We booked a holiday through Thomson's travel agents to St Lucia. When we arrived at the airport there was no transfer booked, although the travel rep there had our little introduction leaflet with the right date on it. We were advised to book a taxi and get a receipt (which we did). When we arrived at the hotel they had no record of us. The taxi driver was told to wait (?) and we had to wait until a senior member of staff came to us. She advised us that we should have arrived the day prior to our arrival and as we did not show up, they cancelled our booking. I duly produced our paperwork and they checked again. They confirmed that the information they had was that we would be arriving on the Saturday. I was panic stricken as the taxi driver was still waiting. I was then told that they would reinstate our holiday but unfortunately the room that we booked was now no longer available and that they would put us in another room. I was a bit upset and they advised us that they would try and move us in a few days. We were shaken somewhat as we had chosen this holiday, accommodation etc with great care having done a lot of research. We were taken to the room which although was lovely, was not what we had paid for. I immediately rang home and got my daughter to contact the travel agents the following day and find out what was happening. In the meantime, the hotel advised me that although it stated that we were going to be there for 14 days, in fact it would be 13!

The travel agents in the UK checked the paperwork and they then contacted Thomsons Worldwide who had made the clerical error. The hotel were excellent. They moved us to another room (again not what we booked) which we stayed in until we left for home on Saturday 3rd April. I did speak to the rep there who says she was advised that the reason we did not have any transfers booked was because we had booked on the internet - we did not! She did not seem able to do anything else.

The travel agents advised getting as much information as possible including any paperwork. I did ask numerous times but was told that they could not give me anything as the booking was between the travel company (Thomsons Worldwide) and themselves.

The Travel agents advised my daughter that it was certainly Thomsons Worldwide who made the error and they were looking into it for me but when I got home I was to put it all in writing.

What I would like to know is apart from asking for the monies lost in taxi fare, extra night etc, do I have a case for claiming back some part of holiday cost?

Our holiday was not spoilt but it took a few days to come to terms with the fact that we did not get what we paid for through no fault of our own or the hotels but purely the travel company.