Tui do not guarantee pre-booked seats

davylee07

We've booked a holiday to Mexico costing over £7000 and pre-booked seats in Premium Economy at £700. Found out a few days ago that TUI had changed our original seats booked, window and aisle, and re-allocated us to centre grouping of seats with no reason given. I asked them to re-assign the seats to the original booking seats and they responded that they will not do this. We were never contacted regarding this - I only established this by chance after paying the second part of our deposit.
As my wife is not the best "flyer" we have asked them to cancel the holiday if they cannot adhere to our original booking, and refund our full deposit. They will not refund the deposit.
The real kicker in their email response is:
"I apologise if this is not the outcome you had anticipated, but we must remain fair and consistent with all our customers."
Unable to get a phone number for their pre-travel contact centre as all correspondence is by e-mail with a 48-72 hour wait for response.

Caz3121

no airline guarantees seat assignment (it will be covered in t&cs) I doubt it will be a valid reason for cancellation and a full refund to be given

bradders1983

Cancelling the whole holiday seems an extreme knee-jerk reaction. To be blunt if your wife isnt the best flyer then perhaps a trans-Atlantic trip wasnt the greatest of ideas in the first place. HAve you still been assigned an aisle seat in the middle?

"Sometimes we may need to change the seat allocated to you for operational or safety reasons"

https://www.tui.co.uk/destinations/info/booking-terms-and-conditions

Simby

I am not sure how much you will get back , but I don’t think it an extreme reaction , I would not fly in a middle bank of seats and always pay for premium seating.

Maybe they could put you on another flight?

bradders1983

Is the seating in the middle not premium as well then?

Of course the OP could do a dummy booking and see if there are actually seats left available, just to see if the truth is being told. But if a plane has been swapped out (I dont know if TUI have planes that have less Premium seating than others), someone clearly has to miss out.

bradders1983

A quick check confirms TUI have 3 different seating arrangements for Premium in their fleet, ranging from 63 Premium seats (9 rows of 7) down to 35 (5 rows of 7)

Quite clearly there has been an aircraft change downwards and you may have been "last in, first out" which is the only fair way to do it. In fact their email actually says "but we must remain fair and consistent with all our customers" so they probably did do this.

From the looks the middle bank is a set of 3 seats and not 4 so you are going to have an aisle seat, I really dont see what the issue is. Not as if you are going to see loads out the window flying to Mexico

And yes, they maybe could ask for a different flight but what if the aircraft gets swapped out again and the same thing happens?

TadleyBaggie

Something doesn't seem right here. I've booked with TUI several times over the last few years and selection of the seats isn't available until 28 days before departure. The fact that the OP hasn't made all the payments suggests that the departure is much further in the future than that.

bradders1983

TadleyBaggie wrote: »

Something doesn't seem right here. I've booked with TUI several times over the last few years and selection of the seats isn't available until 28 days before departure. The fact that the OP hasn't made all the payments suggests that the departure is much further in the future than that.

Are Premium customers not able to select seats well before that as a "perk" of flying in that cabin?

I must admit, a cost of £175 per person per seat per flight to assign your own seat, rather than luck of the draw, seems a hell of a lot, especially when you are already paying for that cabin. Thomas Cook dont charge any extra, its part of buying the seat in the first place.

bradders1983

Hmm. Just done a dummy booking to Mexico for March and at no point before the Payment screen do you get the opportunity to select specific seats in Premium.

davylee07

Seat selection on TUI Premium Economy is immediately after booking with deposit paid. We were not last in as other seats with window and aisle were available at time of booking. Put simply, if I pay for Premium Seating and choose a particular seat then I would expect the Tour Operator / Airline to honour this. At no time have TUI contacted me to discuss this re-arrangement or give a reason. The £700 was for Premium Economy which included seat choice.
T&C's state:- "A refund will only be offered if we can’t seat you in a similar position to your original request. A similar position means the same type of seat - window, aisle etc - as your original selected seats. In such cases, we ask that you keep a copy of your confirmation documents and boarding cards."

bradders1983

Well judging by that T+C then:

A refund of the extra paid for that seat = yes
A refund of the whole holiday deposit = no

Also you may not get the whole £700 back anyway, you had a window and aisle before and I assume now you have an aisle and middle, so the aisle selection is like for like if you want to be pedantic.