I wish I had found this site before using On the Beach Holidays, it would have saved me a lot of time and money and prevented me from suffering weeks of stress.

My story is similar to others posted on this site and my main complaints are:

- poor customer service
- lack of communication and delays in responding
- no call back from managers after repeated requests
- they don't actually read your complaint and send standard replies
- extortionate charges for flight extras and hidden admin fees (e.g. £20 for 4 meals with Thomascook, £90 for same four meals with On the Beach)
- high call charges discourage you from persuing complaints, especially when you are put on hold, transferred to other departments and then cut off
- during the booking process it states you will be given the option to add baggage - this doesn't happen so I had to call them to find that the price was higher than I had seen on the screen during the booking process.
- when adding flight extras on their online booking form you are given the option to add extras separately to each flight, you are then taken to the credit card details page without knowing how much you are going to be charged. I phoned them and they said it would be £48.50. I added one bag to the inward flight (different airlines each way) and they added a bag to each flight and I received an email stating that I would be charged £65. When I checked my credit card they had charged me £77.

I almost gave up pursuing this as it was going to cost me just as much in telephone charges and time spent writing emails and letters. I would take comfort in knowing that after hearing of my experience all of my family and friends would avoid this company, in addition to the 450 people I work with and their families and their friends and the people they work with and so on and on. Looking at all the reviews about On the Beach on this site and other review sites, it won't be long before they go out of business unless they drastically change their booking process and improve their customer service department.

Before I gave up though I thought I'd email the hotel to make sure that they had received our booking of 2 rooms for 4 people. Sure enough the hotel replied to say that they had a booking for ONE room for 4 people.

I wrote to On the Beach immediately (post and email) and received an email 5 days later stating that their paperwork showed 2 rooms and that Hotel Beds have checked their paperwork and their paperwork shows 2 rooms. Yes, and my paperwork shows 2 rooms, but that won't help me when I turn up at the hotel with my husband and two 17 yr old boys to find we are all squashed into one room! I have emailed the hotel once again to check whether they have received an amended booking for 2 rooms but I suspect that their response will be the same, one room as I don't believe anyone has contacted the hotel, just checked their paperwork.

Here's hoping that I get a positive response from the hotel.