Bee

Oh dear! Booked a holiday for 2 weeks in Tenerife through a local travel agent about 2 months ago.

Now we're supposed to be leaving on Friday the 15th and have just been told yesterday, by First Choice, that they've double booked our room!!

They've now offered us a week in another Hotel for the 1st week ( Nope, not doin that!) and the 2nd week in the Hotel that we'd previously booked for, oh and £50 compensation!! WTF!!

G/F's, goin to the travel agents tomorow, anyone got any advice on how to handle this, just really gutted!

Thanks for reading! Hope I'm not here on Friday!

- Bee

skoosh

Sorry to hear that mate.

I went to Tenerife in 1996 with a mate of mine. We had booked a 1 bed apartment for the 2 of us, but on our arrival, we were given a studio. After 4 days of finding the rep, we complained and got £100 each and an upgrade to a 2 bedroom apartment.

If I was you I'd take the hotels they are offering but not accept the £50, go for a lot more mate if you can get it.

Skoosh.

enjoy Tenerife but avoid Veronica's strip - ****hole big style.

Phil

Make sure they upgrade you to a Better quality hotel for the full 2 weeks

don't take any C**p

djuk

I work for a travel company and we occasionally have the unfortunate duty to inform people that the hotel have double booked. Basically, its their duty to offer you something of an equal or better standard. This close to the departure theyre gonna be flustered anyhow so you should be able to push it a bit for a decent alternative, although saying that every company is different in the lengths they will go to in order to help a client.

Obviously if you're not getting anywhere, taking of names and mentions of "travel weekly" and the TTG (travel trade gazette) usually gets people jumping in my experience

Bee

Cheers folks, the hotel they've offered is supposed to be a higher rating but the location is not where we want to go. Just have to wait and see what the outcome is.

I'll keep you posted.

- Bee

Apparition

If you do chuck your weight about , also mention ABTA the association of British Travel Agents....who knows, you may discover that you like the alternative hotel better than your chosen one !!!

Luke

play your cards well...and you could have a better holiday than you paid for.

Contact the company and get hold of the boss in their press office. This is always a killer move!!

NACRO

Tell them you would like a full refund.....or all your costs covered for the move ie a taxi, an upgrade for the duration and some favours from their reps (only kidding). I worked for First choice as a contractor in their head office in Crawley and I can confirm that this sort of thing is commonplace. Basically they do it on purpose like the airlines- hedge their bets and make poor folk like you pay for it.
Contact their head office directly- not the shop you booked it through (if you did that) and don't be fobbed off. You should see their complaints dept- letters stacked high everywhere, and the attitude of the people in the office is terrible. They used to read letters out from people with ruined holidays etc laugh at them then stick in a voucher for £50 of their next crappy first choice holiday. They have a bad attitude and run a myriad of travel companies from the same building ier Hayes and Jarvis, Twenties (as it was known, don't know if it still is)and many many others including "Sun Cars" (car hire add 20% to loacal prices). A bunch of to55ers all in all but a good company to work for as you are surrounded by holiday rep types who ALL seem to enjoy a drink and aren't afraid to put out!

Good luck and give em hell.

flat4

had this in Ibiza a few years ago, turned out to be a great holiday, bit like having two for the price of one as you kind of get 2 hotels


kev

Gordo

First Choice are w4nkers for this - we had the same problem just before Millenium New Year - we'd booked skiing with them in Val D'Isere for 4 of us.

3 weeks before we were due to travel they wrote to us (not even a phone call) to tell us they'd messed up on the hotel accommodation, had nothing else to give us and returning our deposit. I went bug **** - there was nothing else we could book for skiing without paying '000s above what we'd booked with First Chumps. It took me angrily ringing the CEO and threatening them with Watchdog to sort it out for us.

And guess what - when we got out there, talking to the reps, we'd originally been bounced for the FD's holiday ! Brilliant.

Good luck mate - go to the top and go mental.

Gordo

NACRO

It's not that they mysteriously cancel- they deliberatly overbook to take account of people that pull out. If enough people don't pull out then some get bumped- like you did. TBH I think you've had a lucky escape, First Choice holidays are crap anyway- an opinion shared by many of the staff who only touch their products when induced with a hefty staff discount. Even then they tend to use the Hayes+Jarvis holidays which tend to be better quality.

First Choice are crap, like most package holiday firms- make sure you contact the MD direct. Can't remember his name, my experiences with them were yrs ago.

Father Jack Hackett

Bee - how do you mean you have no holiday now? I've been in a similar position with a hotel, they wanted to move us for part of the time to another hotel. We had no choice but we pushed them politely, made it clear that we weren't going to be pushed around and they paid for all the extra's including flights and gave us the top suite in the new hotel. You have a contract with them. It may have small print but you can still get a lot if you push firmly.

Bee

Well there's been a turn around on the First Choice front!

Woke up yesterday morning with FULL intentions of cancelling the whole lot,(and getting an FMI fitted ) THEN the phone rang......

We've got our two weeks back at the hotel that we origionally booked! EH, work that out!

Turns out some other poor sod has decided to pull out ot have taken the alternative option.

So....off on Fri, FMI is on hold, for now!

Thanks for the advice folks , not using First Choice again that's for sure!!

- Bee

Coulster

glad u got it sorted mate. happy hols. mind bring me a wee pressie back. might have my new motor by the time you get back. :8):

Bee

Well we now have NO holiday. Fekin ace! Thanks First Choice.

- Bee

[Edited by Bee - 8/11/2003 5:36:18 PM]