Turquoise Holidays - Don't ever purchase a holiday with this company - Shambolic!

Banksense

I'll keep this short and sweet but if you've booked a holiday with these, make sure you get your full refund! Your contractually entitled to it.

We booked a 2 week holiday with them to Sri Lanka/Maldives. A week prior to the departure date Sri Lanka closed it's doors to anyone outside of Sri Lanka so clearly the holiday could not proceed. The weekend of departure the UK went into Lockdown. They first all of confirmed we would receive a full refund. Subsequently it became a partial refund, with the rationale being "we can only give you what we can get back". The terms of any agreement a consumer has with them demonstrate that they MUST offer the option of a full, prompt refund if a significant change has occurred to the holiday. If you didn't know this, ensure you argue this, it's within your right as a consumer.

What then ensued was an escalation to their sales director who blatantly flouted the contractual terms they hold with us as customers in order to protect their own business. We were refused a full refund, with the director now attempting to label £375 of the cost of the original holiday a "cancellation fee". I reminded him that we made no cancellation and his previous advisor had given a completely opposing reason for why they would only offer a partial refund. The conversation ended in dispute. And we filed for chargeback claim with our bank the following day. I come from a banking background so knew that based simply on the terms our dispute would succeed based on goods not received/as described. 

Shortly after, we were contacted by Turquoise asking us for our bank details in order to return the funds. We were told a full refund would be forthcoming (contrary to the directors previous comments). We waited a week, chased again and were advised they should have asked for the card details and not our bank details. Again we were assured the refund would be forthcoming. At this point the bank were happy to raise a chargeback claim on our behalf which was instigated. 

Low and behold a refund is received, minus the £375 we were promised. Days later we contacted turquoise and they organised the remaining £375 to our accounts. Had a chargeback proceeded the bank confirmed it would have succeeded. Thankfully it didn't have to.

We were fortunate, I realised that. But do not let these large companies fob you off when they haven't provided with you with what you have paid for. If the terms of the agreement don't cover you, a chargeback claim in most cases should.