Beware of holiday company rip off

gingertomantiques

Went in store TUI to book a short haul holiday.
Checked hotel had disability adapted rooms, wanted room as member of party is in a wheelchair, this is a deal breaker. TUI rep confirmed all details & asked for a £400 non refundable deposit. I asked if the room was confirmed. He replied NO, its a request, it would be after the booking was made, but it would take 30 days.
I asked if that meant i would be refunded the deposit if the room subsequently was not available.
He checked with the store manager & was informed that ,
to confirm a room i had to book & pay £400 deposit, only then would they contact the hotel to confirm availability, if room was not available & i cancel you lose deposit.
TUI want £400 to check if a room is available .......RIP OFF
Tweeted customer care twice, was told to take it up with store manager, pointed out already had conversation.
In conclusion, apparantley what your booking for your disability needs is only a REQUEST & they have no legal obligation to supply it. Nasty if you only find this out at the resort.
But even worse as they refuse to refund deposit


UPDATE - Resolution
Spoke to Grace at TUI welfare team, she advised me that customer services are wrong & so is the instore information & that all bookings should go through welfare team only
She said that if made through welfare the holiday is preliminary booked, & a request for an adaptive room made,
No money is taken until room is confirmed

So in conclusion frontline info is incorrect Tui need to retrain there staff The good news is welfare are first class, Only deal with welfare +44203451285

[Deleted User]

I don't see anything unusual in this and I have to say when I have made specific request when booking a holiday it has always been done.
Perhaps you might be better doing your own package i.e book your own flights and hotel separately,then you can make sure request are fulfilled?

poppy12345

When i have booked holidays in the past you can make a request either at the time of booking or at a later date but there's no guarantee that you'll get it. Even more so with a disability adapted room because they will have very limited rooms like this. There's a chance that in smaller hotels there's no rooms at all like this.

gingertomantiques

The issue is that without the adaptive room the holiday is a non starter for many people in wheelchairs. TUI are aware of this, at the time of booking they do not tell you the room is not guaranteed & then refuse to refund deposit + it take 30 days to find out . Virgin will refund if they fail to supply room & will confirm at time of booking, but virgin do not do short haul. The post is to make people aware of the situation & to save them money & distress.

Cyclamen

Gosh that would be a deal breaker for me too.

We only travel in UK but have hopes that soon we will manage a 'big holiday'. If we can't guarantee an accessible room and risk loosing £400 for cancelling if room isn't accessible..it will complicate things.

Surely this is an error by the manager misunderstanding the policies?

gingertomantiques

Cyclamen wrote: »

Gosh that would be a deal breaker for me too.

We only travel in UK but have hopes that soon we will manage a 'big holiday'. If we can't guarantee an accessible room and risk loosing £400 for cancelling if room isn't accessible..it will complicate things.

Surely this is an error by the manager misunderstanding the policies?

UPDATE - Resolution
Spoke to Grace at TUI welfare team, she advised me that customer services are wrong & so is the instore information & that all bookings should go through welfare team only
She said that if made through welfare the holiday is preliminary booked, & a request for an adaptive room made,
No money is taken until room is confirmed

So in conclusion frontline info is incorrect Tui need to retrain there staff The good news is welfare are first class, Only deal with welfare +44203451285

D_M_E

Just to add to this - did you also ask for assistance on and off the aircraft for the disabled traveller, and also request that they carry the wheelchair/mobility scooter as well?

A lot of carriers have a limit on the number of wheelchairs they will take and they also don't like you turning up at checkin without advance notice of wheelchairs etc..

Worth also getting the phone number of your chosen hotel and phoning them and asking for disabled room and, most important, ask if the place has any steps inside and ask if a wheelchair will fit in the lift if there is one - no lift means LOTS of steps which is impractical for a wheelchair user.
One step outside to enter the place may be fine but loads inside would be a no but a ground floor room could be fine.