Anyone work for TUI? They want us to pay to change our booking, even though they have dropped the flight to the destination.

[girlywhirly]

I booked a package to Skiathos in September this year, for next August September. DH was looking at flights to somewhere else and noticed that TUI have pulled flights from Luton. We went into the store and the manager was unhelpful, said we could pay the standard change of booking fee to change to fly from Stansted. But this would mean choosing another set of dates for the hotel booking, the closest of which would be three days later. The other option was to wait until TUI advise us that the booking has been changed, in which case we will not have to pay a fee. The manager said she didn’t know when that was likely to be, even though essentially our holiday doesn’t exist any more. If we wait for notification we could lose out on choosing another holiday or even getting into the hotel on change of booking because of the change of dates. The hotel is small and very popular so gets booked up quickly.

So, what can we do? (Incidentally we had the same problem with flying to Kefalonia earlier this year, but were informed much more quickly, also had to fly from Stansted)

If it was me, I'd demand a full refund & book with a more reliable company.
Tui messed us around a few years ago, so I'll never book a holiday with them again.

For me I wouldn’t have booked with TUI

Surely the change from Luton to Stanstead won’t make too much difference.

Or just wait till contacted. Who knows as they’ve been caught in the 737 Max problems the flights might come back up.

I agree, the change to Stansted for the flights won’t make too much difference, but the change that will have to be made to the hotel booking may be tricky. The hotel is small and they have a lot of repeat bookers. Also our friends are joining us in an even more difficult to get into hotel, change of dates may mean that we can’t co-ordinate our stay.

We have decided to wait it out for now until we get the all important letter asking us to change the booking. This means we can change free of charge or get our deposit back if we decide to cancel, as it will be proof that TUI have changed the booking parameters.