TUI corona virus cancellation appaulling

Livab90

I have been really understanding and patient waiting for TUI to contact me AS INSTRUCTED by them via email, regarding my holiday that was booked and paid for, for 1st june for my 30th birthday, I didnt want a refund I just wanted to change the date so a few weeks ago decided to start ringing to either be cut off or spend hours at a time on hold with no response, today I call and get straight through (first time this week I've called) to be told "my colleague beat you to it and cancelled your booking on the 8th as you didnt bother to call sooner" his words!! Excuse me? Didnt bother? Check my phone records! Not to mention I was told not to call! So someone took the time to look at and cancel my booking but not call me to see if that's what I wanted as I just wanted to move the date to next year! Which now is not possible he says and has rocketed in price! So I now have to wait 4-6 weeks for a voucher refund, I didnt want a refund! I can use it against a now more expensive holiday which I've since looked up and is sold out! Why did nobody call? Their customer service skills are shocking and I've now gone from understanding and patient to absolutely livid! This can not be right surely. Is it also a coincidence that the first time I call this week I get through since they went ahead and cancelled on monday?

bradders1983

There is already a huge TUI thread.

r_r_b_91

Regardless if there is already a huge thread this lady still has a right to put her own and might not have seen the other thread. I really hope she can be supported and helped to regain her holiday that she has saved money to pay for. 

bagand96

In all honesty I doubt there is much you can do.  You could make a formal complaint and try and escalate it, but if the holiday isn't available then there's not much they can do.  You would always have had to pay any extra in price to move the dates, and holiday prices are dynamic so will move up and down a lot.

There's still a long way to go before the travel industry is anything like back to normal, so it might just be better to take a cash refund.  It's then money in your bank and you can shop around again when things are more certain.

Pollycat

r_r_b_91 said:

Regardless if there is already a huge thread this lady still has a right to put her own and might not have seen the other thread. I really hope she can be supported and helped to regain her holiday that she has saved money to pay for. 

Board guides have been moving threads to the 'huge' TUI, JET2, Easyjet threads to keep things together and stop the board being clogged up with similar or same questions.

Anyway, the OP has also duplicated this post on the 'huge' TUI refund thread here (page 94):

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6119390/tui-refunds-thread/p94

I have responded on that thread and here is my post:

Pollycat said:

Livab90 said:

 have been really understanding and patient waiting for TUI to contact me AS INSTRUCTED by them via email, regarding my holiday that was booked and paid for, for 1st june for my 30th birthday, I didnt want a refund I just wanted to change the date so a few weeks ago decided to start ringing to either be cut off or spend hours at a time on hold with no response, today I call and get straight through (first time this week I've called) to be told "my colleague beat you to it and cancelled your booking on the 8th as you didnt bother to call sooner" his words!! Excuse me? Didnt bother? Check my phone records! Not to mention I was told not to call! So someone took the time to look at and cancel my booking but not call me to see if that's what I wanted as I just wanted to move the date to next year! Which now is not possible he says and has rocketed in price! So I now have to wait 4-6 weeks for a voucher refund, I didnt want a refund! I can use it against a now more expensive holiday which I've since looked up and is sold out! Why did nobody call? Their customer service skills are shocking and I've now gone from understanding and patient to absolutely livid! This can not be right surely. Is it also a coincidence that the first time I call this week I get through since they went ahead and cancelled on monday?

Liv

This sounds really odd.

TUI themselves cancelled all holidays up to 11th June (can't remember the date they announced it but it was a few weeks ago), then they cancelled holidays from 12/6 to 30/6 (our holiday was included in that, we got the cancellation email on 29/5) and a few days ago, they cancelled holidays from 1st July to 10th July.

It wasn't up to customers to ring up and cancel so maybe you confused the message.

They didn't 'look at and cancel my booking but not call me to see if that's what I wanted' - it was a blanket cancellation for all customers due to travel up to a certain date. Your 1st June holiday has been cancelled for some time.

We received an email cancelling our 12/6 holiday (as I said above).

Did you receive an email?

Are you aware of the 20% booking incentive that TUI are offering?

You don't say how you booked but this may be helpful:

We understand that rather than waiting for your refund credit, you may want to amend your booking with your up to 20% booking incentive straight away, so we’ve set up our systems to make this possible.  

You can easily amend your booking on the  Manage my Booking page . The exceptions to this are if you added insurance, parking or an airport hotel to your booking, or your booking is a cruise that has been cancelled after 30 July 2020 – unfortunately you won’t be able to amend online.  

This ^^^^ only applies if you booked online or via the app and didn't book the extras mentioned.

The 20% will go some way towards your rebooked holiday.

I don't understand why you were told 'it was not possible' to rebook for next year - unless what he actually said was 'that holiday is unavailable or fully booked, which is not the same thing. But that doesn't make sense if he went on to say prices have rocketed because that indicates the holiday is available, just more expensive.

I don't think you will have to wait 4-6 weeks for your voucher refund (who told you this?).

TUI say:

We understand that you may not be ready to book again just yet, so the refund credit gives you the flexibility to book your travel in future. Plus, if your original booking was for a package holiday, you’ll get a separate booking incentive up to 20%. For example, if you paid £2,000 for your holiday booking you now have £2,400 to spend. You will receive a separate email four weeks from your original departure date with all the relevant information, if you were due to cruise from 1 July onwards you’ll receive it by the end of June.

so you should receive your refund credit by 29th June.

You can see that what the OP says doesn't fit with what TUI have actually done.

I know this because I've been keeping a close eye on the TUI website and TUI posts on here and Tripadvisor because I also had a holiday booked with them.

I think the OP needs to come back and clarify a few things.