Yesterday we booked a holiday to Kefalonia through Olympic for July 09. We'd well researched the resort and apartments and had a price from Olympics own web site. I prefer to book through a travel agents cos I like to talk face to face with someone, so we popped into our local Travelcare cos they always price match. They checked the price we had and quoted a better one including insurance so we were well chuffed and handed over our deposit.
Today Travelcare phoned up and said they'd received a telephone call and an email from Olympic saying there was a mistake on their website and the price had now risen to over £400 more than originally quoted. The staff checked the website and the terms and conditions and said that olympic were well within their rights to do this. We have been offered our full deposit back or we can choose another holiday or we were given the option to pay the extra. The Travelcare staff say they have never come across such a huge price rise before when the first price quoted was a reasonable price to start with and were most apologetic.
Luckily we book so well in advance that there are still plenty of other choices of destinations so I suppose its back to the internet to do more research.
Just thought I'd warn you all that this situation can happen. I had expected prices to fluctuate with oil costs, duties etc, but not by that much the day after booking. I'm well disappointed with Olympic. We are off to Corfu with them in 7 weeks time and have had plenty flight time changes already, which I know can't always be helped. Just wonder what change is going to happen next.
I believe that until such time a confirmation invoice has been received, any price quoted is just that - a quotation. When the confirmation invoice has been printed the price is set in stone (unless the T's and C's say different but that may be unfair by law too).
we booked a holiday last week and on the day we booked it it was quite a bit cheaper than a few days before and as soon as i came home from booking it it had gone up by £500,just hope we dont get a phone call as well.But surely if its in writing and you have paid a deposit thats a legal contract?
Olympic are a law unto themselves.
Tp balance things up I should have said we have booked with them direct and by internet since and got excellent prices and service.
If a customer booked on the internet or via a travel agent, once the invoice was automatically produced on the reservation system (at the end of each business day), we weren't allowed to increase the cost. Once it was issued on the system, the cost couldn't be increased, whether the customer had received it by mail or not.
If however, there was an error and it was picked up before the invoice was issued on the system, then we could inform the customer or agent to advise them.
It sounds a bit "odd" to me, so I would suggest contacting them again to check what their policy is.
CwB
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