Mis-sold holiday

Arsenal2019

Hi,

Myself and my partner went on a holiday, to a new five star luxury hotel. We booked to go to the hotel around 8 months before it had actually opened, so it was still in construction when we had booked it.
We arrived at the hotel, a week after it had opened.

We had booked the hotel as it looked and sounded amazing. We had been promised that the hotel was fully complete. In the brochure it had stated that the hotel would be fully completed, along with beautiful walks, ‘best beach in greece’ it was awful., the service was abysmal (2hour wait), no umbrella, no flowers, no entertainment, no handrails ,furniture was awful, and skips full of rubbish inside and outside the hotel, even next to hotel rooms. Furthermore, the main road into the hotel was unrecognisable, as it had pot holes and more skips. The list goes on!!!

Also, we became friends with a couple on the holiday and have stayed in touch. During the holiday, the lady of the other couple had fallen down a steep flight of stair at the hotel, as the hotel had no handrails. As a result, the lady spent pretty much the entire length of her holiday in a bad condition at the hospital. The day after the accident, hand rails were put up.

We have photographic evidence of everything we have just mentioned, even when there were no hand rails installed. We even have photos of a lot more things which I haven’t listed.

We complained to the holiday rep whilst we were on holiday (TUI), and she said she would take the appropriate action (we have her name). As soon as we got back to complain further, the rep has denied us ever complaining! We then proceeded to complain to TUI directly, they were having none of it.

Therefore, we want to take this future as we are not happy with the holiday, nor the service we received.

Can anyone please help up, directing us in the correct direction as to where to, who to, and how to complain.

Basically, myself and others strongly believe that we were missold this holiday and want to take it further.
- we still have the brochure from where we first seen the holiday before booking.

The travel agent are ABTA PROCTED

I apologise for the lengthy post.

Thank you.

heatherw_01

This forum is just for posting holiday deals, moving so you will get some replies.


Hi, we move threads if we think they’ll get more help elsewhere (please read the forum rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board. If you have any questions about this policy please email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com.

Caz3121

Richardroberts1 wrote: »

We complained to the holiday rep whilst we were on holiday (TUI), and she said she would take the appropriate action (we have her name)..

did you ask to be moved hotels? what was the action they were going to take?
what have you asked them for?

QuackQuackOops

Chances are, youll get nothing unless you actually moved out of the hotel because it was so bad? Did you do that?

Arsenal2019

We asked to move hotel but they weren’t willing to do that for us !

Arsenal2019

We asked to move hotel but nothing was done. My partner was crying to the rep explaining she did not want to be there, yet morning was done.

The reps and hotel staff just kept apologising

QuackQuackOops

Richardroberts1 wrote: »

We asked to move hotel but nothing was done. My partner was crying to the rep explaining she did not want to be there, yet morning was done.

The reps and hotel staff just kept apologising

But it wasnt so bad for you to leave?

If a hotel is so bad, then you leave the room, along with bags, and stay in reception and insist on being moved or taken home.

If reps dont help, you find another hotel yourself or fly home.

That fact that many people dont do this always suggest to the holiday company that the hotel just wasnt that bad and it is cultural differenes that poeple dont like. Overseas standards arent always like ours.

But....you can always pursue it. Be insistent. Show photos of brochure and your own. Quote the brochue and give them realities....but before you do any of that, read the small print.

spadoosh

QuackQuackOops wrote: »

But it wasnt so bad for you to leave?

If a hotel is so bad, then you leave the room, along with bags, and stay in reception and insist on being moved or taken home.

If reps dont help, you find another hotel yourself or fly home.

That fact that many people dont do this always suggest to the holiday company that the hotel just wasnt that bad and it is cultural differenes that poeple dont like. Overseas standards arent always like ours.

But....you can always pursue it. Be insistent. Show photos of brochure and your own. Quote the brochue and give them realities....but before you do any of that, read the small print.

Realistically youre just not going to find a 5* hotel that is bad enough to warrant walking away. Its a huge risk isnt it? Can you imagine if the OP stormed out, jumped on a flight home and TUI came back and said yeh we appologise about that, heres £100 for your troubles. Theyre not just going to pay out a few £k to every customer because there wasnt hand rails and i doubt theyd go as far as paying for the additional flight home and your almost certainly putting yourself through a PITA court battle/complaints process.

I ordered some food from mcdonalds drive thru. They made a mistake which meant part of my meal was missing. As it was a drive thru the opportunity to find a resolution there and then was somewhat limited as i was back at work before noticing. Now obviously i could [STRIKE]leave the holiday[/STRIKE] return to mcds at my expense to rectify the issue but i would be at a loss in terms of time and money as well as delays in resolving my hunger. So not really a great solution. My course of action was to eat what i was given and to email the manager. They couldve turned around and said well it wasnt that much of an issue otherwise you wouldve returned it. They couldve said, well you accepted it, tough. But they didnt. They where honest with their failings, reassured me they would look over it and try to ensure such events are mitigated in future. They offered me two free meals. Thats good customer service. Bad customer service would be to expect me to be at a loss in order to mitigate their failings which is exactly what sacrificing a holiday, something thats typically an annual and highly invested experience for people, is.

AlexMac

Wow. Remind me never to post on this MoneySavingExpert Consumer Website forum if I actually want consumer rights advice; or even sympathy, as opposed to a telling off!

Anyway- the pages on this MoneySavingExpert Consumer advice website (I had to say it again in case some respondents think its a "Cane the Complainant" forum) at
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/holiday-rights/
tell you what to do if the Holiday is rubbish;

"if you booked it as part of a package, the tour operator is obliged to describe the hotel accurately under the Package Travel Regulations. If it doesn't, you're entitled to compensation....
...Outline exactly what the issues were. Your complaint is also likely to be stronger if you do it as soon as the problems arise. Taking photos as evidence will also be helpful.
And if the firm you booked with is an ABTA member, any accommodation provided must meet certain basic standards. So you could ask ABTA to step in if you get nowhere, though there's no guarantee of success. For full complaining help, see..."
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/how-to-complain/

TUI even have an online complaints procedure ; a link from
https://www.tui.co.uk/destinations/contact-us
which leads to a form at
https://www.tui.co.uk/destinations/contact-us/after-travel
which lets you attach photos, etc

Describe the problems objectively, repeat that this hol was not as advertised and failed to meet reasonable standards and that this was discussed with the rep...

Say what outcome you expect; a % refund? A reduction on a future trip?

But be accurate (Travel Companies have been known to prosecute fraudulent complainants; stick to your own experience and let the other party try any medical expenses claim, which will be harder to prove) and be persistent; if TUI ignore you or don't agree your complaint, and after you exhaust their procedure, use ABTA (TUI are ABTA members); the procedure is at
https://www.abta.com/help-and-complaints/customer-support/register-a-complaint

And in case you think this is all a waste of time let me tell you a story; 20+ years ago, my stepson went on a lads holiday to Magaluf- an 18-30 type holiday with expectations of lots of drink and late nights. But they got accommodated in a family & kids apartment block, so all the neighbours complained, and on one occasion, called the Police when they were as late, loud and out of order as only 20 year old lads can be!

On return, I helped him complain that the hol had been mis-described, that they had been embarrased, blah, blah...

He got a refund for being lary! Not a massive one, but he was chuffed.

Good luck