What did it say on the holiday invoice, because all you can expect is what's written there? Verbal promises are virtually unenforcible, and it's becoming obvious that travel agents will tell you anything to get a sale.

I would suggest you contact a solicitor -

The aim of this section of the holiday-truth website is to enable holidaymakers to get advice and assistance as soon as possible on any holiday complaints or problems encountered.

Our members will be able to offer you advice on how best to deal with your holiday complaints and how to deal with the Tour Operators. However please remember that this will be non qualified advice. We therefore suggest you seek professional assistance from someone qualified in Travel Law.

We have teamed up with Ros Fernihough, Travel Law Solicitor, to provide the best information available.

Ros has offered our members free impartial legal advice. Please note that Ros does not read or post on this board any contact to her must be made via :-

The direct number to Ros's PA Pam is 01922 705134

Or try the switchboard number 01922 633214 and ask for Travel Dept.

Peter

Did she promise interconnecting/adjacent rooms or just make a special request?
Really, it is impossible to say that you will have these, especially in high season when the accom may well be full. A trip back to the shop is in order.

Louby

On the FC reservations system there will be downloaded the exact booking you made. The room configuration, the exact viewdata (the booking system they use) page of the cost and the invoice is generated automatically from there. In the case of interconnecting rooms (of which genuine interconnecting are few and far between), on your invoice, It will show somethng like "2 x Tw3 PB SH WC Interconnect" there is usually a £1 per night supplement on these rooms too. Otherwise there will be a comment under "requests- not guaranteed" purely asking for tw3 interconnecting. You need to check this first. If it's the former, you have a very strong case, if it is the latter you may have a bit of a fight on your hands.

I hope you kept the reciepts for the 4900 Euros you paid .

Get on to Ros ASAP.

Agent Q has insider knowledge and would know exactly what the invoice should say however for the rest of us who put our faith in the shop personnel, we have only their word for it.

We want Y; the invoice says X; We Query; The agent says "That is how it is shown".

What can we do? We assume they know they job and are helping us. Unfortunately I have also come across some who do not and aren't!

FC will not look kindly to having to refund anything despite their complicity or guilt - I still have the T shirt, and so for the amount of refund you are looking for, I think you will have to get legal.

In which case - talk to Ros first and do it properly from the start. If you have no hope I am sure she will tell you up front before it costs you even more money.

A small example of this. I booked and paid for a holiday told it was £1389 but the invoice stated £1200 I queried this and was told this is how it is shown. Later on another confirmation still £1200 again asked about this. Went on QM2 spoke to the future cruise person. Looked at my booking said I definitely should only have paid £1200.
Got home contacted them denied it and said I had agreed to pay £1389, Told them I had 3 invoices from them with £1200 stated. Told me that they had not received the confirmation invoice from Cunard and that was why I had not been sent it one. Called Cunard told that the confirmation by email was made 2 days after I made my booking.
Wanted to call me back 48 hrs. No way stayed on the phone and got the Customer Services senior person.
That night wrote a stiff email telling them I had spoken to Trading Standards. Fired it off asked for a refund immediately. Called them next am tried to fob me off but stood my ground polite but assertive.
Told they would respond in 28 days told them I would give them 7 days.
Went out and when I came back at 3pm email saying that a cheque would be raised for the £189 that evening. Had spoken to her Director.
Received cheque in 3 days and I was happy with the result.

I think that you do need good legal advice on your particular problem. They will try to give you the run around but get the information you need and then press them for a result.

Sue

They don't like trading standards for sure. If prosecuted and they lose, fines start at £1,000 with costs around the same.

Not sure of the ins and outs of the current case, jpr hasn't got back to us with some answers to matters raised.

Peter

Hi all

Well I'm very grateful for the responses.

The quick answer to the room request is, I'm afraid, that when I challenged on the booking she explained that the rooms just connected, and even went onto describe in detail that actually it would be more like 2 large sitting rooms. So like an idiot I thought she knew the hotel, I'm a head of recruitment not a travel agent! When I called the Watford FC branch on the day of arrival, the manager told me that interconnecting rooms hadn't been requested, and said he would have strong words with her for booking two rooms for a family with young kids. Doesn't help me though because this is all verbal - the fact is that when she reassured me that 2 x twin rooms meant they'd connect in that hotel I signed in good faith and have been absolutely stung. I've given them the resort report, yes handed in the receipt and yes written a strong letter. The thing is, in my industry, if someone comes into one of our shops, buys a mobile and a tariff and takes the expertise of a sales person they have every right to come back and get compensated if whatever they bought wasn't what they were led to believe it was. I find it very frustrating that I trusted a dippy teenager and am now so heftily out of pocket. We will get legal - absolutely happy to do so - as I said in my letter to them ' The comment from one of your employees about perhaps my 6 yr old sleeping in a room alone is enough to give your PR team indigestion - rest assured I will make it as public as necessary if we don't resolve this between ourselves'
Perhaps that was silly - but I am just enraged by what's happened - this was no bargain bucket accomodation on arrival last minute deal(been there done that never had any problem)
Aggh! Will contact Ros - thanks so much for putting me in her direction. Cheers everyone what lovely bunch you are.

Sorry just read agent Q's post -take your point but the point here is that we didn't make the booking - the agent did - in full knowledge and sight of our two children - so regardless of what the FC system sas the fact is that what she booked was totally oppostie to waht we'd told her (and sepont over 2 hours with her) searching for. She plainly just wanted rid of us

Thanks for getting back to us, and the best of luck.

Peter

Might sound silly but I wonder if people should not put in writing what they want. If that had been done in this case then FC etc would have had no defence as they had been given a specification.

I have on several occasions emailed a TO having picked a holiday from their brochure detailing dates, flights etc. Yes we stay in hotels these days so it is not quite the same but anyone wanting what the OP did would have at least have some comeback.

fwh

I often will follow up some verbal arrangement by putting it in writing so that there is some come back if things go wrong. It should not be necessary but unfortunately in this current climate sometimes it is easy for people to deny.

I am away for 13 nights so wish you all the best of luck.

Sue

Might sound silly but I wonder if people should not put in writing what they want.

And get the reply in writing too. Not silly at all, these pages testify that there are some disreputable or at the very least lackadaisical travel agents out there, who will tell clients anything to get a sale.

It would be a wise precaution, unfortunately.

Peter

Yes I agree - a specification document that you complete and then sign would make alot of sense. Unfortunately as Peter says, one is lulled into a false sense of security and believes that as a customer you might get treated with honesty and integrity - it's shameful. I will never, repeat never use a ta again.

Good Luck in your fight JPR, but don't get confused and tar all agents with the same brush.

This one has stitched you up and we have had some do that to us, but don't forget there are some very knowledgable good ones and being in the system they can play it better than us.

Maybe the big TOs are too rigid in what they are allowed to do, although there are still some good agents in there (we have a few pop up on the site with advice - someone is lucky enough to have them working in their local).
Just remembered I spotted a deal in an FC shop on holiday (UK) last year and made enquiries with one of the agents, she was impressive and made an impact more or less immediately. I pointed out it was a shame that I was only on holiday and couldn't go back to her. She revealed that she had many clients from all over the UK who had first come into the shop on holiday as I did but now phoned her to arrange their foreign holidays rather than go into their local branch. What the others in the branch were like is anyone's guess but maybe it rubs off.

The small online TA I used for my last holiday was very switched into the area I was looking at and came up with lots of useful info, some of which was not in the public domain and turned out to be spot on. They also appeared to go that little bit extra to get a better deal for my grandson as they worked with local accomodation agents (same big hotels though).

Unfortunately, you have to trust your instincts, which can be a big let down, but if you do your research beforehand, or even take the details away and go back afterwards, you should be able to throw in a couple of exposing questions which will reveal the agents ability.

I suppose we could always take in a portable dictaphone and sit it in plain view on their desk!

For future reference, I have stayed at the LTI Grand Azure in Sharm, where we had a family room which may suit you for a future holiday. The layout was normal hall/bathroom widening to a twin bed area behind the bathroom. Then there was a wall - mostly obscure glazed and a door, behind which was the main area with a double bed, TV area and balcony. Plus was you could hear the children if there was a problem, minus was that you had to go through their area to get to the bathroom.
Over in the Caribbean they appear to cater for the larger American market as the single beds in the twin bedded rooms are normally bigger than our doubles and so most of the rooms will take 2 and 2 easily (and cheaper - the four adult price for our last 2 wk A/I in a highly rated hotel in Mexico would have been less than £3600 although slightly more currently as this is hurricane season!)

Again, good luck and I hope you win.

Sorry just read agent Q's post -take your point but the point here is that we didn't make the booking - the agent did - in full knowledge and sight of our two children - so regardless of what the FC system sas the fact is that what she booked was totally oppostie to waht we'd told her (and sepont over 2 hours with her) searching for. She plainly just wanted rid of us

I understand she made the booking not you, I was just finding out what the paperwork said before I could advise you further. These kind of things are never sorted with a kneejerk reaction, it's best to know all the facts so I can give you some half decent advice.

As the paperwork didnt state interconnecting I recommend you get straight onto Ros, but you are going to find this will be very much your word against the TA.

"2 x Tw3 PB SH WC Interconnect"

Trouble is, most people when booking a holiday, would not know what all the different abbreviations mean! Is there a standard "code" available, or does each TO have their own?

It's pretty much a standard thing, but I must admit sometimes it baffles me!

not all ta's are the same. I've worked for first choice for 6 years, and im not the type of agent who lies just to get a sale. although i know some do, but we dont all operate like that. if i see a property come up and i know its no good, i will tell my customers that. id rather not get a booking, than get a sale knowing i'll probably get complaints upon return.
its such a shame that some agents ruin it for the rest of us so we all get tarred with the same brush.

Hi
I don't want anyone to think that I'm suggesting all TA's are unprofessional and unscrupulous - I'm not even suggesting that this one was if you read my posts I think she was imcompetent - and as such her employer should take accountability for her error and make sure it doesn't happen again. It may seem like this was our own fault to some people - and perhaps we were a bit trusting - but in a shop when I'm spending so much money I kind of expect to get competent and honest advice - I am not a travel agent and this one was in no mood to be challenged - I asked her several times about the booking and each time she fobbed me off.
I'll post back when I've spoken to Ros - thanks again for the comments.