TUI holiday website not taking bookings, what is going on?

[HighSea]

Have a holiday booked with Tui during the school holidays all booked and paid for. Just visited the site to book a holiday somewhere warm over the Christmas holidays and you can’t book. It pulls the holidays and prices up, you click on the hotel you fancy and you can’t go any further. The main description is there but when you try to look at facilities and different types of rooms the section in blank and says call then the phone number. There is also no button to click to book or select different flights etc etc. I have come off the site gone back on tried a different destination and hotel and it’s exactly the same.

Why don't you just book directly?

We had to ring up for our summer holiday as the flight was a Turkish airline so they had to be certain they hadn’t already sold the plane seats.

It may be worth trying a different browser. It occasionally makes a difference.

I just looked at Christmas dates, works fine

I believe Tui are one of the companies that are really struggling at the moment due to laying off staff during covid and then struggling to recruit since a massive (and inevitable) surge in bookings this year. I am not sure this means they are on the edge of insolvency- what amazes me is that people still book package holidays considering the huge premium.

We did book a hotel through Tui last year- obviously cheap as covid was still a big issue in travel. However we had already booked flights and arranged a transfer ourselves. It was only me and teen DD and it would have been over £1000 more to book through Tui and their flight times were awful (and we fly cheaply so often early/arriving around 11pm). It was an exclusive Tui hotel and people were arriving at 3 in the morning. Their flights are also really overpriced compared to the other cheap carriers.

This might sound odd, but (from personal experience) travel firms don’t go under at this time of the year. Monarch (my employer for 26 years) went down as the CAA would not renew their Atol and that is always October (Monarch went bust early Oct 2017). Same with Thomas Cook - they also went down in Sept/Oct. TUI will have a lot in the bank from all the bookings they have for this summer.

This. ^ The OP reminds me of someone I know who just HAD to tell us her husband proposed to her in Cape Town, and bought her engagement ring in Bali, and that their 'first date' was in Milan. Hilarious. 😂Who are these people trying to impress?!

Even when they are cancelling flights last minute? Having to pay EU compensation to passengers and will be tied in to contracts with hoteliers so will be paying the customer any shortfall that the hotels won’t refund?

Tends to be way more expensive. I have only once managed to get a deal cheaper than TUI by creating my own package

😉

@willstarttomorrow

I believe Tui are one of the companies that are really struggling at the moment due to laying off staff during covid and then struggling to recruit since a massive (and inevitable) surge in bookings this year. I am not sure this means they are on the edge of insolvency-

Yep, almost all UK airlines are in the same boat but I gather from talking to somebody at TUI a few days back that they'd gone into recruitment earlier than many other operators, their mistake might have been over optimism in planning flights/holidays in proportion to their own staffing numbers and not realising they were going to be caught out by the sub-contractors and airports questionable level of manning.

Like you I'm not seeing signs or hearing credible rumours of them being on the edge of insolvency.

Well yes, the person you know sounds OTT.
But the OP has posted anonymously, so dearly not trying to impress anybody.

Plenty of families take two or more holidays
a year. Plenty.

Going to Cape Verde isn’t bragging, it’s awful worst holiday I’ve ever been on. You should be glad the site is glitching, saving you from going on holiday to Cape Verde.

I very much doubt TUI will go bump. I’ve just looked at their sister company (holiday hypermarket) & there’s technical issues. You won’t get a cheaper DIY either. Don’t be put off by Cape Verde if all you want is sunshine, & a good hotel. Although I prefer Mexico.

I am not sure this means they are on the edge of insolvency- what amazes me is that people still book package holidays considering the huge premium.

It's because of the general uncertainty. Package holidays look much more attractive in those sort of circumstances. Bear in mind a lot of people who are going on packages this year will have booked at some point during the pandemic. So the possibility of there being restrictions in one country but not the other and being stuck with accommodation you can't get refunded if not allowed to fly or similar would've been very clear.

Don’t book separately at the moment, if there’s an issue with your flight then you would still have to pay for your accommodation where as a package covers you for everything together.

Have you tried updating your browser to the latest version of it and clearing your cache? Sometimes my browser does this with websites and those things usually fix it. Otherwise, turning the wifi off and on again can also help because it sounds like one of the elements on the page isn't loading. If it's a bug in that part of the coding then they just need to fix it but other people on here aren't all having the same problem (I saw at least someone was having trouble though) which suggests it's not a "them" problem.

Try a different browser. For instance, Dunelm Mill won't work for me on Google Chrome but will in Firefox.

yy Cape Verde was the only holiday I have ever wanted to come home early from omg the flies never ever seen so many in one place, also incredibly windy which made the beach virtually unusable, shame as it’s quite a short flight for good winter sun temperatures.

Mexico was a hundred times nicer and the sea will be warm enough to swim in at Christmas

Why would anyone book with Tui at the moment with all their bad press?

probably a blessing tbh, I haven’t been to CV but friends that have visited were not impressed sadly.

Wouldn't surprise me if Tui go under we had our holiday booked for last week cancelled 3 days before have rebooked for August with a £900 discount. Claimed for the outbound flight are getting £700 and should be the same for the return flight that was supposed to be tonight. So the holiday will cost us about £300 in the end.

Everyone on that flight will get £350 per person per way flight compensation plus either a discount to rebook or a full refund. Times that by how ever many flights they have cancelled per day. We were going to Turkey so will less for shorter flights but still lots of money.

Good value, nice destinations - on holiday with TUI at the moment and loving it. Everything g running as smoothly as clockwork

Only booked v recently - a last minute deal

really pleased I did