MY ADVICE TO ANYONE IS DO NOT BOOK WITH OLA HOLIDAYS...

I booked a holiday, they took my money and everything was confirmed.
I arrived in Majorca (and incidentally need a walking stick to get around) and there was no transfer for us. They assured us everything was in place. I tried to get hold of a rep or someone in that country and was advised I would need to go through the original tour operator.

I then had to ring my daughter who was then advised to phone SPAIN to try and sort it. The help... or rather lack of it was unbelievable!!!

This call cost £43.00.

I then had to pay £50 in Euro to the taxi driver to take me to our destination and had been assured the transfer would be sorted at the end of our holiday... You guessed it, they lied again!!!

Another £50 equivalent.

I paid out on phone cards, I reached home and tried to take it up with them and have spoken to very rude and poorly trained staff who have promised to write within 14 days which they did not until 44 days.
It is expensive to hold on the line waiting for an answer. My last wait cost me another £4.88 and it is the same each time.

I appreciate people dont often write good reviews and there could be many people who have had a good holiday, but I had my worst ever holiday.
My problem has still not been resolved and I am still being lied to.

I booked a holiday for my mum, her partner and my daughter. Have had nothing but distress from this company, contacting them is an absolute joke...after they have taken your money!!

You ring their customer call centre and they tell you to email in, you email and you don't get a response at all. They have a gaurentee on their website stating you will have a response within 12 hours normally but without fail within 36, utter rubbish. Having sent numerous emails and made endless phonecalls I now give up. Oh and to top it off when I said to the call centre supervisor that I was not happy with the service and wanted to make a formal complaint she said go ahead it will only come to me anyway. Awful person to attempt to deal with absolutely no interest in the customer at all.

My lesson learnt never book with this company again and make as many people on the net aware of what none existent service you get when they have taken your money!

I booked with Ola Holidays last week - a week in the Canary's for a family of 4 at the agreed price of £1200. After giving my card details they said they woudl book the holiday and call me back with reference numbers. After an hour they phoned and said there was a problem with the Ryanair website, which they claimed had crashed and processed the flight bookings for nearly £700 instead of the £300 they were expecting. They said the holiday would now cost £1600 instead of the oruiginal £1200 as a consequence. I spoke to Ryanair who said if their system had crashed it would not have confirmed a booking or processed any payment. I also checked the prices they were quoting for the Canary's - it is impossible to get a fare anywhere near the £300 that Ola said they were expecting. As Ryanair won't give a refund once you have bookd and paid we were stuck with the flights. However I managed to book my own hotel via the "Sunshire.co.uk" website (which I have used very satisfactorily in the past) and got an equally good hotel for just £500. That meant the holiday has cost me no more than Ola were originally quoted, rather tnah the extra £400 Ola had proposed. I suspect this "Website crash" was either a cover story because Ola had messed up the flight bookings - or could have been a deliberate scam to con me out of another £400. I wouildn't touch them with a barge pole in the future!

Ryanair system has been going down in the evenings for quite a while, few hours infact over the last week but ryanair wouldn't have processed a booking for £300 and then take £700. If olas track record are to go by then the extra they want looks like a cock up by them and no one else.

What was the outcome by the way, i know you booked your accommodation elsewhere but how where they when they told you about what had happened.

Thanks

AVOID OLA HOLIDAYS, I booked with Ola Holidays for 1 week all inclusive, I paid £800 by visa credit card, this was in May 2010 then Goldtrail went bust in July 2010. Ola Holidays offered me alternative flights for £650.00!! I only paid £800.00 for the whole holiday inclusive of Hotel on All Inclusive, plus transfers where included, I refused the alternative flights and was promised a full refund within 60 - 90 days, I have not had any refund, Ola Holidays ignore my emails and letters, I have reported then to ABTA and ATOL but they only write then letters and Ola Holdays lie and say they have communicated with my on every occasion. Barclays Visa card are not interested and say that because Ola Holdays charged me £2.50p for ATOL insurance then the iunsurance must pay and not visa!!! so do not think that by paying with credit card means your holiday payment is protected because it is not, I have the letter from Barclaycard telling me this, that they will not refund this money, so BEWARE. I thought I was fully covered all always with an ABTA registered company, and ATOL registration number and paying by Barclaycard visa I thought I was protected and would have no problems with a refund, I WAS WRONG. I must now take Ola Holidays to the small claims court to obtain my refund, BEWARE of OLA HOLIDAYS.

I am a bit surprised about all the negative comments made about Ola as my boyfriend and me have booked 2 hoildays with them and found them to be helpful and informative. One of the hotels we were looking at had bad reviews so we questioned the lad at Ola quite thoroughly and found the answers he gave quite honest, like do you have to get your sunbed ready at 5 in the morning and is the swimming pool cold - he told us yes to both answers where with some travel companies you get a load of speel. When we booked with them they followed up by an email confirmation, although I must admit I did have to write to remind them. Everything they said about both hotels we stayed in was true, even the bad bits.

I am a bit surprised about all the negative comments made about Ola as my boyfriend and me have booked 2 hoildays with them and found them to be helpful and informative.

It is quite possible that you have booked with them and not had any problems. All companies get it right at times. When members post here on HT giving details of the problems they have suffered with particular companies then it is a warning for others. Here on HT problem companies are named - some have taken note of the comments and improved their customer service. In some cases they have even joined HT and members are able to contact them via the site when things are not right. A lesson that should be learned. Talk to the customers and take positive action of the feedback that that our members give.

fwh

I have edited the topic title for the benefit of anyone researching this company, as it now appears to be trading under the name of 'TravelOla' as well as 'Ola Holidays'.

David

You may well be correct

The original Ola Holidays website seems to be gone but was originally registered to a Richard K---- in Wansted,East London. the address given was actually a firm of solicitors.

TravelOla.co.uk has been registered to a man of same name in a house in Wansted about half a mile from the solictors. But that site doesn't work either.

TravelOla.com is regsitered via an identity masking service in Canada. But it shows an address for mail in Wooodford Green - this is an office on a business park less than 2 miles from above house. Google the address and hey presto - an archived link to the defunct original Ola website! The new site also shows an address for data protection - way over the other side of London which turns out to be a firm of accountants specialising in the travel trade (with a reference from Low Cost , we've encountered them before as well!).

Google also threw out a third website linked to the office address http://www.keytrips.com but this turns out to be Ola once again and also using the same data protection address. If was registered a few years ago to the same man when he seemed to live in a flat not far away.

I always get edgy when companies change name, have multiple sites and try to hide this much!

Hi Steve ... the website name has changed to travelola.com and although I haven't studied the site in any great detail, I see no mention of the original trading name in the About Us section. But the phone number is still the same and is answered as OlaHolidays.

David

If you want to look at web sites that arent there anymore try

http://www.archive.org

Never Never Never ue Ola holidays UK. Despite reading bd reviews on them I purchased a holiday and have had nothing but problems concerning booking documents. I have logged a formal complaint with them about the terrible standard of holiday we experienced and they have not even replied. I have sent 2 recorded letters and 3 emails warning that I will take legal action against them if they do not investigate. Have been ignored every time and still today.

Please do not use them if you

Don't waste any more time or money chasing the OLA or whatever name they are now using At one time I would have advised you to contact Consumer Direct but that has now been replaced by this. http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/
You might also consider contacting your local Trading Standards office. Either way both organisations will be able to advise you on the best course of action and all it will cost is the price of a telephone call. My personal experience with Consumer Direct was 100% positive results. In both cases they gave clear "Correct" advice.

fwh

Well I used them for the first time this month and everything was fine!

ATB,J.