I booked with Direct Holidays in October 2007 to go to Ibiza with my 3 sisters, the first family holiday since we were very young. They were then merged with Thomas Cook. Brilliant, bigger company means better service. Got a letter beginning of May saying that the flight had been changed to go a little later. No problem, I said, as long as we are still going the same day that was fine. Second week in May, got another letter saying the flight had been altered and we would now have to depart from Birmingham but still fly back to our original departure airport of East Midlands. Impossible for us to arrange transport as there were so many of us. After waiting for 3hrs plus on the phone, finally managed to re-arrange the holiday (after up grading to all inclusive) and now going to Fuerteventura instead, sisters decided that they would go somewhere else as there was limited avilability for this flight. 21/05/08 received a voice mail saying that there were now some building works being done in our new hotel meaning the swimming pool wouldn't be in use for the duration of our stay! We depart on 24/05/08 and I have been trying to get through to TC all day today with no success to try and change the hotel. I must have travelled through Direct Holidays for my last 5/6 holidays with not a hint of trouble, as soon as they change to Thomas Cook all this! Needless to say I won't be booking with TC again! Has anyone any advice? I don't want to have to sort everything out once in resort as we are only there for a week.

see the post just before your one for phone numbers also contact your local trading standards office as they deal with complaints against holiday companies
fiona

I felt i must post my comments. For over four years ive booked a few holidays a year with direct holidays with no problem. However since Thomas Cook have taken over what a nightmare. I book all my holidays a year in advance so we can try get exactly what we required, but let me warn you this is useless, you may as well throw them the money and get them to book what they want as they change it all anyway. This year so far - My first holoday was beginning May which they changed the holiday by four days departure date not offering any refund at all and changed the flight times three times before the holiday - I paid for extra leg room as it was 11 hour flight which cost for two £180.00 to find no inflight entertainment for me and my partners seats were working no sound or tv !!!! The next holiday im going is 18th August, so far they have changed the flight time four times, the flight time started off very good 10.30am - straight flight 2 and half hours (once of the reason I booked it with my child) it now has ended up in the middle of the night - also it is no longer a direct flight - what was meant to be 2 and half hours to Spain is now touching down at Palma for two hours picking more people up - I rang Thomas Cook up but they said they were within their rights and as long as they got me from A to B on that day I was not entitled to transfer my holiday or any refund, in fact if I cancelled i would have to pay them and also lose my £350.00 deposit on top!!!!!!!!! As i pointed out that it was not from A to B and is was via C!!!!! They advised I write to Customer relations - God knows if i will get a response. I have another holiday booked for new year with them and im sure they will mess that one up too.!!!! NEVER AGAIN

Hi Elaenor 123,
Yes I totally agree, this crowd are a absolute nightmare, have used Thomas Cook, JMC etc often. Booked with Direct Holidays last Oct to go to Tunisia and they have changed our flight 4 times in advance, took £300 out of my account, then disputed they had it, need I go on? will never use them again
Fiona

Well i can safely say that I wont be booking another holiday with Thomas Cook again. I booked a holiday to Turkey for me and my friend 3 months ago, flying out 23rd June, and we've had nothing but problems since. I paid off the entire balance at the time of booking from an account which isnt used very often. Nearly 3 months later and with less than a week to go before we depart I receive a letter of all things, saying that due to a computer error the balance was never paid off and they want the whole lot paid otherwise we wont be going next Monday. What if that letter had gone missing in the post??? Would we have reached the airport and been told we werent going?? Ahh....you may say....but you'd know by whether or not you'd received your tickets. Not quite. We've been told for the last week or so that due to a delay in issuing tickets the chances are that we wont actually receive them and we'll have to collect them at the airport where they will be printed out for us. Like i said though - if this letter had got lost then what would've happened if we'd of just turned up at Stansted??? To make things slightly more difficult i dont have the immediate funds to pay off the holiday as it was a joint account which now doesnt have enough in. We assumed the money had been taken as Switch payments normally debit within a few days. So now we have to borrow the money off other people otherwise we wouldnt be going anywhere.

My friend phoned Thomas Cook and said they were taking the proverbial demanding the entire balance for a holiday with less than a week to go. She also asked why it had taken them nearly 3 months to realise that the transaction hadnt gone through. They couldnt answer the questions and basically said 'pay the balance or you wont be going'. When my friend said we might just cancel and book with someone else their reponse was 'cancel it if you like'. She then told them that their customer service was disgusting and we wouldnt be booking with them again. She also called them yesterday before we received this letter about the where abouts of our tickets. She was told that they'd been sent out on the 10th 2nd class!! They claim to be struggling with delays in tickets so the least they could do is send them 1st class!! The most incompetant travel company i've ever had the misfortune of dealing with!! I'll be booking with someone like First Choice next year who i've never had any problems with!!

Oh and we also requested a confirmation from the actual tour operator, which is Sunset, on 3 separate occasions and every single time was sent a duplicate of the Thomas Cook one! Of course you have to speak to Thomas Cook, not Sunset, who claim they can get into their system and print these off. Ive still yet to receive one so lets at least hope that the booking is confirmed and that we're actually able to board the flight.

I would say to those people who have had large phone bills from calling Thomas Cook, it's worth sending in a copy of your bill with a letter of complaint. It took me over 2 hours on separate days to get through to Customer Services just to book a special request and it came to over £15 on my phone bill. They have now agreed to refund this money, although a month later I am still waiting on a cheque.
My complaint is now being dealt with through Customer Relations rather than Customer Services. They are just as difficult to get through to, but now I use the ordinary area code from "say no to 0870 website".
To make matters worse,I have been put through to two members of staff who have been so rude to me. I can't believe their company would class it as acceptable to speak to a customer in the way in which I was spoken to by them.
My holiday was booked with Direct Holidays via the website. Had I known they were now part of Thomas Cook, there is no way I would have booked because Thomas Cook ruined my previous holiday to Cuba.

My friend also sent in the "recommend a friend" voucher from the Direct Holidays website for introducing me to Direct Holidays. Both of us were supposed to get our bookings credited with £50. They got the voucher 6 weeks ago and "lost" it en route to a separate office so they said we had to send another one. They got the second one but still haven't credited it to our bookings and no explanation given. I haven't spoken to a single helpful person from Thomas Cook and I think the attitude is "get rid of them off the phone because next time they ring up they'll get through to someone else anyway". Absolutely appalling and myself, friends and family will never be booking with them again.