Package holiday - awful building work

jobrayford

Hi, we have just returned from Kenya. The holiday would have been fantastic, but for the building work going on. Rhe builders were there every single day from 7.am to at least 5.00pm for the while 2 weeks we were there. The noise at times was unbearable, and the dust so bad that the pool attendants put nasks on! There were 3 pools, but one, the infinity pool that we were looking forward to using, was a no-go area because this was exactly where the building work was going on. There was really only one we could use, and this was still very noisy and dusty. We did complain to the manager, but he tried to twist it around, saying the problem was our room position, and he upgraded us to a better room. That wasn't the problem! We have checked since we got back, and there is one word in the travel companies bumf that mentions that 'This upscale resort is 1 mile from.. ' , which we hadn't noticed/understood. Apart from this, there was no.mention of any building work. It really did spoil our enjoyment of this special holiday. Could we have any redress? Are we within our rights to ask for compensation? 

NoodleDoodleMan

Need more specifics - name of hotel and which travel provider ?

Can you please clarify the relevance of the quote of "This upscale resort is 1 mile from.." in context - what is the missing part ?

If you hadn't noticed it you would not have been able to understand it.

Did you formally complain to the rep of said travel company - if so, what was their response ?

jobrayford

Hotel name: Voyager Beach Resort. Travel provider: LastMinute.com. No mention anywhere on the hotels website of any building work going on. 

I included the quote because of the one word 'upscale'. Does this mean building work? There is nothing relevant in the rest of the quote - literally tell you where it is. 

We didn't have a rep and I couldn't find out how to complain to Lastminute via the Web. 

TELLIT01

'Upscale' does not indicate building work.  It suggests it's a 'high end' resort e.g. 4 or 5 star equivalent, but they are being careful not to actually state that.

Westin

When you select to travel with LastMinute.com you don't pay for and therefore don't receive Rep Service.  Lastminute.com won't have any staff in Mombasa or Kenya - and I suspect no LM staff have even visited the hotel.  

Lastminute will probably have sourced the hotel from a third party intermediary or bed bank.  Information about any building works needs to be fed up the chain from hotelier to bed bank to LM.

You can certainly write to LM and lay out your complaint and what recompense you are seeking but I fear this will be a frustrating process. In turn LM may contact the bed bank and/or hotel to seek information and pass on your complaint. Ultimately it will be down the the hotelier to agree to any compensation and as you spoke with them whilst on holiday and received a room upgrade they might just respond back that the matter was dealt with and action taken.

NoodleDoodleMan

"We didn't have a rep and I couldn't find out how to complain to Lastminute via the Web."

LM appear on these message boards too frequently unfortunately - always with customer issues of various types.

I had a quick look at reviews on TripAdvisor - negative comments very much in the minority, however that does not mean you don't have grounds for complaints.

I notice TUI offer it as an off the shelf package deal - that would have been my "go to" choice had I wanted to stay there.

Hopefully you'll get some form of recompense.

Ganga

What level of compensation are you looking for ?did the building work ruin your holiday completely ,they will only ( they might not ) refund what is relevant.