late to pay full amount and cancelled/

bergh

Hello, my parents are in their 70's and booked with Tui for 2 weeks in feb 2020. Reminders to pay balance of full amount went to spam and mum deleted without looking as address came from "webadmin" with no mention of Tui. So she missed the deadline for final payment on the 18/12 and they cancelled the hols plus a loss of £500. This is despite having had a conversation with a TUi agent on 16 and 17 Dec as she wanted to add another week onto the holiday to make it 3 weeks. The agent did not say "by the way your balance needs paying" to remind her. have rung today to explain emails were thought to be dangerous ones and they will not relent. They will need to rebook a new holiday and are £500 down. I explained Tui would actually get more money if they showed compassion, waivered the £500 "fine" and let them add an extra week at over £1000. No luck. can someone advise where they could go for further help, advice etc. My parents are devastated and feel old and stupid??? many thanks

BoGoF

Not sure there is anywhere to go. Even without reminders they should have known when balance should have been paid by. The booking confirmation normally tells you this.

The_Fat_Controller

How do you know if the email from "webadmin" was the reminder from TUI if it was deleted without opening it ?

Have you had other emails from TUI with that address that were read ?

IvanOpinion

The_Fat_Controller wrote: »

How do you know if the email from "webadmin" was the reminder from TUI if it was deleted it without opening it ?

Have you had other emails from TUI with that address that were read ?

I would guess, given this was only a few days ago, they went into their deleted items folder and found it

The_Fat_Controller

I see in the OP the were "reminders" , so I guess they were missed more than once !

I wonder if the cancellation notice also went to spam.

I am afraid you have learnt an expensive lesson.

TELLIT01

Even in the spam folder it would still show the senders name. Any communication I've had from TUI has always shown it as coming from TUI. I wonder if the parents were clearing the spam folder without looking where the post had come from.

Irrespective of that, as others have said, they should have been aware of the date payment was due. It was poor in the shop that no mention was made, assuming it was apparent to staff there that payment was still outstanding.

bergh

Thank you all for above, I went into recovery folder and found the emails which had "webadmin" as their title. Only on opening the email do you see it is "webadmin@tui" so my mother had looked, assumed it was spam and deleted. Yes, an expensive lesson learned. It seems the only way would be a compassionate gesture from Tui but they are not willing! A warning to others I hope! many thanks for all replies.

photome

I think the warning should be to use a calendar like we used to for reminders,and not be relying on an email for a reminder to pay

pattycake

I use Tui quite a bit, in fact 4 holidays in 2019 with them. I use the calendar on my phone and input the dates that payments are required usually a few days ahead of due date. That way, a reminder pops up. I use the same method to remind me to choose seats and do online check in.

stephb34

TELLIT01 wrote: »

Even in the spam folder it would still show the senders name. Any communication I've had from TUI has always shown it as coming from TUI. I wonder if the parents were clearing the spam folder without looking where the post had come from.

Irrespective of that, as others have said, they should have been aware of the date payment was due. It was poor in the shop that no mention was made, assuming it was apparent to staff there that payment was still outstanding.

Where in the original post does it state it was booked in a shop?
Reading it, i would have said it was booked online or by phone.
Usually shop staff chase and chase balances by phone, email and letter to save having to cancel any bookings and lose the sale.

bagand96

Only thing I can suggest, which you may already have done, is to try and escalate. In most companies, the frontline customer service agents have very little authority to go against company policies. If you can manage to speak with someone more senior they might be able to make the decision to reinstate the booking, given its a genuine mistake and you want to pay the balance and go. No guarantees of course.

A little bit of social media [STRIKE]shaming[/STRIKE] interaction may help.