Best and worst travel firms

Nebulous2

This has been appearing in the papers today, but I haven’t seen it on here. I didn’t vote either. 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/05/mse-travel-survey-results/?_ga=2.121064202.344673441.1586404046-1645880839.1585021315

Lastminute has had me impatiently waiting for information on my cancelled flight for two months now, and I see they are well to the bottom of the list. 

Butts

Nebulous2 said:

This has been appearing in the papers today, but I haven’t seen it on here. I didn’t vote either. 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/05/mse-travel-survey-results/?_ga=2.121064202.344673441.1586404046-1645880839.1585021315

Lastminute has had me impatiently waiting for information on my cancelled flight for two months now, and I see they are well to the bottom of the list. 

Even more reason for me not to hand over my balance to Last Minute .com when it becomes due in July - unless the picture is a lot clearer....

Virgin seem to be flying under the radar as a "Big Name" who if you read the Florida Forums have not refunded anyone yet directly.
Amazingly there are still people on there paying fealty to "Beardy" and queuing up to book for next year.
Neb do you (like me) regret booking with LM ? - would you ever use them again ?

Life__Goes__On

Judging on what companies I've seen (and not seen) on this forum that poll seems about right.
(I hadn't seen it before either)

Nebulous2

Butts said:

Nebulous2 said:

This has been appearing in the papers today, but I haven’t seen it on here. I didn’t vote either. 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/05/mse-travel-survey-results/?_ga=2.121064202.344673441.1586404046-1645880839.1585021315

Lastminute has had me impatiently waiting for information on my cancelled flight for two months now, and I see they are well to the bottom of the list. 

Even more reason for me not to hand over my balance to Last Minute .com when it becomes due in July - unless the picture is a lot clearer....

Virgin seem to be flying under the radar as a "Big Name" who if you read the Florida Forums have not refunded anyone yet directly.
Amazingly there are still people on there paying fealty to "Beardy" and queuing up to book for next year.
Neb do you (like me) regret booking with LM ? - would you ever use them again ?

I certainly do regret using them. I’m not sure at this point that I’ll ever do a long-haul holiday again.  If I do I’ll book direct with the airline.

My usual holiday is in France, and we’ve almost always driven. Eurocamp, Gites, tent in a trailer and most recently caravan, we must have been about 15 times. I expect to go back to the familiar in the immediate future. 

linmarie

I just want to mention the lovely, person-centred Sunvil travel. We booked a Villa holiday in Cyprus with Sunvil  for the end of March. Obviously it was cancelled. We initially asked for a refund but after discussion with Sunvil, went for a Refund Credit Note for our deposit and a straight refund for the rest. As we then heard nothing more for a month I feared that Sunvil were proving as intransigent as many of these other firms so I sent a strongly worded email only to receive a very apologetic phone call explaining that they’d actually lost a crucial member of staff through Covid-19 and were trying their best. Within a couple of days the refund was paid into my account and the RCN emailed. Thank you Sunvil 

SevenOfNine

Great list being compiled by ptr travel info on Twitter, updated regularly.

Butts

SevenOfNine said:

Great list being compiled by ptr travel info on Twitter, updated regularly.

It's easy to be good when you have half a dozen customers, most of them are small niche operators.
BA or Tui are probably bigger than all the ones on the left put together.
The biggest "tightwads" largely flying under the radar to my mind are Virgin Holidays. They are on the ugly list but "Beardy" has for once vanished and not make any public announcements on the debacle.
He's to busy going around with the begging bowl to have time for his poor customers.

Westin

Butts said:

SevenOfNine said:

Great list being compiled by ptr travel info on Twitter, updated regularly.

It's easy to be good when you have half a dozen customers, most of them are small niche operators.
BA or Tui are probably bigger than all the ones on the left put together.
The biggest "tightwads" largely flying under the radar to my mind are Virgin Holidays. They are on the ugly list but "Beardy" has for once vanished and not make any public announcements on the debacle.
He's to busy going around with the begging bowl to have time for his poor customers.

Good point and I suspect if the survey results took into account number of bookings or perhaps licensed passenger numbers in comparison to complaints the traffic light view would be very different.

That said, both Kuoni and Trailfinders have come out well.

bagand96

Nebulous2 said:

I certainly do regret using them. I’m not sure at this point that I’ll ever do a long-haul holiday again.  If I do I’ll book direct with the airline.

My usual holiday is in France, and we’ve almost always driven. Eurocamp, Gites, tent in a trailer and most recently caravan, we must have been about 15 times. I expect to go back to the familiar in the immediate future. 

If it's any consolation, anecdotal evidence on these forums shows French suppliers are being as fast and loose with the regulations as anyone else.  In fact the French Government is complicit in saying they don't have to cash refund.

Nebulous2

bagand96 said:

Nebulous2 said:

I certainly do regret using them. I’m not sure at this point that I’ll ever do a long-haul holiday again.  If I do I’ll book direct with the airline.

My usual holiday is in France, and we’ve almost always driven. Eurocamp, Gites, tent in a trailer and most recently caravan, we must have been about 15 times. I expect to go back to the familiar in the immediate future. 

If it's any consolation, anecdotal evidence on these forums shows French suppliers are being as fast and loose with the regulations as anyone else.  In fact the French Government is complicit in saying they don't have to cash refund.

Thanks. It’s a matter of scale though. The most I’ve ever paid for a crossing with car and caravan was about £500 each way for a long crossing to Bilbao. A short crossing can be not much more than £100 return. Campsites are pretty much turn up and go. The biggest expenses are eating out and fuel.