As we had enjoyed our skiing holiday in Passo Tonale, Italy this year, we had booked in April 2008 to go back next year with the same company, First Choice. We had an excellent holiday, and had a great rep.

We had booked through First Choice website, as we had done before, received our confirmation through the post, which listed what we had booked. Our booking was for flights from Edinburgh to Innsbruck, as Edinburgh (although a 4 hour drive away for us as we live in the North of Scotland) was our nearest airport. Our booking was transferred onto the new booking system as First Choice has merged with Thomsons. We received another confirmation of our booking, and the flight times slightly changed as we were now on Thomson flights instead of First Choice airways. This was acceptable. We received another letter thanking us for booking our holiday with First Choice, and enclosed are our booking details. I had scanned through this quickly, and thought everything was fine. Another two families who we are friends with, have booked the same holiday to come along with us. It was one of these friends that informed me that our flight details have been changed. We are flying from Manchester to Verona. This would create an extra 4 hours driving for us each way.

My email went off to First Choice, they say they are quite within their right to alter our holiday details, however, they did admit that this was a considerable change to our holiday.

They had given me three options.

1. Fly from Manchester, and they would consider paying for hotel and car parking booked through themselves(flight leaving Manchester is 6.10 am, and arriving back 7.00pm)

2. Book another holiday with them.

3. A full refund.

My friend had phoned Customer Relations, and she was told more or less that she could like it or lump it, but when she had mentioned it affects a total of 10 people under 3 seperate bookings, she went to speak to someone else. This person then said, since there are 10 of us we could get a private transfer from Innsbruck to Passo Tonale but would have to wait for someone to come back from her holiday. Well this person has come back, and we are still waiting to hear. I had phoned at the start of the week to see if there was any update, but no, I also enquired about Option 1 (my husband wants this sorted), and could we get 2 nights hotel accomodation, the night before we fly out and the night that we fly back to Manchester, as it would be an 8 hour drive back home. The answer was no, just one nights accomodation. My other friend phoned the next day, got quite a nice person, and they said the manager has quite a lot on his/her plate at the moment, especially with the merger. This person also said that there is also another five families caught up in this and waiting to be dealt with by the manager.

We have tried costing another holiday with First Choice, unfortunately, it would cost us another £300. Is there any advice on how to proceed and to hold them to our original booking. It has been 4 weeks now since we have originally contacted them, time is getting on, and I'm hoping that they are not stalling for time so there will be no seats left on the Edinburgh to Innsbruck.

Many thanks for reading this and any advice would be greatly appreciated.