I loath poor customer service - and by that I don’t mean bowing and scraping etc, but the feeling that the company is there to make money first and foremost even at the expense of customers.
So about a month ago I tried booking online. For some reason it wouldn’t work. So I rang them. Agreed to pay c. 1500 for three nights. Real treat for myself, mother, my son and two cousins.
Now admittedly I presumed they’d take payment and that was that. I CANNOT remember it being explained that they would take part payment and then I would have to go online to make another payment. I did see on my account they’d only taken 400 euro. But I thought they d just take the remainder later. I thought this was odd, but hey ho.
Yesterday - I got an email saying the booking had been cancelled for non payment and they wouldn’t be returning the 400 euro.
I rang expecting them to say ‘there’s a mistake, just pay now and all good’. But no! that’s their policy and they wouldn’t be honouring booking and they wouldn’t return the 400. I had to have strenuous words and be passed to a manager (all the time explaining that I was not frustrated with the person I was talking to, but I disagreed forcefully with the policy).
I was told they ‘might’ be able to transfer the funds to book again. But lo and behold… the new booking rate was 50 euro more expensive. And you know in a 1500 euro booking, that’s not a lot… but it’s the principle. Manager finally ‘dealt’ with me. Agreed to refund 400 euro.
So my AIBU….
My son is desperately looking forward to this. We’ve had zero holidays together like this (COVID, work stress, etc). He adores his cousins. And I ve been getting him excited about the trip…. Do I rebook? Pay the extra 50 euro and just swallow the frustration? Or… not rebook because this just seems like a company that doesn’t care about its customers?
YABU - not centre parcs. It was their policy. They had every right to cancel. You should rebook and pay the 50.
YANBU - seems a dodgy way of making as much money as they can. You shouldn’t rebook on principle.