Tui do not guarantee pre-booked seats

bradders1983

Davy, can I ask how you booked this holiday please? Was it online, in the shop?

peachyprice

davylee07 wrote: »

I've not paid for the holiday, only a deposit which I wish to be refunded

You are not entitled to your deposit back, these are the T&C's you agreed to when you booked the holiday:

70 days or more before travel: Loss of full deposit

69 - 63 days before travel: 30% of total booking price

62 - 49 days before travel: 50% of total booking price

48 - 29 days before travel: 70% of total booking price

28 - 15 days before travel: 90% of total booking price

14 - 0 days before travel: 100% of total booking price

You are choosing to cancel the holiday for your own personal reason, seats were never guaranteed, which you also agreed when you pre-selected them.

davylee07

Booked online early May 19 for holiday in October 19

bradders1983

davylee07 wrote: »

Booked online early May 19 for holiday in October 19

OK, so when I did a dummy booking earlier, it didnt actually tell me what seats were available in Premium before I paid anything, you stated you only got this option AFTER you had paid the deposit.

So what would you have done had you booked Premium, paid the deposit, and then found out there were no window seats left?

But as already stated, seat selection is never guaranteed.

davylee07

Prior to booking we called TUI at least twice who gave us information on the seats available. There were a number of window/aisle seats available and immediately after the last phone call we booked the holiday then the seats

peachyprice

davylee07 wrote: »

Prior to booking we called TUI at least twice who gave us information on the seats available. There were a number of window/aisle seats available and immediately after the last phone call we booked the holiday then the seats

That makes no difference whatsover, they still wouldn't have been guaranteed, so you're still not entitled to a refund of your deposit.

pelirocco

Just because it says they can in their T&C's doesn't make it right , , but unfortunately you may just be stuck with it . Do TUI , like other airlines hold back some seats until a few hours before the flight?

I have just come back from a TUI holiday , paid to book seats but we could'nt book our seats until a few days before the flight , luckily we flew on a Norwegian Air plane , as the last TUI plane we went on was awful

bradders1983

OK fair enough. You are on a hiding to nothing here though, your only options are going to be:

- ring up and see what can be done, which may be nothing as they have other customers to cater for
- put up with the new selections in premium and you may get a full or partial refund on the £700 extra you paid
- ask if there are window/aisle seats in the "cheap seats" and move to them instead
- lose your deposit and book something else, and run the risk of exactly the same thing happening again

You have no realistic chance of getting your main holiday deposit back at all.

davylee07

Thanks bradders1983. I've asked TUI for the reason they have relocated our seats and waiting on a response (48-72 hours!). I've tried the phone no. you gave however got through to TUI Germany who transferred me to TUI UK holiday line.
I've spoken to TUI regarding this on Wednesday however the call centre were unable to help and asked that I email pretravelcontactcentre@tui.co.uk
I've tried (and failed) to get a phone number for TUI's pretravelcontactcentre

bradders1983

Even though you dont seem to think it is, it will 99% be because of an aircraft change from a 9 or 7 row Premium plane down to a 7 or 5 one, and/or due to the ongoing MAX issues, TUI have a number of them they are unable to use.

https://www.tuigroup.com/en-en/media/press-releases/2019/2019-03-29-after-737-max

Following the grounding of the 737 MAX, TUI has made arrangements in order to guarantee customers’ holidays. The Group is utilising spare aircraft of its fleet.

Should it not become clear within the coming weeks that flying the 737 MAX will resume by mid-July, TUI will need to extend the abovementioned measures until the end of the summer season

It is quite possible that the final paragraph has now been acted upon as of a few days ago. September is still "summer season".