Hi, i know this is very late but have just book with them and they seem to be ok.. but having issues with our names and seem even if it is not your fault they may charge me £75 for name change but " they need to go through the recording of the call" even though i made the booking 24 hours a go!!!!! ..will keep you posted on what is happening..... over and out for now

I have seen a few people asking if this Company are any good. I booked a holiday with them because the price was very good - I won't be doing it again though as their after sales service, ie. when they have your money is dreadful.

You have to chase for everything even confirmation and the telephone number they give you charges 10p per minute and average wait time in my experience is 20mins a time. The staff I have spoken to when I have got through have been pretty unhelpful and one in particular was extremely rude.

My mum booked a holiday with ola - just over 2 weeks ago now, she still hasn't received confirmation of the booking (which has been paid for in full!) she has phoned them countless times (and yes, was given a different number to call, where she was in a queue for 30 mins, eventually she had to put the phone down!) - to be told each time that it had been sent out - eventually, she asked them to send it by email - which they said they would do straight away, needless to say, it still hasn't arrived! She is becoming increasingly worried, as if it takes this long to get confirmation sent out, will the tickets even arrive in time!

Just to update re Ola Holidays I hope your mum eventually got her tickets. I got mine via e-mail six days before but it cost me a small fortune as I had to wait fifty minutes to speak to someone and get them to e-mail it out to me!! I will never use this Company again or the Teletext Holiday Website as I do not trust the Companies they allow to advertise on this site if Ola Holidays are anything to go by. Just to finish if I hadn't persevered and phoned them I would never have got my tickets on time. They arrived in the post with a letter from Ola Holidays dated 29 June 2009 and a post mark of 7 July 2009 my holiday departure date was 2 July 2009!! As far as I am concerned they are the "cowboys" of the travel industry.

Thought this would be of interest to anyone wanting to book with Ola Holidays and Resorthoppa. This was the email that I sent that explains it all !!! Take my advice dont do it. Once they get your money that dont give a damn.

On the 22.6.2009 I had the hugh misfortune to book a holiday though your company.



I have so many complaints about your companies incompetence it is hard to know where to begin ! Between yourselves and Resort Hoppa you managed to make our holiday one of the most miserable travel experiences I have ever had. From booking up the holiday to arriving and coming home it was just one catalogue of mis-information and poor travel advice.



When I originally booked our holiday the operator, who had a very strong accent, managed to take down my email address wrongly. After not receiving a confirmation from your company I rang and was able to rectify this mistake and eventually was able to get a confirmation from you. However, I did not receive a confirmation from Easyjet. So I tried ringing your company by phone on numerous occasions for advice. The first time I got through I was told that it was not a problem but the administration was closed but he would fix it for me. I did not hear anything, so I tried ringing again and was told it was ''nothing to do with him'' and was given another number to ring. Eventually I got through and this operator told me to ring the first number I had rung ! I gave up in exasperation ! The next day I tried again and was told by your next operator that she would sort it and ring me back in ten minutes. Still nothing heard.....I next tried your customer services department. Without exageration I was left on the line listening to a message saying how ''important my message was'' and I gave up with your incompetent, inaccessible company !



I decided to get in touch with EasyJet direct and they told me that your company had giving me the wrong information. Your original operator gave me a reference number to get access to EasyJets website and print out my e-boarding passes. I was able to get onto the site but it would not let me print an e-ticket out. Easyjet told me that your operator had given me the wrong information and that because we had luggage that we would have to get to the airport two hours before and book in as normal. It was annoying news but at least I was getting some decent information from a good company !



Eventually we got to our destination, in Palma, to find that your company had not confirmed our transfer booking and they did not have us on their system. Fortunately they were able to get us up on their system and we were allowed on the coach. Five minutes out of Palma the coach broke down.....We suddenly stopped no explaination was given as to what was happening and we were subjected to very loud ''house'' music for 40 mins while a replacement bus was sent.



We got to the complex in the morning to be told that we would not be able to get to our rooms for another 8 hours ! I would have thought your ''experienced'' travel advisor would have told us this. I had to pay an extra 85 euros to get the room.



At the end of the holiday I tried to confirm my transfer booking to resorthoppa, by phone the day before I left. Again I got a message that I was in a queue and after pumping in 8 euros I was told that it was too early to reconfirm my transfer booking and I had to try again later ! Later I tried and could not get through and eventually rebooked on line. I double checked this and reconfirmed on line again to make sure, as by this time my confidence in resorthoppa was nil. I twice received confirmation back that I would be picked up at 2050 outside the Bouganvilla Hotel. We were outside the hotel waiting ten minutes before the coach was due and after over an hour waiting for the bus we had to get a taxi to Palma airport which cost us 85 euros. If we had not done this we would have missed our flight.





Words cannot describe what a rotten holiday it was caused by your company and resorthoppa.

I would be interested to hear if you get a reply from Ola Holidays to the e-mail you have sent.

I was told they would not respond to any complaints that were sent via e-mail. I have sent two separate letters to them complaining about their after sales service - amazingly they have not received either - not sure I believe them!!

I did advise Teletext Holidays and ABTA of the poor service I had received from the Company. I have received a reply from Teletext but no reply as yet from ABTA.

My advice to anybody thinking of booking a "package deal" with OLA HOLIDAYS - DON'T. You would be better off and probably even cheaper doing it yourself.

I have sent two separate letters to them complaining about their after sales service - amazingly they have not received either - not sure I believe them!!

Were the letters sent recorded delivery/signed for? That is the advice given here and in other places. Such service enables you to track delivery online. The Post Office obtain a signature when delivering, this is accepted as proof of service in a court of law.

My personal view is that emails should not be used for lodging complaints. Far to easy to say they have not been received and hard to prove they are not telling the truth.

fwh

OLA HOLIDAYS

I have had the misfortune of booking a holiday with Ola Holidays on the TELETEXT website.

After finding a cheap holiday with Ola Holidays, I booked a package holiday in Majorca for 3 seperate families.
Two weeks later Ola holidays rang to say the apartments were overbooked! They offered me some alternative apartments, the reviews for these apartments were awfull and so I declined them, Ola then said if I didn't accept them I could have a refund on my apartments but not my flights, I explained I was not interested in any other apartments as I only picked Majorca because these apartments had such good reviews, and so I would have a full refund for my total holiday (in the terms and conditions that OLA sent me it was stated that if they change any part of the holiday booking you are entitled to a full refund) NO they point blank refused to do this.

Over the next four days I tried to contact OLA holiday and sort this mess out, now the fun starts! You ring the "customer services" line and if your lucky you may get your call answered after 20 minutes! This was the shortest time I waited for some one to answer my call and at 10 pence a minute I have spent £13.00 in phonecalls alone, trying to sort my holiday out with rude, blunt staff who WILL NOT pass you over to the manager as aparently "she is in a meeting" no matter what time of the day you ring.
After 4 days of this I was stressed, angry and overwhelmed at the attitude of this company.
I reported them to ABTA who said that as I paid for the apartments with one card and my flights with a different card Ola had split the booking and so was now not classed as a package holiday and they did not have to refund the flights! I only paid for the apartments seperate to the flights as Ola told me it would "save me paying charges incurred using that card and did I have another card I could use for the flights?" ( a lesson learned, pay for your holiday on ONE card and use a credit card if possible, as then you are totally covered by the bank)

I am now stuck with going to Majorca and have had a refund on the apartments and have had to find alternative apartments and pay out for transfers as well, my "cheap" holiday has turned into a stressfull, expensive and frustrating ordeal.

wow youve had a really awful time .we booked 7th june to go 18th to tossa de mar at tossa beach hotel
but our experience was very smooth ola rep rung us to confirm our names ect we had to print our details out , also check in with ryan air
we didnt have any bad experiences and it was that good we were going to book again with them
ryan air charge 10p a minute but ola is a normal call
your flights arent covered by abta as they are independent from ola
it was my first time booking like this so i was very apphrehensive but i read everything on site terms ect
either i was extremely lucky or terms and conditions werent read but i do know ryan air are a nightmare and i think it must of been them who were rude . also resort hopper were very good but we landed at gerona so maybe it depends on where u go
also ola emails go 2 your junk email sometimes ,which mine did and extra charges were £20 each for cases with ryan air and £5 checkin there and back for 15k case weight and 10 k hand luggage
but i did know ola is not a package when i booked ,but other posts didnt
we paid altogether £666 for 2 people all inclusive and it was worth ev penny flying from teesside oh for 1 week
we saves 100% with ola it would of been over a £1000 also we flew from nearest airport . it turned out well for us and i am really sorry it didnt for others but i would recomend them as we had no probs

am I being cynical but it seems everytime someone puts a complaint in about this company. There is a reply shortly afterwards saying how good they are ?

The reason I am cynical about it is because when I posted my last email critising Ola and Resorthoppa, strangely enough the next day someone posted how great resorthopper are ? Ummmm

That's the nature of a holiday discussion website such as Holidaytruths, where positive and negative feedback is welcome, as opposed to some of those ambulance-chasing websites which specialise only in complaints and compensation claims.

However, from time to time we do see what we believe to be fictitious recommendations and complaints and where there is evidence to support that, we remove the posts.

David

hi i wrote the good review and i also posted on trip adviser under weggo123. i am a genuine customer and i didnt have any probs . like i said above i must of been either very lucky or maybe they are like any other travel agent where mistakes are made
we went for our 25th anniversary and it was really nice for the money , considering thousands fly every year and theres only a few bad experiences its not too bad , but then again if i read these i wouldnt of booked with them as i was nervous anyway as i am not a person who goes away alot
like i said resort hoppa was good but i did read on another site that a couple were not picked up
i think next time i go away for a cheap hol i might book it all independently as i will save money and if it goes wrong it will be my fault and not the travel company as ola is not abta protected on flights anyway
good luck guys on ur next hols hope it goes better for u, the only good advice i got is read all terms and conditions and reviews then im sure it will go well

just to let u all know apparently ola is owned by cooperative travel so i dont think its a rogue travel agent ,they are advertised on facebook with a few members if u need advice on there experiences or how to go on with them

Hi sandra ... I appreciate that you may have read that on Facebook, but there is nothing I am aware of on either the Ola Holidays website or the ABTA website to suggest a connection with Co-operative Travel.

David

David you beat me to it. I was just about to say that. Hello Holidays are part of the Co-operative Group. Maybe that is where the mix up occurred?

Like Sandra, I had the misfortune to post a positive result on a holiday a short time ago, in that case the company was the dreaded O.T.B. And as in Sandras case some posters made some questionable posts doubting the validity of the remarks I made. Whilst I'd never dream olf quesioning the truth of the many horror stories posted here, the law of averages means that with those large companies, not every holiday ends in disaster, in my daughters case the holiday was trouble free, and much cheaper than the similar holidays supplied by the high street chains This does not mean that these companies are trouble free, but if one picks a holiday that is a lot cheaper than that offered on the high street, one must not be surprised if things go wrong from time to time. But please dont get annoyed if someone dares to post a positive outcome, we're only reporting what happened in our particular case. Alan

hi david just to reply about facebook it says on the ola fan site that the company was sold in 2007 to cooperative travel group , weather that is correct or not i dont know , but either way it still doesnt help those who have had a bad experience sometimes things happen even to us who do a lot of research on our hols , but the more you research the more cards are stacked in your favour of having a trouble free holiday. i spend weeks looking at hotel reviews asking friends ect about hols also reading terms and conditions so i dont get a nasty surprise and touch wood all my hols have been faultless and at a fantastic price . like everyone we work very hard to get away and if your spending 100s you must look into it ,not give your money away and hope travel companies only advertise good hotels ect
the amount of people who take time to write bad reviews bewilders me , yet they do not take the time to check hols out crasy

Sandra, you are so right! I have been booking holidays on the internet for many years now, booking seperately as well as package holidays and have never had a problem as I (thought) knew my rights and always checked out reviews and pictures etc i have never had a bad experience. I have saved so much money i am able to go on holiday twice a year for the price of 1 travel agents package deal! this experience has not put me off booking independantly, it was just a surprise that it happened to me, but I bet everyone says that!
I wrote the review in the hope that it might make people aware and they would take steps to try and avoid the situation me and my extented family found ourselves in, it was a truly distressing experience when booking a holiday should be the highlight of your family year.
thankyou for your replies guys!
happy holidays, mandy