Has anyone got any useful advice on complaining about a holiday fiasco please?

[Squirrel3]

When DP and I booked a holiday we were very clear that we needed two twin adjoining rooms for our party of four (dp, his teenaged children and I). The Rep said at the time not to worry as they wouldn?t let all of us share the same room as dss (16) is classed as an adult, (therefore we paid the full adult price) they would not allow three adults and one child to share a room. Also as I am not related to the children (although I love them to bits) I really didn?t like the idea of sharing a room with a 16 yr old boy! It was going to be hot and as I prefer to sleep naked sharing a room wasn?t an option as far as I was concerned.

When we finally arrived at the hotel in the early hours of the morning, (after a long flight delay) we found to our absolute horror that only ONE room had been booked, despite us booking ? and of course paying for ? two interconnecting rooms. This meant that 2 adults, one teenaged boy and a pre-teenaged girl had to share the one room containing only two beds and a sofa.

The hotel staff were pleasant and tried to help but as the rooms were simply not available they could not accommodate our needs. When we complained to our holiday Rep she felt unable to help get us moved into the correct rooms as the hotel had promised to rectify the problem. However, she did say that she would arrange some compensation/reimbursement for us ? but that was the last we saw or heard from her.

We were finally moved into the correct rooms after 2 nights, which meant that we lost almost a third of our holiday. Dp and myself had virtually no sleep for 2 whole days ? The first night dp and I were unable to sleep at all as the children used the only beds that were available to us. On the second night one of us had to sleep on the sofa, (for which no bedding was provided) the other on a camp bed that the hotel had provided which the room was barely big enough to accommodate. It was very hot, the air conditioning wasn?t working and we all had to sleep ?covered up?, all in all it was a very uncomfortable night.

The rest of our stay was marred due to us struggling to catch up on lost sleep and unable to enjoy the holiday properly.

When we arrived home I wrote to the company complaining, that was three weeks ago and I have heard nothing, where do I go from here?

The tour operator should have a complaints procedure with time scales. If they ahve not ackionoledged your complaint or the timescale has elapsed I'd contact them again and say you will contact ABTA etc unless you hear back by a specific date. Sounds pretty poor on the rep's account - did she look into moving you to another hotel ? The hotel should have at very least supplied appropriate amounts of beds and bedding as they must have known how many guests were arriving in each group - winder if they had upgraded someone else to your rooms instead.

Thanks for your reply LIZS, I had thought of contacting ABTA but I wondered if I should contact the holiday companies head office first to give then every opportunity sort this out. I have got to admit it is more of a 'principle' matter than anything else, we booked and paid for two rooms. We assumed that there would be enough beds to accommodate us all as they must have known how many there was in our party.

I agree that the Rep handled the situation poorly, she didn't do a thing, she just said that she felt it would just make things awkward for us with regards to the hotel staff if she got involved because they had already promised to sort it out as soon as appropriate rooms became available. She said it "might get their backs up".

Throughout the first day we had to keep going to Reception to ask when the camp bed would be provided and there was a queue of people complaining that they hadn't got the rooms they had booked.

One couple who had recently got together (both single parents, one child each) had booked the holiday to try to help 'blend' their new family together but they had been given two rooms in different parts of the hotel, hardly the way to 'blend' a new family. They spent their holiday sleeping apart so they could be with their children. It seems that the hotel was simply over booked, all week we were hearing of similar complaints from other guests.

Sorry about the rant, thanks for helping me to make up my mind, I'll write to their head office and threaten to contact ABTA.

Hi- I worked in travel both as travel agent and overseas rep so may be able to help -

Did you have a confirmed booking form ( something with a breakdown of each passenger, flights etc and room info?)

If you have booked and paid for interconnectings rooms then it would say so on the booking form. The travel agent should not assume that just because a child is 16 that you would automatically get interconnecting rooms- it would clearly state on her system at the time of booking if an interconnecting room was available.

I can see that you have already contacted the tour op- they have 28 days to reply otherwise contact them again and threaten with ABTA. You really need to complain, giving the names of the girl who booked the holiday and most importantly the Rep at the hotel who sounds like someone who quite honestly cannot be arsed to do her job properly.
If she has verbally said that she will arange compensation then she has to do it- she cant just make a comment like that and then disappear. Did you fill in a Holiday Complaints Form whilst actually on holiday? If not tell the Tour op that you were never offered the opportunity as they may come back saying that this should have been done overseas while you were on the holiday.

If you sent the letter three weeks ago and still have not heard back- I would phone them today and ask if they have recieved the letter and ask at what point you are to be expecting a reply- quote ABTAS timeframe for replying to letters.

can i ask which tour operator your holiday was with?

Dont let them fob you off. tour operators are noitorious for bullshit.

Thank you tiredemma, we do have a booking form with everything on it, we showed it to the hotel staff and the rep and they agreed that 2X adjoining twin rooms were indeed booked. When I sent a letter of complaint I photocopied it and enclosed it with the letter.

We didn't fill in a complaints form, we didn't know we had to, like I say the Rep just said she felt she couldn't involved at that time and to contact her if the hotel did not sort it out the following day and left it like that. We tried to phone her on the number she gave us the following day but we were told she was 'unavailable'.

The tour operator was... (yes, I am going to name and shame lol) Cosmos.

The whole point of having a rep is so that she deals with hotel so that you dont have to. Very bad customer service in my opinion.
Some reps are just reps so that they can go on bar crawls and spend the summer flirting with waiters and coach drivers.

Hope you get this sorted, you should do- blatently you have not had the holiday that you booked and its now the tour ops responsibility to compensate you.

let me know how it goes.

Thank you tiredemma, I agree about the holiday Rep, although I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted to flirt with our coach driver, he was very overweight, around 50ish and stank of BO. He was more like this than this Lol

I will let you know how I get on.

Ha ha!

At last I received a response from Cosmos!

I was getting no-where with the local office so I wrote to their Head Office giving the name of the holiday Rep. I also made it clear that she didn't give us the opportunity to fill in a Holiday Complaints Form whilst actually on holiday as you suggested tiredemma and hey-presto this morning I received letter full of apologies, they said that the Rep should have made arrangement for us to be moved to another hotel as the hotel obviously didn't have room for us and appologised that we found her "reluctant to help".

They also enclosed a cheque for 10% of the holiday!

Thank you so much for your help tiredemma, I think that my saying the things you had suggested (I also quoted the ABTA timeframe for answering letters) made them take me seriously, thanks again.

Now what am I going to spend the money on? lol