Haggling with Tui?

silvercar

DIY packages have their drawbacks - when something goes wrong you don't have TUI or Thomas Cook etc. to fall back on as Duty Of Care responsibility.

You’d think that, but it doesn’t always happen.

Current BA pilots strike. BA holidays cancelled and refunded people who were staying in our hotel on BA flights, we phoned BA and told them we had a separate hotel booking so needed to have flights and they rebooked our return flights on another airline. Annoying that we now have a flight home with 3 parts, but at least we get our holiday. And they’ve agreed to pay our out of pocket expenses.

leylandsunaddict

NoodleDoodleMan wrote: »

DIY packages have their drawbacks - when something goes wrong you don't have TUI or Thomas Cook etc. to fall back on as Duty Of Care responsibility.

We experienced this in Malta, April 2010, when the volcanic ash grounded all flights - we were with Thomas Cook who kept all clients in the same hotel room and board basis until they were able to charter an Air Malta aircraft to get everybody home.

A large DIY group in the hotel were obliged to pay upfront to remain in the hotel and make alternative transfers and flight arrangements to get back - cost them nearly 1000 Euro each.

It's the airline that is responsible for duty of care in the event of delays. If the large DIY group were flying Thomas Cook then the airline were in the wrong.

These days they are far more aware of their responsibilities under EU261 than they were 7 years ago. Whichever airline they were with it will have cost the airline more by having to repay them for flights on other airlines at walk up prices and accommodation that they can't get cut price rates for.

JGB1955

We were stuck in Malta too.. Stayed in our hotel and (six months later) had made a profit on the deal ( we booked a flight with Air Malta and the hotel direct).

NoodleDoodleMan

It was Ryanair - say no more - over 9 years ago.

Alan_Bowen

Very few independent travel agents even offer to sell TUI these days, TUI want to sell direct either online or through their own agents. If the hotel you want is only offered by TUI then you have no option but to book with them and see if you can get a minuscule discount, and you will be very lucky to get anything. TUI are simply not in the market to haggle, it is a case of take it or leave it

stephb34

The cheapest way to get a TUI holiday is to book online. Tui shops will match if you ask, they did use to charge a fee but i don't think they do anymore but they won't undercut the internet they don't need to. If its a Tui hotel its likely you can't buy it from anyone other than Tui but there is the odd one that is the exception to the rule.
When i book a family members i go through Quidco cashback site and they have paid out every time so far.

We were in the Dominican when the ash cloud struck, that was interesting. All package ops looked after their customers as they should. DIY was a different matter. Thomsons flight only customers didn't even get a free phone call to their insurers all they got was a flight home when they started flying out again. Cost them a fortune in hotel fees and i think Cosmos did the same. On the other hand Thomas Cook treated their flight only customers the same as their package customers. Paid for them to stay in their original hotels, i even think they gave them all inclusive even if they were only B+B (well they did in our hotel).

NoodleDoodleMan

It's the airline that is responsible for duty of care in the event of delays. If the large DIY group were flying Thomas Cook then the airline were in the wrong

Regardless of the airline issue, that still leaves the accommodation part of the DIY as a problem, to be paid by the holidaymaker.