Airtours are pants :-(

DID_3

Just need to vent so bear with me.

Waaaaaay back in September 03 I booked 3 seats for a flight leaving Bristol at 08.00. You know the line "book early to avoid disapointment" blah, blah, blah so I did. The tickets arrived in the post and guess what? Yup the flight times have changed. We now depart at 17.30!! no notice of this change has been recieved in any shape or form.

Seems the 08.00 flight has been cancelled plus our departure time back to the UK has been been brought foward to 12.45 so in effect thanks to those consumer aware peeps at Airtours we have effectivly lost 2 days of our holiday. Well gee thanks Airtours you sooooo totaly suck at being an Airline. All I get from them is the sound of shutters coming down and the usual corporate bullsh*t being repeated and repeated. Looosers. That is the very last time I ever use them. And I travel about 5-6 times a year. Well, they can bite me.

PS

I had to change my airport car parking times also paid for in advance so I have lost money at that.

I also had to amend my car hire in the resort, again paid for in advance so I loose a day's car hire and I have to return it earlier than planned.

Getting down off my soapbox now, still not happy chappy though.

Fatboy_NSS

How much of a change have they made to your return flight? According to their T&Cs, if they reduce your time in the resort by more than 12 hours then it's a "major change" and you can receive compensation or cancel for a full refund. The delay to your outbound flight is 9 1/2 hours, so if the return flight has been brought forward by more than 2 1/2 hours you have claim.

DID_3

Thanks for replying, here are the details of the flight changes they made.

Original Times

Outbound Brs - Mahon Departs 08.00hrs
Inbound Mahon - Brs Departs 19.00hrs

NEW TIMES

Outbound Brs - Mahon Departs 17.30hrs
Inbound Mahon - Brs Departs 12.45hrs

As you can see its a considerable difference. I would be keen to know more about making a claim of some sort. I have no wish to cancel as its our family holiday and we have been looking forward to it for a long time.

Many Thanks

Fatboy_NSS

Based on the times you'v given, they've reduced youe time in resort by 14 1/4 hours. I was looking at the terms and conditions which state that anything over 12 hours is a "major change", so you should get some money back from them. The exact amount you get varies depending on how long before departure they tell you about the change. Check your copy of the terms and conditions - the info should be there on how to make a claim, or call their customer service or the travel agent you booked with,.

samuela66

I hate Airtours, please excuse me I am in a venting mood today! I went on a cruise with them in december, it was luvverly i must admit, but I didnt get my luggage back from barbados for 4 weeks, after calling everywhere everyday, i theneventually got a guy who looked on the system adn said nobody had actually put a search out for them aaaaaaaaaaaaah, when writing to complain i got a snotty letter saying what did i expect when all's i'd booked was a flight, i went on a godamn cruise!!!!! anyways couldnt be bothered complaining again, which is what they hope for, so got precisely nowhere and had the expense of going out and buying clothes for xmas and new years!!!!

Dumyat

I had a similar problem with loco flights.....they moved the flight back two hours ...which doesnt sound a lot but it made it a 4am checkin, which with two kids is far from ideal!.....oh and they didnt mention it! only noticed on the tickets. we could have been turning up for check in and the plane would have already left! they said it was only policy to notify you if the change was more than 4 hours.

savvy

I vowed never to use them again after our flight number AND time on our tickets didn't tally with the correct flight time etc, left us high and dry in Genoa.

Trouble is they disguise themselves really well >:( >:(..................we had a party of 9 going snowboarding, booked through a travel agent. We didn't have ANY idea that Airtours were behind the trip until we got to the resort and they didn't have enough rooms booked for us!! We weren't the only ones without rooms thanks to Airtours! ::)

Suzz_2

I've found Airtour to be cheapish & normally OK. BUT if anything goes wrong they'll run a mile.

- You won't find a rep and when you do they will lie to you.
- They'll say, it'll be sorted when you get home, just call this 0870.. number..
- When you call it they don't answer... when they answer they brush you off..
- When you write they ignore your letters (or you have to pay to get 'signed for')
- Eventually you'll give up!

I reported them to ABTA a few years ago for not replying to letters and they were fined.

I would use airtours only if the holiday is so much cheaper than the others, you'll still be 'in-pocket' if you have to pay out to sort thins if they mess up. Certainly not for a major/important holiday.

averagepunter

As someone still bearing an 10 year grudge against Airtours, I see things haven't changed.

I do periodically have a moment of weakness and consider booking with them again at a good price, but threads like this just serve to remind me of the stress they caused and the eight months of letter writing it took to get reasonable compensation.

Never again.

soolin

I booked a holiday with airtours 2 years ago and as we have 3 children 'requested' that the two booked rooms be adjacent.

Got to the resort in the middle of the night to find that double room was on the ground floor and the triple room three floors higher with a small waist high wall on the balcony with a sheer drop onto a concrete path below.

Argued with the rep who did the usual 'nothing to do with us' routine, then when we threated to sit in reception and make a fuss accused us of being troublemakers and walked out. Got a senior member of staff who said that the rep was new and we had upset her as she had never had to deal with a complaint before, so would we please apologise for making a fuss!!

We refused to apologise until we got rooms more suitable and suddenly a triple room was 'found' on the ground floor three doors down to us.

After that we vowed never to book a package tour again. Every year though it is the same, travel agents virtually begging for business but when you go in and explain that you want a guarantee that the two rooms will be close together they can't help and tell you that no one else has ever complained.

As for JMC ...don't even get me started...

Soo

MisterT2

I battled with Which against Airtours for a year. They broke my electric scooter while joyriding it round the airport. On top of that they lied to me. and had 17 major problems on my holiday.

Keep writing those letters and then issue a court summons. They settled my claim the last working day before the hearing. They will not settle before as apparently "97% of people drop their claims".

You should also give them 28 days to reply and keep a register of all correspondance. You will be able to prove unprefessional conduct as they don't stick to the 28 days. Oh yes - and the Air Transport User Council - what a complete waste of space!! They said I didn't have a case. I found that they were exceptionally biased against the consumer (i.e. me). Of course I didn't have a case, that's why Which took it on for me, and Airtours settled out of court.

By the way, the only reason I settled out of court was for medical reasons. Otherwise, I would have loved to have gone in.