Finally, after all this time and pursuing a claim via HMCS Money Claim Online service a cheque for £195.65 from TravelRepublic as full and final payment on my claim (including the £25 HMCS Fee) arrived this morning. Pleased as I am at this I still find it difficult to warrant having to go through this after spending over £2000 on a weeks holiday with a UK based agent, it SHOULD NOT HAPPEN and we should be BETTER PROTECTED. The ABTA symbol displayed by such companies fast becomes worthless and you are on your own.

Needless to say I shall take much more care in future about how and with whom I book Holidays as I do not wish to have to go through THIS again.

Thanks for letting us know the outcome Jeff.

I am pleased to have received my monies back but rest assured I shan't be using Travel Republic or related companies again. In our case we only wanted to travel from a airport closer to us than Gatwick we actually paid more for that not less by using Travel Republic. Their attitude when I first related our experience to a phone operator was very helpful and shocked but their actual response as a company was "we don't owe you the money Jumbo Tours does." In my opinion they should have saved themselves £70 (HMCS Fees, interest and late payment charges) and paid us in the first place as a gesture of goodwill and to keep potential future custom but I assume they expect people to give up in most cases.

As far as I am concerned the retailer you the consumer pay your money to is the entity that should be liable to you the consumer. In cases like this Travel Republic should have paid me the money then pursued the claim against Jumbo Tours themselves. After all by their own admission they deal with them a great deal.

This situation needs to be addressed as any UK consumers who book with companies like this will end up unwittingly, with a contract with some unknown 3rd party in another country and therefore unprotected by the usual rules and regulations and industry standards we expect.

Firstly i am not supprise that you have not heard anything back from Jumbo, we started to use them earlier this year but they were a nightmare to deal with so we stopped using them.

That's all well and good if you have the choice to 'use' them but when you book through an agent you probably don't know who they are going to use. As stated by me previously, I've booked accomodation only, in Prague and as far as I was concerned at the time of booking - it was TR responsible. TR having been chosen by myself as they are ABTA bonded. As far as I'm aware, at no time during the booking process was I informed that Jumbo tours would be handling my booking. At least I didn't notice anything until I had my confirmation through-which by then was obviously too late to say, sorry but I don't want to proceed as they are not ABTA bonded. Surely, we should be given the info and therefore choice of whether to book or not before they take our booking and money.

I'm just hoping that everything will turn out fine for us when we arrive in Prague for New Year.

i booked with TR for 2 nights accomodation as they offered a great,great price on HB, and they subsequently booked this through Jumbo tours.
on arrival i was informed that they had no room for me and wanted to put me into a sister hotel that was unsuitable for my needs. i was just about to phone their spanish contact when the receptionist agreed to put me into another hotel of my choice. i was promised FB in the new hotel (having booked HB originally) but ended up with B&B.
i e-mailed TR on my return but they referred me to a link to manage my booking which did not work.
i eventually e-mailed jumbo on 13/10, but they have not replied.

i then got a further e-mail from TR asking me to provide feedback on the original hotel, so i did!
i gave it a 5* review, pointing out that i had nothing but hassle.
the review has not been published yet

i don't expect a response from jumbo, nor from TR.
i have used this combination before without a problem and if the price was right i may use them again, but as in all things if someone else can give me a similar -not necessarily cheaper - deal then i would use the other one.

my main complaint with all these firms is that they think it acceptable to move you to a different hotel at no notice, when they have no idea why you chose that particular hotel. if i wanted to book the sister hotel, then i would have. just because a firm has 2 or 3 hotels in the same resort (HTOP in costa brava being a good example) does not mean that i want to stay in the one they choose; i want to stay in the one i have chosen.

i got a letter from TR last night as they had picked up on the negative feedback i had supplied (this was not on their website this morning though ),asking if i wanted to make a complaint.
i sent them copies of the e-mails i had sent them , and jumbotours, and said yes i was.

i also said that i had used them before, happily,and if this was a one-off i would probably use them again.
i went on to say that i was going back to lloret next month, and the Ancla was looking very competitive, and i was looking at booking 2 rooms today.
so they respond and tell me that they have updated jumbotours and will get back to me in 28 days
don't these people think when they read anything, or do they just not want my business?
i have now booked with alpharooms