thompson bumped us

[theredjellybean]

I just need to vent...with 5 days to go Thompson have called and said they are ' sorry ' but the hotel we were going to actually informed Thompson months ago they had sold their quota of rooms and a computer stop selling should have been in place, but oops thompson didnt do this and so I was able to book 3 weeks ago. Bottom line hotel has not got room and we have no holiday now.

Thompson wont offer any compensation ( i have booked and paid for non refundable car park and night before flight hotel and kennels for dog which they wont cover) as they have offered an alternative hotel.
the one i booked was gorgeous, classy right on italian lake , well regarded restaurant , quite formal etc, alternative is other side of lake, 70's building, 15 mins walk to lake front, and is aimed at 'families' ....not what we wanted or needed. It is nothing like the holiday i booked.
Basically thats it..Thompson will give us our money back and they do not care that we are not going on our holiday.
this is first time i have ever booked with big holiday package company and will never again, when something similar happened once with small independent company, they offered us a better alternative, and they funded the difference, rang round, made sure we had loads of extras thrown in etc etc...really tried to make up for the mess up.
when i suggested to Thompson they could up grade us to better rooms which were free at our chosen hotel, they refused saying we would have to pay the difference.
Awful customer service

That does sound really bad. Mumsnet often suggest Twitter as a useful way of gently steering shall we say big companies to behave themselves.

Complain publicly on their Facebook page, when you next speak to them mention you have family and friends thinking of booking with them but you'll have to warn them not to. They will soon magically sort something out.

thanks...will do

I can't believe that there are no other options in that area in July, ask them to try again and also through their related companies like Crystal. We've booked at much shorter notice in the past. Peak season in Italy is early August.

honestly LIZS i thought same but there really were nothing of same standard . there were much cheaper options, no pool, not on lake etc.
it is really frustrating
and i have spent hours on internet last night and today trying to find something similar.
citalia have the same hotel but at twice price cus rooms left are junior suites...i think thompson should have offered us them at their cost but i guess big companies just do not care that much

Have you called the hotel direct? It might be cheaper to upgrade locally, they may have availability from another or their own allocation or at least you can see if the charge Thomson is suggesting is fair. Not that you should have to do the legwork of course. Where is it, do you know the area?

it is the grand hotel gardone, and they are full, and no they wont give us the suite rooms for cost of standard rooms, they were sympathetic but said it was the tour operators responsibility I agree actually, why should hotel or me take financial hit for Thomsons cock up.

Where are they offering as an alternative?

Put it on Twitter.

this is where i had booked :

www.grandhotelgardone.it/it/

and this was the alternative that Thomson claim ' was just as lovely'

www.thomsonlakes.co.uk/search/ac.13

i have taken advice and posted on FB page..surprisingly got no reply from Thomson, I note the posts all giving good feeback get replied to , the maner complaining get ignored.

The second link didn't work for me. Your original hotel looked lovely though, I can understand why you're upset. Have you tried Twitter yet?

Not comparable at all. Definitely reject it. Presumably your dates are fixed? Is there no availability at neighbouring resorts/hotels. Are they trying to keep you local (and fill vacancies on their own allocation) , maybe further north on the lake would work better for you.

Your second link doesn't work.
I would not stick with Facebook, only people looking at that page will see it, you need Twitter even if you have to take out an account to do it. There are rooms left at the hotel just higher price ones. Seems obvious what Thomsons should do..

It does , look at last viewed.

thank you everyone, you are all being so kind, i feel better just venting a bit...I have opened twitter account and posted there too...and dd1 has done same.
I have rung thomson again and told them that hotel has suites left and they should foot the bill for difference but surprisingly no luck.

I have honestly scoured internet for allternative, problem is first hotel was so fabulous ( i had grace kelly/sophia loren type ideas in my head of lounging about in big floopy hat and over sized sunnies ...) that the only alternatives are just no where near as nice.

We have another week off in august , am going to politely suggest to thomson they book us in to hotel for that week in the standard rooms and foot the difference ! but wanted to avoid august if i can...and you know when you just have it all planned in your head ..and nothing else not even just same holiday different time is going to feel as good...i could almost taste that gelato !

oh well...a first world problem ...

Maybe it's a phone thing, I get nothing under recently viewed.
However I bet it's not as nice as the original one, it looked amazing!

These big tour operators are really trying to put themselves out of business. Surely the idea of using them is to have peace of mind that if mistakes happen you will not end up losing out. You might as well cut out the agent and book direct if this is how they treat customers.

I had a similar thing happen but with Travel Republic, 4 days before we were due to fly out.

I ended up, after several desperate phone calls, emails and social media posts with a discount and free transfer from the airport. Keep complaining and put it in writing that you will seek compensation after the holiday, if the alternative holiday is not good enough.
In the end, although the alternative was not up to the same standard as the one we booked, it was fine, and not the end of the world!

Have you made any progress?

Also try Resolver website. They have sorted one travel refund and a utility issue for me. They send of tailored pro for a letters and keep chasing for you till you get a response. They also escalate as appropriate.