The outcome of my holiday complaint

I have accepted £100 from the booking agents, I have been trying to get my money refunded for nearly 4 months now and I have to accept that I have reached stalemate.

ABTA have been no help at all.

I looked into the small claims court, but it is too much to pay out to start proceedings, I am already a couple of hundred pounds down and I can't afford to pay out anymore.

Somewhere2Stay are still refusing to comment on, or even acknowledge, the month it took them to tell me that the Maritim had refused the booking.

As well as the difference in price between the hotels and the cost of eating out even though I had paid for an evening meal, there was the cost of a taxi to the airport from Calella, this cost €120.  I had booked a return transfer and I received confirmation of the time of the return trip and pick up location.

For whatever reason, the time of the pick up was changed, the transfer company contacted all the hotels where pick ups had been arranged so that they could put signs up in the reception area noticeboard to notify the traveller.  Unfortunately, as I had been moved, I did not receive any notification.

After waiting at the pick up point for an hour, I tried ringing the contact number on the booking confirmation, but there was no answer.  I walked down to the train station and took a taxi.

I have calculated what the holiday cost me.

I expected to pay £510

I could have paid £420 had I booked the Santa Monica myself, choosing B&B and eating meals out.

I ended up paying £685.

(I laid all of this out in an excel spreadsheet but I couldn't post it to my blog!)

So lesson learnt, make sure the company you are ultimately booking with is reputable.

My holiday complaint.

You may have read previously on my blog about the holiday where I was downgraded to a cheaper hotel.

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?

It would be interesting to find out when the booking was made with the hotel.  When I booked back in April?  When I paid the balance in May?  The day before travel?  

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.

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.