Need to cancel

[nunsflipflop]

We booked a holiday in April, online through the Tui website. I changed the flights they offered to more appropriate times. An extra charge was added to the holiday to do this.

I stupidly didn’t check when the email came through. We paid a deposit of £360.

We booked it under the recommendation of my DD (36) who was reading reviews.
I have done a deep dive to get more reviews, it looks like this isn’t an appropriate hotel to take my grand daughters to.

Using trip adviser,I found the top 5 hotels in Lanzarote and I booked the top one, with a different tour operator who could offer the better flight times for myself, a disabled adult and the little ones in our party thinking I would only be losing £360. Tui did not offer this hotel or the flight times I believed I had paid for on our booking with them.

I called Tui to cancel and they are asking for £3623.74, which will be paid to EasyJet as the flights are non refundable. So I asked if I am paying for those seats on that flight, will they remain empty? The Tui rep said she didn’t know. I asked if easyJet then resell those seats would I get a refund? The answer was no.

Is there any way I can reduce the amount we will lose? Or do I put it down to an expensive lesson?

This is the first holiday abroad I have ever booked. We haven’t been away for 10 years, hence my mistake

Spoken to easyJet, and jet2. Jet 2 we would only lose the £360 deposit and we have up until 3rd June to cancel that.

Now back to the drawing board with Tui, they will charge an admin fee but it’s going to be cheaper than £3600 surely?

I would assume that the amendment fee will be less - unless you have lots and lots of people going. They will charge you the difference if the new hotel is more expensive

Cancel Jet2.

Stick with TUI and ask what hotels they've got available. At least then you're not losing 3K

Or, TUI might let you amend to a different holiday next year if that would work for you.

What Lanzarote hotel is it that's getting the bad reviews? We might know it.

Should be £50 per person admin fee with TUI to amend

Gosh it’s lots of money to waste. I’d ring up TUI explain your concerns and see if they are able to do anything, perhaps move your booking to a different holiday… better still I wonder if you could pop into a branch? The girls in my closet TUI and just wonderful.

Didn’t you ask that? Do you not have anyone to help you? Change it and pay the admin fee, of course it won’t be 3grand odds.

There is 6 of us going, Tui charge £50 pp admin and easyJet charge £30pp per flight, tempted to do that, and book next year. Waiting to speak to my daughter.

I just wanted the holiday to be decent

Why next year? Can you not find alternative accommodation with tui fir your current dates?

Is there a reason you won't tell us the hotel. We can probably reassure you. I can't think of many hotels on lanzarote that won't be ok for a kid to go to.

Some people can be ridiculously picky and write all sorts in reviews. If you've not booked a holiday in 10 years you should probably stop messing with it 🤣

I shouldn’t have been allowed to be responsible for it in the 1st place 😂

The hotel with Tui is Hotel Rubicon
Jet2 is Sandos Papagayo

Not that I can see. I’m trawling it now

You'll be fine at the rubicon palace! Honestly, do not lose £3k to stay at Sandos papagayo! Trust me.

The last one star review is because some fella who thinks he's "premium" had to wait a minute while they served someone else!

Email the hotel ahead of time and tell them your concerns about the tiles and the recent reviews about rooms etc. Then politely request a suitable room and let them know about your disability.

You're going to end up costing yourself a fortune for no good reason whatsoever! Step away from trip advisor and cancel the jet2 holiday.

I had this. Booked a holiday then saw some you tube reviews moaning. I got there and it was fabulous. Just go. Its too much money to lose. It won't be that bad. I think you are panicking.

Where is it? Lanzorote is very very small. So it can't be far from anything.

This is brilliant advice.

This is excellent advice. As I said upthread, 7500 reviews coming out at an average of 4.5/5 on Tripadvisor is very likely to indicate a hotel that's absolutely fine, no matter what the odd 1 star Larry with a stick up his arse has said about it.

I'd also echo not to take reviews literally, so often they are a beef about minor things or people not being realistic about what you get for the price paid.

My advice is to do the TUI holiday and ask jet 2 to transfer the deposit to a holiday next year or see if they will give it as credit., you can but ask

Do tell tui about your disability and tell easyJet directly of help you need. For the future you are better off using tui airways for their trips as it's so easy.

I second all of this - from someone who is a travel agent, H10 Rubicon Palace is a really good hotel and H10 as a company generally have high standards for customer service.

Make sure Tui are aware of all the accessibility needs of your party - and if it makes you feel better, contact the hotel directly too.

We had this with a holiday last year, on the hotel FB page people were moving hotels etc

We go there, everything this was fantastic

We went on a trip and a couple who had swapped hotels were gutted that where they swapped too was half a building site...

Grass is not always greener and it seems like you are knee-jerk reacting with thousands of pounds at stake...to a few less than gleaming reviews. Take it all with a pinch of salt.

I’ve stayed at Rubicon Palace twice before with children and it’s fab. My children loved the kids club, the food was excellent and I thought the location was great. I would very happily go back again (and I’m pretty fussy).

I would a million times prefer to stay at the Rubicon than the Sandos Papagaya. The Rubicon is not in the middle of nowhere! I know Playa Blanca well.

Good grief the Rubicon palace? Trust me it’s fab. Not in the middle of nowhere and if there’s any loose tiles anywhere they’ll be on them, fixing them as soon as they see them.

Def stick to your original booking. Almost every single hotel, has some bad reviews. You'd never go anywhere if you listen to every review on tripadvisor. I get odd doubts when I see some reviews from where we are going this year but then I think why is almost every other review great. There will always be someone who winges about the slightest thing.

Going off the comments, you say you have booked somewhere else? If that's the case and you can't claim back on the insurance then I would recommend trying to sell it on transfer travel ... it's a site where you can sell your unusable travel plans and people can buy it. I sold a holiday to America on there and worked fine. Might be worth checking it out - https://www.transfertravel.com/

hope this helps x