Hi and welcome to HT!

We have a topic on Italian Getaways HERE

luci

Sorry to say you will get nowhere with Atol. When you booked you agreed to the terms and conditions in the brochure. I'm presuming they said that your tour op would absorb any increase up to 3%, and any further up to 10% would be passed on to you. Anything 10% and over you would have had option to cancel free of charge and get a refund. Would you prefer not to pay it, your tour op to go bump and them you would have had no holiday and a pain in the wotsit amount of form filling in to get your money back?

I am sympathetic to your situation, but your tour op still wants to provide you with a quality service, so please dont go on holiday with a sour attitude, it will spoil what could be an amazing time in an amazing country.

AgentQ is correct however, the OP does not say when the holiday was booked so we can only assume that it was some time ago. If the holiday was booked a week before and then the additional charges were asked for then it would be a legitimate complaint.
There have been several postings regarding additional charges this year.

fwh

Hi Agent Q
From your reply, may I assume you work for this Company, if in fact you do,then I am quite pleased to have provoked a reaction, but regardless, this company will know that they have me as a disgruntled customer because, without spoiling my Holiday, I will be as ruthless in my "Critique" as they are when conducting their Questionable Tactics, and I will leave Consumer Direct to make a decision after the Bank Holiday,which, if negative, will at least put this Company on "The radar".
Basser

Hi fwh.
The Holiday was booked 10 Days prior, I think I will leave it to the "Legal Eagles"
and then tune my reaction to their decision!! The Guy from ATOL seemed to think they were out of order.
Basser

From your reply, may I assume you work for this Company

Why you should make such an assumption is beyond me. HT exists to assist anyone with a legitimate problem. AgentQ has stated an opinion based on the regulations that apply re surcharges. If you read the T&Cs for any TO then it is all covered there.

fwh

Hi fwh I stand corrected, but from the tenure of the reply from Agent Q one can understand my knee-jerk reaction in what, for me, is a very distressing situation, and the reply did not,on the surface, appear to be totally impartial. Accept my apologies if I offended your sensibilities.
Basser

The applying of additional charges are covered in T&Cs and whilst we may not be happy with them commonsense tells us that to offer holidays at a reasonable price then TOs do have to be able to recover unforeseen costs.

In my opinion however, now you have told us that the holiday was booked only ten days prior I am suspicious. I wonder if this is more a ruse to claw back money for an under priced holiday than a TO applying a surcharge under the rules.

You say the explanation is "supposedly due to the current economic situation/low Sterling Price/Fuel costs/Exchange Rates/ and or other costs."

That would be an acceptable explanation if you had booked back in January, but a surcharge so soon after booking supports my viewpoint. I rang a TO to book a holiday back in January. I was told that due to the brochure being printed prior to the drop in the euro and other charges they would not be able to honour that price. I accepted the additional charges as I had been given a valid explanation. If they had contacted me a couple of weeks later then I would have taken the same stand as you.

ATOL will not be of any use here as it is outside their remit. Trading standards however will be very happy to take up the cudgels on your behalf.

fwh

In my opinion however, now you have told us that the holiday was booked only ten days prior I am suspicious. I wonder if this is more a ruse to claw back money for an under priced holiday than a TO applying a surcharge under the rules.

I agree with that assessment, also that trading standards will be interested.

Peter

Hi fwh. Thanks for the Post, Consumer Direct are on the case and have given the complaint a Case No but the guy I spoke to admitted that it was outside his remit and he would have to refer it, but due to the Bank Holiday i will have to wait for a response.
Regards Basser

FYI, I dont work for "this company" and if you have spoken to the people there the same way as you have spoken to me I am not surprised at all you got a rude response.

That said, did you mean you were asked for the money ten days prior to your departure, or you booked and paid for the holiday ten days before departure and were then asked for additional monies? Before you start stamping, shouting and being rude again I suggest you look at my previous threads, I'm a travel agent of 13 years and there's not a lot I don't know about package holiday regulations and terms and conditions. I am here to help.

Agent Q !!

Basser
I was sorely tempted to accord the last post, the Contempt it deserved, I assumed I was dealing with "Adults" However if there is anybody out there with an un-biased travellers opinion, then please get in touch
It's quite revealing to know one can "touch a nerve" with an informative post and evoke such response

I'm sorry you didnt get the response you wanted, but I'm afraid I can only give you facts and not a bellyrubbing. I've tried to be nice and help but all you have given is sarcasm.

Good luck with Consumer Direct. I hope they find a way to get around the terms and conditions.

We pride ourselves in offering a platform of discussion without the fear of having personal attacks directed in postings.

Please refrain from making these kind of attacks in any future postings.

Many thanks

MarkJ HT Mod