mis sold holiday ?

mattyprice4004

A very expensive life lesson - it's your responsibility to know the entry requirements of where you're visiting.

Alan_Bowen

If you buy online, you become your own travel agent with all that entails. I agree that it seems unreasonable for a company to refuse to amend if both the hotel and the airline were willing to do so, but your contract was with the operator, not the individual suppliers. 

Westin

Not sure if the OP will return but I would be interested to also know which holiday company they used and how it was booked.

Even as pointed out the entry and visa requirements sit with the traveller to check out, I would have expected a good traditional travel agent or real tour operator to flag this up when booking. An errata type message appearing on the agents screen flagging the closeness to departure date and ensuring awareness of the need for a tourist card might be given.  

If the OP however found this late Cuba holiday bargain online and booked with one of the shonky online travel agents then such a warning message may not have appeared or may have just been missed in the excitement.

Let nothing so minor as checking entry requirements to a country get in the way of a cheap holiday bargain.

jonesMUFCforever

Well the OP did have a sneaky look at the thread at 8.48am - perhaps the answers was not to his liking or having a good laugh if he is a troll.

Boot67

ha all thanks for the advice it was what i expected  the travel agent was loveholidays! very unhelpful flight was with TUI who have been really good offering to amend,, yes its been an expensive lesson but the travel agent should make aware the fact of visas on a late booking out of courtesy , hey ho its happened life go,s on !

Pollycat

A 'proper' travel agent may well make customers aware of visa requirements but LoveHolidays...?

Well, now you know.

Personally, I feel that the prospective traveller should take full and sole responsibility for ensuring they can meet entry requirements, rather than relying on a travel agent.

You're lucky that TUI actually agreed to even speak to you.

Often when you book through a 3rd party, airlines will not deal with someone who has booked through a 3rd party as you are not their customer. LoveHolidays (and the myriad similar companies) are the customer.

I guess an expensive lesson learned.

Thanks for returning to the thread.

Sandtree

You mean like it says multiple times in the T&Cs you are required to confirm that you agree to before buying?

Westin

Just did a test booking on LoveHolidays.co.uk for a package departing next week to Varadero including a TUI flight and had this errata message displayed before entering the passenger information -

Pollycat

Perhaps the OP could say if he made the booking online or over the phone.

And if over the phone, is he 100% certain that visas were not mentioned.

I'd guess that these companies work from a script so even if he booked over the phone, I think it would have been mentioned during the booking process.

bagand96

Pollycat said:

Perhaps the OP could say if he made the booking online or over the phone.

And if over the phone, is he 100% certain that visas were not mentioned.

I'd guess that these companies work from a script so even if he booked over the phone, I think it would have been mentioned during the booking process.

I would imagine, when booking over the phone, the agents are using the same system as the website.  Might look very different, the website is just a consumer "front end" for the reservation system, but if it displays the errata to the consumer as Westin shows, it would usually show it to the agent too, and they should pass it on.

Still firmly in the camp that it's the traveler's responsibility.  Whilst good travel agents might advise their customer's of visa requirements, how can you verify they are correct and up to date without checking yourself.  It's so easy these days too. If you book directly with an airline, you are very unlikely to get specific visa advice.