Tui tel no’s ‘say call back later’

bradders1983

les1466 said:

bradders1983 said:

I have tried. They never hung up on me.

bradders1983 said:

I have tried. They never hung up on me.

bradders1983 said:

Indeed. Started at 1.35pm yesterday on 2 phones, 19 mins later on my 130th attempt I got into the queue (option 1 and then option 5). Wasnt cut off, spoke to a very nice lady, £400 on the way back to me.  Just make sure you are nice when you get through, it isnt their fault.

Trust me I will be really nice, I will be relieved, over joyed, ecstatic.... my problem s getting them to answer... 

Did you ring off a landline? Whats the trick??? 

Unfortunately I only have a mobile phone, which to be honest Im glad about as it shows the number of times I have tried ringing.

Bradders 1983. Please if you are not working at the moment because of the virus situation. Give it a try today. I am not making this up. What you have to realise is, this is building up and up and up every day with people trying to get refunds. My partner said to me after all the trying, "why not try in a few weeks?". Well the problem with that is, once you've waited for your your credit code it will be a week or so after you were supposed to go on holiday. I waited patiently as told by TUI as they were unindated and to wait until Id received the code. The thing is, as time moves along more and more people are receiving the codes, more and more holidays have come to pass that people are no going on.More and more people are trying to get they refunds. It has now built to an epidemic rate. You were probably one of the earl ones o get your code. Im not sure when you were due to fly but I bet it was near the beginning of April. I was due to fly the 30th. I received my codes on the 7th. Now it is impossible. Im sure when you got through it was far easier.... Please believe me and try, no it is impossible!!! 

TUI need to man up and change this ridiculous way to recoup money. 

A few things:

- my holiday was on the 13th August and cancelled last week. I didnt wait for a voucher.
- there is little point me trying. I am not you and wont be able to sort your issue out.
- i had two mobiles. Dont wait for the voice to tell you what option, just press it as soon as you can. As soon as I heard the word Sorry i hung up and tried again.

Butts

So does anyone know how many people are actually manning the phones at home or wherever ?
Also what volume of calls are they receiving on a daily basis ?

skadupuk

les1466 said:

bagand96 said:

les1466 said:

bagand96 said:

Yeah of course they are employing people to sit there all day answering a phone and hanging up.

Have you tried????? Probably no. Please try and get through.  after 100's of calls AND the phone put down you will realise that you haven't a clue what you are talking about.... In the real world we like to believe what you are saying is true, however, in this case it simply is not!!!  Try and see.... TUI do NOT want to pay people back because it will no doubt be the end of the company if they do. They offer silly incentives instead f offering 2 buttons... One for there offer, on for the refund.... That would of made everyone's life a lot easier. Yet they have made it EXTREMELY  difficult to get back what is rightfully ours.

Anyway, please try and see. 

Well I don't have any bookings with them, so calling them would be a little counter intuitive, and probably block a place in the queue for a genuine customer.  I do have bookings with other companies though and have had varying levels of success in getting in touch with them - it's the same with many large travel companies.  Their customer relations departments are simply not set up for dealing with the volume of customers that need to get in touch. 

There's a large TUI thread with a number of forum posters saying they've successfully got through and managed to get a refund, some reporting that quite quickly too.  Maybe they all imagined though, or maybe they made it up.

Well thats very convenient when you have no clue what its like to be in our position, one of the 100,000s that cant get through, cant get a refund!!! We can all read the information that TUI are stating, as you do, but your not being constructive by talking about a situation you have absolutely no clue about!!! 
Do yourself a favour, don worry about the 100,000's trying, because you are so concerned about someone losing there place.... Give it a try if you have a spare hour and try before preaching!!! Here is the number 020 3451 2868 - Then press 2, 2 and then 1.

I'll make you a promise. If you get through and speak to an advisor I will give you my credit vouchers for £2500.

Thats how sure I am!!

I get that it's frustrating and that you are angry about the situation, but it is possible to get through I have arranged refunds for 2 holidays at this point (received one, and part of the other, there are delays on some payment methods for refunds and I used mixed methods for one booking).

You need to dial, redial, redial and redial some more, it's not easy as it requires you to have the time and patience to keep going, memorise the numbers to press and keep pressing them as soon as you get through. 40-50 minutes redialling and 1 hour + on hold after that.

It's worth keeping an eye on their Facebook page/Twitter as I know that yesterday they had phone line issues so no one could get through, my calls were the day before and last week.

It would be great of they could offer an online refund request system, but given the backlog on refunds already (for the payment methods that cannot be processed by their front line staff), the surge of requests means it's not likely you'll get your refund any sooner.

Given I have had a full refund and partial for the other very quickly, 2 days after the request (and without waiting for the refund credit note), I really can't see that there is some kind of conspiracy to not pay people back.  

rosiesposies

if you call on 2 phones, you take two channels. there is limits on how many channels are available to handle inbound calls. 
For the question on manning the phones 24 hours a day, if your job was normally 8-6 would you be happy to all of a sudden be working midnight to 9am? no employer can change the terms of contact at the drop of a hat. and all contact centres are bound by the amount of bodies they employ. you either put all your resource into one pot or stretch it thinly across longer hours. 
this is nothing more than common sense. 
You cannot expect an operation that handles 20K calls a month to suddenly take over 300K and still provide consistent service. the public seems to be more than sympathetic to the demand placed on the NHS yet step into the private sector and the service workers are getting treated like dirt, and putting up with no end of abuse from angry consumers nearly every minute of their low paid shifts. The comment about 'getting their hands on someone' was just totally gobsmacking. 
Like any other business, operational departments and functions are normally the LAST place businesses invest in. And of course they should offer an online refund option, but maybe their systems are so outdated they cannot handle that. And judging on by whats going to happen, do you think ANY business in the travel industry wants to invest any capital in updating systems at the minute? 

DeePeeR

has anyone has anyone received refund from TUI via PAYPAL. When I eventually get through on phone I’m told I’ll be refunded in a few days due to having paid via PayPal. 6 weeks later still nothing. Has anyone got refund via PayPal.?

RalphWiggam

How much is the telephone rate, does anyone know?  I have been trying for 9 weeks now to get my promised refund.   The only time I have been able to speak to a person was after 20 minutes, its was a terrible line and the man just said I needed to ring the refund line and gave me another number which I still have not managed to get through on

bagand96

Butts said:

So does anyone know how many people are actually manning the phones at home or wherever ?
Also what volume of calls are they receiving on a daily basis ?

I posted this yesterday - I've read that TUI UK callcentre in normal times would receive around 20,000 calls a day.  It's currently receiving 300,000.  Obviously, no way of verifying those numbers, but I'd expect they're representative of the situation.  Anecdotally it seems they are utilising working from home for call centre staff. 

Any company will set up their customer services departments with a capacity to handle x% of customers per hour/day/week/month.  They use prediction and past data to model their capacity.  Unfortunately, nobody foresaw the scale of this situation, it's pretty hard to just increase your capacity 15 fold, even in normal times, let alone in the middle of a pandemic and lockdown.

I'm not defending TUI, or any other company, but it is the reality of the situation, frustrating as everyone may find it.

bradders1983

RalphWiggam said:

How much is the telephone rate, does anyone know?  I have been trying for 9 weeks now to get my promised refund.   The only time I have been able to speak to a person was after 20 minutes, its was a terrible line and the man just said I needed to ring the refund line and gave me another number which I still have not managed to get through on

All the numbers i have seen are 020 numbers so are included in all mobile minutes packages and are classed as a national call on landlines.

Emma1293

Well I have tried Monday, Tuesday and today (yesterday I had a few conference calls and didn't want to risk getting answered and then not being able to speak to the person at Tui due to work. It's taken me 186 calls to get through to the hold line today, I used two phones but sadly I'm now stuck on the phone I didn't really want to tie up. No big deal. I've been on hold 30 mins so far, but it seems more positive than previous attempts! I now the script off the top of my head and fear I'll be speaking it in my sleep. Will update if/when I speak to a person

Update at 13.05, got through to someone, low quality line but she has said my refund will be with me in 10 working days and i'll receive confirmation of this in the next five minutes

SevenOfNine

DeePeeR said:

has anyone has anyone received refund from TUI via PAYPAL. When I eventually get through on phone I’m told I’ll be refunded in a few days due to having paid via PayPal. 6 weeks later still nothing. Has anyone got refund via PayPal.?

Someone on the massive TUI thread said ONLY the Finance Team can process Paypal, Direct Debit payments & funds where the original payment isn't available now (like expired card).  That may make things even slower for those methods.

I think TUI brought some of this on themselves, initially telling people they could only amend or have a Refund Credit Voucher, when they should have got stuck in immediately processing refund requests, they knew full well what the law on that is but held back in the hope the Government would change it in their favour. By dragging their feet they started the backlog ball rolling.

They are capable of getting staff back to work any day now with a bit of prep.  Keep the stores closed to the public, safe distance for staff (not necessarily full staff return in each store or every store used), & specifically to handle refund calls.