Emergency travel visa

Longwe21

Hi all. 
Grateful if you could help me on this one, please. My family and I booked a holiday to Greece with Loveholidays to depart on 12 August. The final payment for the holiday was debited from my credit card on 04 July. Greece is one of the countries that has been cleared by the FCO. Unless something comes up in the next couple of weeks, we are okay to travel.

The problem:
Due to our nationality, my wife and I need to apply for a visa for Greece. The GVCW Visa Application Center for Greece has no appointments until 21 August. Therefore, on 9 July we contacted the Greek Consulate who referred us to the same center and asked them to assist us to book an appointment. GVCW emailed us on 10 July and offered to book us an emergency appointment on condition that we provide all the mandatory supporting documents as per the Consulate's requirements. One of the documents required is proof of fully paid return travel tickets with receipt or payment confirmation showing no outstanding balance due to be paid. The problem we have is that the PDF booking confirmation document which has flight, hotel, transfer details including the total amount for the holiday still shows the last installment as outstanding. As I said before, this installment was paid on 04 July but is yet to be cleared from our account. However, our payment summary on the account shows a zero balance which is a true reflection of the account to date. Thus, I forwarded the PDF booking confirmation (showing the last outstanding installment) plus a screenshot of the account summary (showing zero balance) to GVCW but they wrote back and I quote "kindly note that the final booking confirmation as PDF from "Loveholidays" clearly stating Oustanding balance: GBP 0 is required. The screenshot named "Payment summary" is not sufficient for visa application purposes. You can send us the final confirmation as soon as you receive it so that we can allocate your appointment."

Since then we have been trying to get in touch with Loveholidays to ask them to update or email us the up to date PDF booking confirmation document for visa application but with no success. According to the information on their website, the ONLY way to contact them is through webchat. However, their webchat is forever unavailable and every time I try to log on, all I get is "Sorry, all of our live chat agents are currently busy. Please try refreshing this page in a few minutes". Surprisingly, this message stops displaying one hour before the final hour of work, 5 pm. I have tried countless times but with no success. Each time I try, I take a screenshot of the page. Also, I have posted on their Twitter page, sent direct messages on Twitter, contacted them through Resolver, and emailed them using an email address I had from the previous holiday we booked to Spain. All this with no luck at all. Their phone number is unavailable.

We need a minimum of 18 working days before travel to apply for our visa at GVCW offices in Manchester. We are both in full-time work and getting time off work in the coming week will be challenging too. Our main concern is that we are running out of time. The whole holiday now rests on the visa application. If we don't get a response in time, we won't travel. 

What should we do? Please advise. Thanks

bradders1983

Generally your inabaility or ability to ensure you have the correct visas for your trip is absolutely none of the concern of any airline or package company. 

Section 16:

https://www.onthebeach.co.uk/terms_of_business

They are under no obligation to refund you, or change the date, as you have failed to do this for whatever reason, your fault or not.

Longwe21

I do understand that and we are applying for visas. However, all we want is an up to date booking confirmation showing zero balance to submit to the Consulate as part of supporting evidence. We paid for the holiday in full on 04 July but the documents on our account show the last installment as still outstanding. We have all other supporting documents for visa application ready apart from the booking confirmation which has been rejected by the Consulate.

Westin

Do they have a Manage My Booking type facility on their website where you can see and download an up to date holiday confirmation with the new Nil balance?

Longwe21

Yes they do. All along they were updating the account balance each time we made a payment. However, since we made our final payment on 04 July, they haven't.  I do check on Manage My Booking everyday, just in case.

silvercar

Book and pay for fully cancellable return tickets. Submit proof. Get visa. cancel tickets.

sheramber

Have you tried live chat os soon as they open at 9am or even a couple minutes before?

Longwe21

Yes I have, everyday actually. I tried today at 09.04, 09.06, 09.10...and has been getting the same response till now. I am still trying 

Voyager2002

bradders1983 said:

Generally your inabaility or ability to ensure you have the correct visas for your trip is absolutely none of the concern of any airline or package company. 

Section 16:

https://www.onthebeach.co.uk/terms_of_business

They are under no obligation to refund you, or change the date, as you have failed to do this for whatever reason, your fault or not.

It would really help if you read the question before responding. The OP makes it clear that in order to get a visa he needs an accurate financial statement from his tour operator (clearly showing the payments that he has made).

Alan_Bowen

How about a copy of your bank statement showing the last payment has been collected by Love Holidays? They are clearly not set up to deal with humans, it is an online business that appears, looking at the comments here, to be contacting people literally at the last minute, (another company that appears to have been overwhelmed), so you need to take action yourself to prove the payment, as they are unlikely to react in time

Longwe21

I managed to get through on the webchat to Loveholidays around 1 pm and sent my request. However,  I have not received any acknowledgement up to now. It wasn't a two-way communication. I just hope the request has been received and that they will act on it soon. Will post an update.

Thanks for all your messages.