Travel Agent VS DIY

CardinalWolsey

I've self-booked to the Maldives before, albeit in more stable times. They key thing now is the cancellation policies. The other point to make is that airlines typically only open up their schedules ~11 months in advance - so you're unlikely to be able to book for Easter 2022 until mid-May this year.

NoodleDoodleMan

Neil49 said:

Whatever you decide to do, don't use Lastminute.com 

They have one of the worst reputations in the travel industry. 

Recent news.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lastminute-com-faces-legal-action-unless-it-pays-outstanding-refunds

hylandz

Just wanted to give a little update...
So we tried to move the holiday to July with lastminute.com, they wanted £2500 extra, despite Gulf Air allowing the change for only the fair difference and the hotel having free cancellation!!
Decided to cancel and take a £2000 loss (still waiting on the partial refund)
Booked the flight with emirates for a decent price, flex ticket open for 24months and no penalty refund if we cancelled due to covid. Hotel is free cancellation at anytime. 
We decided to have an extended layover in Duabi on the way back for a few nights and we even added another person to our booking, was effortless and all done within 30 minutes. We feel so much more in control than with an agent.

Westin

hylandz said:

Just wanted to give a little update...
So we tried to move the holiday to July with lastminute.com, they wanted £2500 extra, despite Gulf Air allowing the change for only the fair difference and the hotel having free cancellation!!
Decided to cancel and take a £2000 loss (still waiting on the partial refund)
Booked the flight with emirates for a decent price, flex ticket open for 24months and no penalty refund if we cancelled due to covid. Hotel is free cancellation at anytime. 
We decided to have an extended layover in Duabi on the way back for a few nights and we even added another person to our booking, was effortless and all done within 30 minutes. We feel so much more in control than with an agent.

There are good Agents and there are poor and very poor Agents.  Not sure I would even class LM as an Agent but they certainly would not be my choice. They are a Swiss owed online seller with support staff based in Spain. 

I would like to think had you used a good UK based agent you would not have been nursing a £2k loss.

hylandz

Westin said:

hylandz said:

Just wanted to give a little update...
So we tried to move the holiday to July with lastminute.com, they wanted £2500 extra, despite Gulf Air allowing the change for only the fair difference and the hotel having free cancellation!!
Decided to cancel and take a £2000 loss (still waiting on the partial refund)
Booked the flight with emirates for a decent price, flex ticket open for 24months and no penalty refund if we cancelled due to covid. Hotel is free cancellation at anytime. 
We decided to have an extended layover in Duabi on the way back for a few nights and we even added another person to our booking, was effortless and all done within 30 minutes. We feel so much more in control than with an agent.

There are good Agents and there are poor and very poor Agents.  Not sure I would even class LM as an Agent but they certainly would not be my choice. They are a Swiss owed online seller with support staff based in Spain. 

I would like to think had you used a good UK based agent you would not have been nursing a £2k loss.

TUI in comparison when first booking were coming out a lot more. I think it was around £4k more. 
You live and learn and totally agree, not sure apart from the price you actually gain with booking with LM. 

Archergirl

July is off season in the Maldives so not sure why LM wanted to charge you more. 

hylandz

For anyone else having the same struggles with LM, we managed to get a full refund via our credit card.