You are going to hit them where it hurts - in their pockets by not spending any future money with them.

Sometimes webbookings and phone bookings are dealt with by different departments. Each department might have an allocation of seats that they can sell. This could result in available seats online, but not over the phone. This might look strange bearing into mind you're dealing with the same company.

Prices do go down and up over a period of time. You accept the price at the time of the booking. A price, I presume, you were happy to pay. Best bet is not to look at future prices as a decrease of it might disappoint.

Mark

First mistake you made was having booked a holiday you checked the price again.

Yes we are all guilty of doing so, and yes, you are not alone in finding the price has gone down. A regular complaint we see here on HT.

People do need to remember that holidays are just the same as buying a tin of beans in the supermarket. The price does go up and down.

The only difference is that a holiday costs far more. I never see complaints from anyone because the price has risen after booking.

One explanation could be that they have managed to obtain more flight seats. People often comment that having booked with one TO that they actually flew with one of the competitors. I do not say this is the case but it could be one answer.

Perhaps the telephone booking system have a certain number of places available and the reason you were told no seats is because the allocation had been used up.

By your own admission you were hoping to play the system and wangle some extras.

Is your real complaint that you were caught out and did not get them?

You are not the first and will not be the last to be caught out with this. I am at present trying something similar with a holiday for next year. Two associated companies. One has offered a deal but not at the hotel we want. The other is saying no. I will decide in the next few weeks. If at a later date the company that is saying no offers the deal I want then I will be miffed but that is how it is at times.

You are going on the 15th - just enjoy it.

fwh

Its not a case that I didnt get any offers by booking over the phone, it never got that far. I was told there and then that there were no seats on the flight from Manchester on the 15th, or any on the 18th from Liverpool or Manchester. I asked would there be any seats available in the future and was told there wouldn't. I even remember saying that it was still showing online and he said their systems were more upto date than the online ones so if I booked it, it would come back as unavailable. This is the only reason I booked online at that time because I was not going to book the holiday at all that day - it was always my intention to keep an eye on the apartments available and book with the 2 weeks before departure to get the best price - unless the number of apartments reduced and I didnt want to take the risk.

As I have said - I feel I have been let down because I only booked the holiday online at that time because I though it was the only chance we would get it - if it came back unavailable (as I had been told it would in the phone call) then we would have had plenty of time to find an alternative. I even had a few alternatives in the holiday shortlist ready in case it did.

Several people in first choice told me that all the conversations are recorded, so I told them in my letter that they can verify what I was told about the seats by checking their recordings - but today I was told that they dont record these (convenient) despite being told by several people in several departments that this is the case.

I just think its a joke that even a small gesture wasnt offered and they have insulted me by indirectly implying that I am trying to pull a fast one by doing this.

As for the cost of the holiday - it was more than I wanted to pay, I even booked the cheapest one by going from Liverpool on the 18th rather than Manchester on the 15th (works out OK though cause we live a little closer to Liverpool Airport). The only reason I bought it was because I felt it was the only change I had and I was expecting it not to be confirmed.

Honestly, in this situation - would you not be a little peeved that they didn't offer even a very small gesture? I know how business works and a very little goes a long way - in the long run they will lose a heck of a lot more than the £300 I lost out on (and I wasnt even asking for this to be refunded). My sister for one was going to book a weeks break in October, and I had recommended First Choice but told her last week not to book anything until I had heard back. She is now not going to use them or any of their associated companies - but is looking at Thomson (which may operate the same in a similar situation but its unlikely to crop up as it is unusual) so thats probably a few hundred quid in profit there (2 adults). I cannot deal with companies that will take your money and then its a case of 'hard luck' even if its their mistake thats indirecly led to me being over £300 lighter than I would have been.

it is possible that those seats were not available at the time you booked and that people have since had to cancel.
Of course, you have now decided not to book with them again and that should help you feel better. I have to say though that a few years ago I vowed never to fly with a certain airline again( when they were going to leave me stranded abroad) but have recently found myself being tempted.

Hindsight is wonderful and I do appreciate that we can all sometimes be panicked into booking if we think that we might lose out on something but in this instance I think that if I had been told that there were no seats available but found that their website did appear to be accepting bookings for those flights, I would have looked for some sort of explanation at the time rather than booking and just leaving it at that. I would have been concerned that either there was a glitch in the system or that the website was actually set-up to accept overbookings and that I'd perhaps been fortunate enough to have spoken to an employee who was too honest for his own good in relation to a well know practice practice on the part of some airlines. I wouldn't have wanted to take the risk of discovering nearer the time that what I had been told really was true and that the seats really didn't exist and that I was going to get bumped onto another flight.

I don't want to sound cynical but were you perhaps hoping that this was the case and that you could later force their hand for some compensation? Either way, you were presumably willing to pay the price at the time in order to secure the holiday of your choice. There are all sorts of reasons why seats might now still be available. As fwh has said, having realised that these dates are so popular they might have contracted for extra seats. Or as Mark has said different depts of the same TO often have only a certain quota of tickets to sell so that they can be sure that a phone operator isn't promising a customer on the telephone the last 2 seats that are about to be purchased on-line by another customer with the click of a button. Or it might be that earlier bookings have been cancelled - some always are and hence why they often take the gamble on overbooking so as to ensure they aren't left with empty seats as aresult of late cancellations.

In the end, the late booking game is always a game of bluff lost by the party who's nerve gives up first. The TOs lose out if they lower their prices too soon, ending up off loading holidays at bargain prices that they might have still found customers for at a better price. Similarly, customers can end up paying a higher price than they might possibly have got away with had they only held off booking for a little longer but at least they would still have got the holiday they wanted, just as you did. But the real losers are those whose nerve holds to the last minute only to find out that the holiday they wanted is now fully booked. You 'lost' £300 but still got the holiday you wanted at a price you were prepared to pay at the time so I don't think that you have any grounds for recompense

Given the very restricted window in your calendar for this holiday, if it had been me, I wouldn't have risked leaving it until only 2 weeks beforehand to book unless I was very open about where I wanted to go. This is only my opinion but it strikes me that you wanted to play a game of bluff and on this occasion you lost and you just have to accept that. But what do I know - I'm pretty naff at poker too and always end being the first to fold and chucking away a not bad hand that might have won the game if only I was better at bluffing :-)

SM

I made it very clear on my letter to them that I was not asking for monetary compensation, but an explaination of what's gone on and some type of gesture (in whatever form) would go a long way. Neither of which has been offered, so I not only spent god knows how long on the phone being passed from pillar to post (most who I spoke to were very nice - but the wrong people to speak to and kept passing me on to the wrong people), but I then get a slap in the face by being told straight away on the phone that I was going to get no money back which I handn't actually asked for because i was very careful in how I worded the letter, and actually said so much in there.

A gesture - such as even a small voucher for next year (meaning they would probably get a repeat booking) would have been better than nothing and actually better for them, but its a joke how hard faced they were over it when I was being very nice about it - even though over the phone she seemed to understand why I aggrieved. I had to really bite my tongue not to lose my temper over the phone - or even storm to the head office (which is in Manchester on my way home from Work!). I will be writing to head of customer relations to explain the consequences of this, and to give them some tips on customer retention. I might hand deliver the letter myself to the head office aswell as I wont really be going out of my way.

Can I just add it wasnt a case of trying to call their bluff. There was no bluff to be called.

I wouldnt have even checked the price online again if I hadnt gone onto the site to get the phone number to contact them about the tickets not being sent (which have not been re-printed twice and sent - so I have to take both sets to the airport). The only reason I checked was curiosity because I was logged on - I really wish I hadn't.

I know the feeling Dave- it is so annoying to find the holiday you paid for is now a lot less. Best to put it behind you and start to look forward to your holiday.

I take it that you will be paying the extra if the holiday rises by more than the £300 difference ?

Hi Dave Page

I'm sure that you don't want to hear this, but has been said previously, if you were happy to pay the price at the time you booked - even if you were panicked into it due to what you thought was low availability - then the deal is done there and then.

We are all often p****d that we see our bargain holiday later at a cheaper price, but you were happy to book what you thought was a good deal.

Enjoy your holiday!

Whats that supposed to mean Jethro?

It didnt rise, it fell which is what I would have expected it to do. Well, actually I would have expected not to be able to book it so late after what I was told but that wasnt the case.

As I said - I had no intention of booking at that time, but did because I felt it was the only chance of doing so. If we had got to now and the price was £300 more than it was when we booked then we would have made the decision there and then and taken the hit - but that would have been my mistake and chalked down to experience. In this case its being misled about the unavailability of seats, and being told there would not be any in the future that forced my hand into booking when I did.

Isn't Thomsons and First Choice the sameish company

John

Tui owns 51% of First Choice.

Sarah

What if you had waited and kept checking the apartments you wanted and the flights had sold out in the mean time?

As I found out a few years back once a flight is full any accommodation not booked is allocated to another airport with flight availability.

As it is, you got the flights you wanted to the accommodation you wanted.

How many of us have compared our holiday price with others at the same hotel, only to find a difference in price one way or the other?

it is possible that the guy you spoke to was telling the truth, as i work for first choice and there are occasions where there is no availability on our viewdata system but there is availability on the first choice or eclipse website, other times there is availability on viewdata and not on the websites.
or it could be he was trying this as a selling technique seeing as though we get call conversion targets, people just enquiring doesn't help our commission!

Yes, but as it transpired I could have booked the holiday last Friday and it would have gone through - if there were no flights I would be none the wiser because the price would not have been shown and wouldnt be feeling so let down by them. It's now not available to book on the site for the date we are going on because there are now no seats on the flight - so now it doesnt show any price for those days. Thats my point entirely - it turns out that if I had waited like we had been planning I would have saved the money - because I was incorrectly influenced by them and booked earlier than I would have done. At the end of the day I am still over £300 lighter which maybe I wouldn't have been if I had not made that phone call.

As I said a small gesture would have gone a long way (whatever the gesture would have been). Whereas now their policies of kindof admitting there was a mistake but not officially, and not even apologising (apologising that I am upset is not apologising for them misleading me) have meant that I will not be using them in the future, and will be advising others not to use them because if something goes wrong you cannot rely that they will deal with the matter with sense.

What do you recon the chances are of one of their reps getting me to buy one of their overpriced excursions on the holiday Answers on a postcard please!

How do these call conversion targets work? How is each call accounted for and is there a record kept of what is said to the customer etc.

I asked this today when asking why the conversation that I had where I was told there were no flights was not available because I queried why there was no record of what I was told bearing in mind these go towards the targets. If there is no record of a successful or unsuccessful call - how can you know what the conversion rate is of these calls (surely the details of the unsuccesful ones would still be logged and not just a tally kept)

we all have a log in number and throughout the day it shows how many calls we have taken and how many bookings from those calls, as far as i am aware all our calls are recorded but i couldn't swear to that, maybe they just tell us that so we behave

dave i have PM you