »

Just had an email saying they'll give me a full refund! Emailing the VP is the way to go clearly !

Hi,

I've had this very same awful experience with clearsky and I emailed groupon asking for a refund after I found out that they'd scammed me out of an additional £69 each on top of the £198 I paid through groupon, to get better flights. Groupon said they could do nothing at he time, but seeing you having had success I'd like to try again.

Do you have an email address or phone number please? I don't want to go on this holiday anymore because clearsky made me so angry at their sales tactic - and I'm supposed to pay the remainder of the balance by the end of December

SusanneCape

.... and still these holidays appear on the Groupon mails. Seems like it is worth their while dealing with the few that complain as many probably don't.

hybernia

The Groupon / Clearsky situation is an extreme example of the lesser-known practice that's common with many so-called overseas holiday discounters.

We've found offers on TravelZoo and Amazon Local which have looked pretty darn good. . . until you take the trouble to go to the provider's page and discover that the flight times, either outbound or inbound, though sometimes both, are horrendous. Some of the smaller overseas airports involved aren't served by car rental operators with a 24-hour service, either.

By the time you've messed around, getting a re-quote from the provider, you may as well not have bothered: too many of these outfits are there to lull you in with a cheap price and then up-sell you to flights actually will want to use, but at prices that are padded out to give 'em even bigger profits.

Best thing is *never* to buy anything without going online first to check and re-check. And never, ever, phone 'em unless you've first established the actual cost of the charters used direct with the charter airline itself: we've seen one example where the price quoted by Easyjet for the online customer booking was actually doubled by the holiday provide in hope we didn't know.

Some bargain, huh?

Cealz

Hi,
I know this happened a while ago, but have fallen into the same trap and not been treated at all fairly by the """""support team""""" at clear sky holidays. Would it be possible for you to maybe find the email for VP , long shoot i know as could have changed, but you can only try!!! Thank yoj

DCFC79

Cealz wrote: »

Hi,
I know this happened a while ago, but have fallen into the same trap and not been treated at all fairly by the """""support team""""" at clear sky holidays. Would it be possible for you to maybe find the email for VP , long shoot i know as could have changed, but you can only try!!! Thank yoj

You do know not many if all of the posters in the thread havent been back for a while.

Pollycat

Jeez!
Googling Clearsky brings up a list of complaints on here, Tripadvisor & reviewcentre.

Cealz
The person who emailed the VP of Clearsky and got a refund hasn't logged back into MSE since November 2014.