It has happened to me on very few occasions, and believe me it does not have to be the TO's fault! I recall very vividly an arrival I had late on an Xmas Eve. I escorted the clients to their accommodation to find it locked up, no keys, no-one answering any phones, nothing!! All my paperwork was in place, booking confirmed etc etc. However, regardless of whose fault it was I was duty bound to find them other accommodation. Morally, the buck stopped with me, and I was able to find them alternative accommodation, but it was not my fault!!! The company I am with is a small TO, and all bookings are checked many times throughout the course of the months leading up to the holidays, so potential problems can be detected and dealt with. In the week before arrival I do three final, final checks

I am so glad I escorted these particular clients that night, I didn't have to, but it meant I could go home knowing everyone was happy and ready for their hols. Thank goodness I did!!!!!

Madsu,
sounds like you work for a T.O. that

should be nurtured and cherished

Well done for sorting your clients out.

Mike

Marie, i am a resort administrator for one of the largest tour operators and work in resort.

Yesterday i was advised of overbookings from one of our biggest units one hour AFTER the flight had arrived in resort!

That is how soon it can be announced to us. This is then the blame of the hotel and we invoice them for not only the cost of the hotel the guests have been moved to, but we will also make sure that the hotel is liable for every penny of the compensation that is paid to the guests should any be paid out!

Why then do TO's continue to deal with hotels/chains that continually put them in a bad position with their customers? I feel blessed that I have never found myself in this situation, especially after years of reading horror stories on here, but if I did it would take a miracle for them to get my business again. I don't pick my holidays on a wing & a prayer, as I'm sure is the same for most people, so the holiday I want is the one I have spent hours picking & thousands of hard earned pounds saving all year for.
Scotlad you must have nerves of steel to do your job and be able to face your customers 1 hour after landing, but surely you can see it is your company putting you in that position by dealing with hoteliers who overbook, therefore in my eyes it is still the TO fault for not enforcing stricter overbooking rules.
regards
Marie

The answer is simple, Marie, it's because we the customers expect to pay as little as possible for our holidays. So hotels, airlines, TOs etc arrive at their unit prices on the basis of maximising and achieving full occupancy but they also know that a booking doesn't necessarily always translate into a bum on the seat, a body in a bed and so they build into their costings and booking systems an assumed 'no show' rate and most of the time they get it right. Most of us don't get bumped of a flight or transferred at short notice to another hotel etc. But sometimes some of us do and that is one of the prices we pay for getting good value holidays. If hotels stopped counting on some guests never arriving, the cost of those empty beds would be factored into basic room prices and we'd see basic rates rise.

The TOs know this and they know that all hotels do it - if they stopped using hotels that got caught out occassionally then they'd soon run out of places to send us because the odds are that in the end every hotel stands the risk of being caught out once in a while. I'm sure that any hotel that gets repeatedly caught out in this gamble learns a costly lesson when they have to pick up the bill as scotlad says and that TOs do stop using the persistent offenders because it isn't worth the hassle that it causes them but the only way to completely eliminate the risk would be to put up prices so that hotels can afford to carry the cost of some unoccupied rooms. But that means that we'd have to be prepared to pay more for our holidays. Holidaymakers increasingly boast about their savvy in shopping around and forcing better and better deals out of TOs and travel agents etc but the more we look for such 'good deals' in terms of price the greater the risk we run that all concerned will start to cut corners in order to sell us holidays at the prices we are prepared to pay.

I realise that this is no consolation to the few that have their holidays affected (and they are only a small minority in relation to the millions that the TOs send away each year) but the alternative is that we would all have to pay a lot more to compensate the hoteliers for the empty rooms that would be one of the consequences of them not taking that calculated risk of accepting bookings in anticipation of some them never materialising.

I think that we need to remember that the great increase in holiday travel that has taken place the last 50 years has happened not just because average incomes have risen but also the relative cost of travel has fallen. I don't think I'm overpaid for the job I do and I'm not some City whizz kid on hgue bonuses but a middle range public employee in higher education - there's many a schoolteacher earning more than me and they're not exactly high rollers either :-) and yes, I don't have kids I have to take on holiday but I do have to take my holidays out of term-time just the same. But even so in the current standard leave year starting in April 2005 I'll have had holidays consisting of one 3 week holiday to Cuba, one 2 week holiday to Cuba, a week in the Canaries, a week in Northumbria and a long weekend city break and I just might squeeze in another city break before April just for the hell of it. Some of you will have noticed that I can do this mainly because I get a very generous annual leave allowance :-) but more importantly because the real cost of such holidays in relation to my income has fallen considerably. Despite now living on my Dad's pension my parents have travelled far more widely and far more frequently since they both retired than they ever did when in work because the cost of travel has fallen so much in the 17 years since he did so despite having a lower income now.

The bottom line is that cheap travel has its costs and they don't stop with the bottom line on the invoice. We only get what we pay for in the end and anybody travelling with a mass market TO has to accept that their holiday is only available to them at that price because of these sort of practices.

SM

There seems to be a tendency to blame the TO for whatever ill befalls people. It is all very well saying I arrived in the Costa Del wotsit and they were overbooked. The TO was at fault and should be sued to hell and back.

Overbooking happens here in the UK and it is not always greed.

My eldest son has just sold his hotel. A great deal of his trade was from people working in the area. Sometimes a job went wrong and a guest needed to stay on. The room that was booked became overbooked. It was a problem. In his case he and the other small hotels in the area worked together to help in such a case.

Last year I booked a hotel in the UK for a weekend break. The hotel booking was via an agency and I had a confirmation. The day before we went the hotel rang to say they were full. The agency had overbooked. The agency only sent the details to the hotel the day before we went. We found another hotel but we were obviously put out. I did not chase off seeking compensation.

It is easy to complain but people do need to consider that problems can arise. The travel industry is just like any other trade. I am waiting a part for my dishwasher. I was told it would be fixed last Tuesday. They are still waiting for a part.
Sometimes you have no choice but to accept it. Nobody wants an unhappy customer but these things can, and do happen.

fwh

fwh, you are the voice of calm reason.

But I'm in an impish mood. So apologies, but I'm going to pick up on a couple of points you raise:

a guest needed to stay on. The room that was booked became overbooked.

Your son made a commercial decision (and possibly the correct one) to let the existing occupant stay knowing that would cause overbooking. He has a legal obligation to provide redress to the client he's contracted with previously and who will not now have a room. It is his responsibility and good on him if he sorted it.

I had a confirmation. The day before we went the hotel rang to say they were full. The agency had overbooked. The agency only sent the details to the hotel the day before we went.

When you booked with the agency they should have made your booking immed. with the hotel - before sending your the confirmation. The agency could be playing fast and loose with any monies you pre-paid them - by delaying the real hotel booking. I'd seek redress from the Agency in that instance, but agree, it's not the hotel's fault.

It's worth noting however, that none of this is the fault of the paying guest. Yet it's often the paying guest who is either out of pocket, or has the hassle of finding alternate accomm. or the inconvenience of having to stay somewhere other than the first preference.

Cannot think of many industries/services where such activities would be permitted other than the travel industry. Ask for a Guiness and get a lager - what would you do ?

Mike

Cannot think of many industries/services where such activities would be permitted other than the travel industry. Ask for a Guiness and get a lager - what would you do ?

Mike

Exactly my thoughts Mike, and the sorry thing is a holiday is ££££'s more than a pint, and SOOooooo looked forward to all year. I really can't think of anything more to say other than its bad practice.
Regards
Marie

Scotlad,
if as you say the hotels who overbook , causing the TO to pay compensation to the customer, are then charged the full amount meaning that the TO is not out of pocket.
Then why does it always take a battle with the TO to get compensation?

Personally I book with a company, pay my money as required and expect to receive the goods or services that we have agreed.
If I am not supplied with them then I will claim against the party that I have a contract with, EVEN if it is not their fault.
In the same way I would imagine that many of us have returned faulty products to a supermarket, not their fault but they are responsible.
And they will in turn take it up with their suppliers, ultimately ceasing to stock their products if they don't meet the required standards.
the only difference I see between contracting to buy a tin of beans and a sunshine holiday is the cost.
NO EXCUSES the TO picks up the responsibility
del949

Del,
I couldn't have stated it any better.
It's easy to get sucked in to the "not my fault gov." concept, IT IS THEIR FAULT. You pay the T.O. and they are supposed to provide the service/product.

If they don't they are in breach of contract. It's that simple.

Putting a holiday package together really is not rocket science.

Mike

Agree with Mike. You make a contract with a TO and then they fail you. Sometimes people on here imply others are after something for nothing. I also totally deplore the no win no fee compensation culture. But I can't see why anyone would take the side of the multi-million pound business over the 'man in the street' with little voice and often only forums like this to air their problems on. The alternative - they then get invloved in a 12 month battle of letter writting, unproductive phone calls, small claims court/solicitors. Just to get what they booked in the first place.

Generally (I know not always) on this forum people do not want "something for nothing" as is implied by some.

All people want is what they have paid for in the first place, (often 13 months in advance!) as did the original poster who posted on behalf of his parents. If TO's enter into a contract and don't deliver they are to blame Why make excuses for them?

The bottom line is that cheap travel has its costs and they don't stop with the bottom line on the invoice. We only get what we pay for in the end

Sorry, SM, I'd missed this final comment previously.

You are correct in the your description of how hotels and T.O.'s operate in the "lower-end of the market". I believe they do this not to be able to offer cheap deals, but rather to enable them to compete and still make a profit.

The T.O. could always move upwards and compete in the prestige market - but that's smaller and whilst the margins might be higher overall the profits are lower. That's why Tesco makes more money than, say, Harrods.

However, your comment (highlighted above) says it all.....the customer only wants what he's paid for. That's the core problem here, the original poster explained how his parents did not get what they paid for. The T.O. still got the profit though - didn't they.

Mike

I just wanted to tell you my story, which is very similar to your parents.

We booked to go away and like you we booked early, in fact a year early as we were travelling with my parents whom have walking difficulties and needed to ensure we got an apartment in a central location. However, the evening before we were due to depart, we also got a phone call telling us that our apartments were under refurbishment and we would be moved to another hotel or get a full refund. A refund was out of the question,we had taken time off work and wouldn't want to disappoint the kids.

We decided to opt for the new hotel and checked it out before the shop had shut. I was concerned, the hotel seemed quite far out and I wasn't sure if my parents would be able to walk the distance to the resort and we didn't see why we should have to pay for cab fares.

I contacted the Travel agent and they said due to the lateness of the information they were unable to offer another option and besides they were about to close....charming. I accepted it but told them I would be asked to be moved if necessary and told them I would be putting in a letter of complaint.

Well, when we arrived we soon realised that this hotel was not for us, it wasn't suitable for kids and was too far out, about half hour walk to the resort. I complained to the rep and he showed no interest, saying to put it in writing on my return. We decided to make the most of a bad situation.

Whilst there I decided to take a look at the hotel we were due to stay in, just for future reference and soon found out that there was no refurbishment going on, I even asked the receptionist.

On my return to the UK I wrote to the travel agent and asked for compensation, they offered us £100 between 7 of us. I contacted Ros (solicitor) and she explained that we had a good case and took it on for us. Well, thank you so much Ros, Ros managed to get half our money back, which we were all so pleased with. What a difference hey.

Lets hope you also have a good result.

Sue

Sue,
what a pleasant change to get a report detailing the problem, the reaction from the agent/operator and the outcome - all in one post.

The lesson is clear - if your initial request for fair and reasonable compensation is met with resistance seek legal advice. I also can thank Ros for her help with my case last summer.

Thanks for sharing your experience Sue.

Mike

Isn't it a shame that time and time again we see a new poster detail their issues and ask for advice from those on the forum, only for no new postings to be received from them either acknowledging what others write, or what the outcome was after hopefully acting upon this advice.

There - that's off my chest now!

Yes it would be nice if people let us know how they got on. I often follow complaints with interest to see how people manage their individual situations, but so often feel we are left hanging not really knowing the outcome.

Some of these problems/complaints seem to come round on a regular basis. Here on HT we DO try to help. I really wonder sometimes if they are all genuine!

Before I am accused of being a cynic, and I am not. We often get a story that lacks any real detail - A problem that most people should have seen coming a mile away.

When we post a reply if we are not falling over ourselves to sympathise, accusations of bias.

I do know that some members have stopped posting replies for that reason.

We cannot make people post details of the outcome. It really is a case of being courteous.

The postings that really P*** me off are those who having had the replies continue to moan. They are going to sue the pants off the TO or whatever. But you know they never will.

Perhaps we should ask the mods/admin to close topics instead of letting them run and run.

Dare I suggest that some of them are a figment of someones imagination?

Just another kind of Spam?

Long live HT for all those genuine folk!!!

fwh

Hmmm!

I have got to agree with some of FWH's comments. It would be nice to be able to follow the outcome of somebodies problems when you have given your best advice.
But, I wonder if anyone could be bothered to post a worry as a "figment of their imagination". Or perhaps I am too trusting.
And FWH is correct in saying that most people would see some of the problems coming , long before they became problems.
(after having a very good curry and several cobras tonight you have no idea how long it has taken me to type this without spelling mistakes, BUT I AM ON HOLIDAY NOW )
del949