I put a complaint into Alpharooms, primarily to get the difference in price back, after all, I could have chosen to book the Santa Monica and saved nearly £200 on the price I paid for the Maritim, but as I was complaining about the overpayment I thought I might as well add in everything else that I found lacking.
According to ABTA rules, the company needs to acknowledge my complaint within 14 days and respond within 28. A day or so after posting my letter, I received an email asking for more information to back up my complaint. Errr, excuse me, you can see from your own website that there is a HUGE difference in price. Common sense would tell anyone that the difference should be refunded.
I did not receive a response within the 28 days so sent a follow up email.
A week later still no response, so I registered my complaint with ABTA and forwarded all the requested documentation and correspondence.
A couple of days after registering with ABTA I received an email from Alpharooms, their agents had responded to my complaint saying that although it was not their fault that I was moved, they were willing to offer me £50 as a goodwill gesture.
Now, hold on a minute.
- It wasn't my fault either so why should I take the loss?
- I am pretty sure that the travel company - Alpharooms, Somewhere2Stay, Cosmos, whichever - were not charged the same for the Santa Monica (MedPlaya) as they would have been for the Maritim (GHT Hotels). So why should I be charged the same? As I have said above, I could have booked the Santa Monica myself and saved a fortune.
- If the travel agents ARE charged the same for all the hotels, why is there such a difference in price to the customer?
The hotel was fully booked at least 4 weeks before my travel date. I know this as a friend who actually lives in Calella always books the Maritim for her Mum when she visits but couldn't get her in, she knew I was travelling over the same week as her Mum and so contacted me to ask where I was staying, I told her the Maritim as at this time I still was under the assumption that I was in the Maritim.
So why would the hotel wait until the day before to reject my booking? And surely it should have been bookings made AFTER mine that were cancelled? Unless, of course, it was the day before travel that my booking was sent to the Maritim.
So why would the hotel wait until the day before to reject my booking? And surely it should have been bookings made AFTER mine that were cancelled? Unless, of course, it was the day before travel that my booking was sent to the Maritim.
It would also be interesting to find out when the travel agents pay for the accommodation too, is it before or after travel. I am guessing that it is after if you think back to when all the travel companies were going bust and people were having to pay the hotel bills themselves despite already paying the agents.
Had the £50 been an goodwill gesture ON TOP of the refund I would have been more than happy to accept, but this was INSTEAD of a refund.
The offer has been forwarded onto ABTA to be added to my file.
They are due to respond to me within the next 2 weeks.
I used booking.com to book a night in Cape Town last year, about a week before i traveled. on arrival the hotel informed me they were fully booked despite me having confirmation of my booking and said booking.com informed them late and they'd assumed they weren't full and took another booking. After asking them how this was my problem and it was now 8pm they allowed me to use their phone and paid for a taxi to the new hotel. when i complained to booking.com they refunded the additional hotel costs
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