Airtours are pants :-(

scotnan

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.

Our grudge is 12 years old and our resolve to never book with them never wavers.

Our holiday was a complete disaster. 4* Hotel was filthy and was completely infested with with coackroaches.
Bed linen had the most awful smell from it. Bars on the windows. Loose electrical wires hanging from the wall.Rep told us a pack of lies and would not move us until we contacted solicitor at home and they contacted airtours.
Got home and they would not budge on a refund until again we got solicitor involved then we got third of our money back.

Never, ever again. >:(

bridiej

I would never EVER book with My Travel (I think they're part of Airtours???) they're the worst.

We booked our honeymoon to Dom Rep with them. The flight had slight turbulence (nothing bad though) and the seatbelt light was on almost throughout the flight. As you can imagine, after a few hours really had to make a trip to the little girls room. When I asked the steward if I could go he said "No, not when the light is on" in a very rude manner - told him I would wet the seat then!!

At the hotel we had a problem with the people in the room upstairs - they'd had an argument and the bloke had obviously been locked out and was kicking the door in.

Told the rep and all she said was "Let the hotel manager know"

Also, after the hour and a half "welcome" party (you know the one, where they try and pressure you into buying v expensive excursions) I spoke to the rep about getting extra water in our room, as we only got two small bottles a day which was not enough. She said she'd ask but never did.

payless

Over the years  - Been with all the major ( and some small) tour operators

Would rank in order of overall satisfaction

Cosmos - best by far
Thomson/ Airtours (now aka MyTravel) about equal Tomson generally better but recently not so good
Virgin
JMC/ Thomas Cook
YugoTours ( remember them)
First Choice
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MaltaBargains  - you get the picture - don't deserve to be on same page!

Obviosuly rep service will vary from resort to resort.

WHA

Avoid Africa if you're going with Thomson. We've been to the Gambia and Kenya with Thomson and both times we ended up in court afterwards - winning both times. At the resorts, their reps were simply useless - major problems with hotels, dozens of people complaining (no water for 3 days - not even to flush the loo, in Kenya - just a small jug provided once a day!!!), major building works on the same corridors as guests - door frames and balcony windows falling out because they hadn't been fixed properly, loose electical fittings hanging off walls, filthy swimming pools (couldn't see the bottom, dead lizards floating for days etc). Resort reps refused requested moves to other hotels or room changes. Trouble was, they KNEW of the problems weeks beforehand but still sent guests there and didn't take any action to ease the problems. How stupid can they be? I've not booked with a High St travel agent or with a major package company for several years now - I either book independently or through the small specialist tour operators - funny thing is the last time we went (to Algarve) in a 5* hotel, it was cheaper booking it through a small specialist firm than it would have been through the big operators, by several hundred pounds and that was with paying for a hire car instead of using their sardine-like transfer buses.