Above should read

- They do NOT provide full refunds even if they are at fault

Does anyone have advice on progressing claims via ABTA?

sorry to hear about your situation
from what i have read, abta dont really get involved and put the onus on you to resolve the issue with the company

as you can see from my post, i have had issues with the same company.

i have previously travelled with them without incident, and to be honest my last holiday experience was only soured by their customer service aspect with regards to their cock up.
my brother in law has just used them without incident also

good luck in your battles to contact them!
sounds as if you at least got an email address to write to, more than me

Whilst I accept the right of anybody to post here on HT within the terms & Conditions, my opinion on this post is someone has had a problem and seeks support, without actually telling us what it is.

Yes there are complaints here on HT about OTB - there are also complaints about most of the other TOs and agents.

Members try to assist where possible and as a matter of courtesy you should at least give us a brief explanation so we can decide for ourselves if you are correct in your assertions.

One piece of advice that is always given here on HT is you should always send your complaint in writing via recorded delivery. This can be tracked online and you will be able to prove it has been received. Emails can and do get lost in systems and often the sheer volume of them create their own problem.

fwh

You need facts to slate a company like that though, they're far from perfect at times I have read that over and over again but many also have success stories with them.

A few of the details are simply not true as I have contacted them myself and have been replied to quicker than the timelines stated as fact. People have also received refunds on here(albeit pretty slow ones)

You really need to give more info before tongue lashing a company e.g. Why does their website not comply with Abta standards etc?
Also I am not surprised the MD does not reply to customer complaints. It's hardly his job. He employees other people to do this.
Please can you supply more information.

Wiretownman - I do hope you come back and post more information, there are quite a few threads on here about bookings made with OTB and there are OTB staff that use HT, so if you post a little more information then perhaps help can be offered.

I will substantiate all of my claims against OTB one by one, so this is going to be a long thread

With regards the OTB website:

1. The web site did not provide a confirmation that an order had been placed. This contravenes the ABTA standard for the ‘on-line booking process'
2. The company did provide an electronic receipt without delay. The only electronic acknowledgment was an email 2 working days later. This contravenes the ABTA standard for the ‘on-line Acknowledgement of Orders'

The defect on OTB web site can be detailed as follows:

During the booking process immediately after you enter your credit card details the website redirects you to a page that states, "Unfortunately your request could not be completed" with a single link back to the home page.

At this point you would expect that no booking would have been made. You have no booking reference or confirmation. No emails, no phone calls, nothing. Check your credit card and nothing has been charged. To the customer this is just a failed web request.

What actually happens is that OTB manually (without contacting the customer) corrects the cause of the error, which completes the booking process 3-4 days later.

DO NOT DO THIS:

Go back to the home page and go though the booking process again. You will get a successful booking, with immediate booking reference, terms and conditions and confirmation email. OTB will be treat this as a second booking, which can only be refunded by inuring cancellation charges.

During the booking process immediately after you enter your credit card details the website redirects you to a page that states, "Unfortunately your request could not be completed" with a single link back to the home page.

At this point you would expect that no booking would have been made. You have no booking reference or confirmation. No emails, no phone calls, nothing. Check your credit card and nothing has been charged. To the customer this is just a failed web request.

What actually happens is that OTB manually (without contacting the customer) corrects the cause of the error, which completes the booking process 3-4 days later

To me that would indicate a broken link - That is not always the fault of the supplier with whom you are trying to make the purchase - I personally would not assume that a booking had not been made. I would have either telephoned or emailed them for confirmation. It happened to me last year with Olympic. Not having used this particular site to make a booking I have no idea what it says, however on other sites I do use it has told me I should only click once.

It is a dangerous assumption accusing OTB of manually correcting the error.

Payments can/do take several days to appear on CC or bank account statements/transaction histories so even with online transactions, not showing is not a true indication of a failed transaction

There have been previous reports here on HT for various companies where a double booking has resulted from either clicking again or assuming a booking has not been made and starting the whole process again.

No matter what all the advertising blurb tells us "The Internet" is not as fault free as we are led to believe. As a matter of course I, and others here on HT, take screen prints at each stage of the transaction just in case situations such as yours arise. Might sound a bit of a belt and braces approach but it does help when things go wrong, which they sometimes do.

fwh

ABTA standard for the ‘on-line booking process' states that a positive confirmation has to be provided.

OTB website did not provide a positive confirmation. On the contrary it provided a message that my request was unsuccessful.

The two bookings followed two different processing paths. The one which completed without errors, generated a booking reference followed by a confirmation email and finally a confirmation of booking 2 days later. The problem booking only had a confirmation of booking 3 days later.

I know that there are various well established methods of implementing internet booking systems to avoid this problem. OTB should invest in upgrading their system, instead of using the defects to generate revenue.

If this was a banking website, do you think banking customers would still have customer loyalty if the banks implemented such un-reliable systems?

OTB website did not provide a positive confirmation. On the contrary it provided a message that my request was unsuccessful.

And that did not put a tiny doubt in your mind? You were happy to accept that? Exactly the same happened with me last year with Olympic and a telephone call elicited that a booking had been made. But then I don't entirely trust computers.

I know that there are various well established methods of implementing internet booking systems to avoid this problem. OTB should invest in upgrading their system, instead of using the defects to generate revenue.

Again it might not be their fault. Some firewall/Anti Virus Programmes/ISPs can produce similar problems. A friend of mine cannot receive emails from me via Yahoo but can with Google.

If this was a banking website, do you think banking customers would still have customer loyalty if the banks implemented such un-reliable systems?

Irrelevant when you consider the amount of money banks are able to invest in technology - and even those don't always work as they should.

To assist you further - You need to email - forums@onthebeach.co.uk - with your MYB.

A member of HT who is employed by OTB monitors our site and will try to assist. Please ensure you put in your email that you have been directed there from HT.

fwh

By all means drop me an email to the address listed and i'll take a look at this issue.

send email to forums@onthebeach.co.uk with you MYB and the url of this post so that it can be traced back to here.

Many thanks

I know this isn't the first time we hear about these errors but there are many problems that can occur when booking online:
Session Timed Out / Broken link / No return message from supplier system etc etc

The internet is great but travel systems are often complex and having to connect with various other system. If one of the suppliers is having issues, may result in an error yet something may have actually confirmed.

Now, if you are getting a message like you said with nothing else there such as please contact a memeber of our team or anything then from a customer point of view i can understand why you did what you did but also, if i had inputted my card details, i probably wouldn't have done it again without checking as i have had a problem before but if you are maybe not that familiar with online booking then this needs to be considered too by them.

The company i work for probably books one tenth of what OTB do and even on our system, if one of the elements fails it will say what has happened and that there has been an error and ask the customer to contact the call centre.

With the size of OTB, you would think that they would have this in place, we are not a huge company or anything, only about 15 staff total so if a small little company can do it, then a company the size of OTB who spends thousands on advertising and google etc should maybe reinvest some of this into their booking system. In this day and age, a system should be fool proof.

Thanks

Just so that you all know everything I find that people raise on here (and the many other forums I monitor) we do take note of. There are plans in place to resolve a lot of the issues and the first stage of this rolled yesterday with the new website now being visible to 100% of traffic.

I completely disagree that OTB are different to banking with regards investment in internet technology.

Yes, there area technical issues with B2C over the internet (Proxy servers, ISP Firewalls, personal firewalls, content filters etc... ) but overcoming the technical issues are just an everyday part of doing business over the internet.

Banks invest heavily, simply because if they get it wrong the publicity and the damage to their brand would loose them customers.

OTB uses the internet as it's trading platform and should be investing to ensure that it's booking process is robust. Same as the banks, if they get it wrong then they damage the brand and loose customers.

If OTB booking process was robust, I wouldn't be writing this post.

With regards the message on the failed booking. It only contained the words "Unfortunately your request could not be completed" and a link back to the home page.

It did not contain any other information and certainly no prompt to contact customer services.

I am not disputing what you are saying but both I and OTB have suggested that you contact them via the link. In his post leisurelad has put forward a possible explanation for your problem.

Whilst anyone is free to post on HT members do try to assist where they can. OTB opted to become a member and give people an opportunity to contact them via a dedicated link. May I suggest that you take the opportunity to do so.

fwh

Having just spoke to our Customer Experience Manager, we are aware of this rare issue that you had and the plans are in place to resolve the issue.

I have also received your email. Thanks

OTB response to this forum is faster than both their email and premium rate telephone line