On the Beach - Holiday Complaints, Holiday Forums

On the Beach

julesmay

2010-10-25 10:28:30

Hi all,
i would greatly value your input on this:

booked a deal through OTB to go to lanzarote for a week on 07/09/2010- flights with ryanair and accomm through lowcost holidays.

on evening of the 06/09 we found out that due to the french strikes that ryanair had cancelled our flight on the 7th- the next available flight was the 11/09/2010. This would mean that we would in essence get from saturday until tuesday of our holiday.

we sourced another flight from a different airport which meant we could go 9-16th sept.
spoke to OTB and explained the situation, the advisor suggested we speak to the hotel as his sytem was showing no availability.
spoke to the hotel and explained, they said no problem, they did have availability and changed our booking from the 7th to the 9th and at no extra cost to us. all they required was an email notification from OTB of the change.

so rang OTB and informed them of this- and said no charge, the advisor said he would send necessary email to the hotel.

the following day (7th), we received an email from the hotel saying that they had not received any notification, so ended up ringing OTB and going through the whole rigmarole again, and promises of a resolution.
again on the 8th the hotel emailed us saying still hadnt received anything- so contacted OTB, to this time to be told that there would be an administration charge of ~£76 + credit card charges on top!!! to send the email, apparently it has to come from lowcost holidays and not OTB?

ended up paying it just to get the sorry mess sorted and to finally get away on holiday.

in the call i mentioned that i needed a letter from OTB confirming ryanair flight cancellation and all the additional charges to enable me to claim through my insurance.
They really do obfuscate matters in saying it would come through as a total invoice as they are unable to provide a breakdown

anyway here we are on the 25th october 2010, i still have not received any paperwork from them, i have sent a ridiculous amount of emails to the alleged customer service manager and i still do not get a refund.
all i have had is getting passed to all and sundry and one of the people had the cheek to say that there would be a further charge of £17 to proceed with a refund from Ryan air!!!!!

i have now missed the 31 day window of claiming through my insurance as i have been unable to provide them with proof of cancellation and updated invoices.

where do i go from here

Edited by Glynis HT Admin 2010-10-25 13:33:26
Edit to remove potentially libelous comment

Alsacienne

2010-10-25 11:31:39

Re: On the Beach

I'm sorry to hear that you are having problems getting the solution you require. You've mentioned sending many EMAILS to the customer services manager and, to quote you, all and sundry, and still don't have the necessary paperwork to support your claim.

EMAIL is a very unsatisfactory medium; might I suggest that you send these communications again but use the postal service with the 'signed for' option so that you proof that your letter arrived if you need to take action!

steve8482

2010-10-25 11:44:36

Re: On the Beach

I agree about emails, and it's actually getting worse. I know one company which now has a policy of blocking all incoming emails that don't have their company name in the title, they do put them on one side for soemone to vet and pass on later but it causes big delays. And last year I found by chance that a booking confirmation I had sent to an Italian hotel had been deleted by their ISP who had decided BT were a source of spam and was simply deleting everything that came via them for 24 hours! Your own ISP may be doing something similar to your incomings without you knowing unless you have set up your own specific spam filter settings.

there are other ongoing threads about OTB that would be useful to read to see how the company works (or at least gets by!), click where it says Search near the top of this screen and put OTB in the first search option.

julesmay

2010-10-25 11:48:34

Re: On the Beach

i am aware that they are getting through- but it is the inability to read that irks me the most.
being the customer service manager i would have thought that since his underlings have failed to deal with the matter, then he would take ownership of the problem to get it resolved.

julesmay

2010-10-25 12:37:59

Re: On the Beach

good news is, i have heard from insurance company i can still claim.
i have been told to attach evidence of mitigating circumstances- when they read the emails i have sent the customer service manager, it will be evident i could do no more other than visiting the offices of ryanair in person to get paperwork stamped.

i have also contacted to the air traffic users council to lodge a complaint against OTB withholding refund of cancelled flight.

Sunaddict

2010-10-25 14:04:31

Re: On the Beach

Very unsatisfactory all around. Unfortunately this is what can quite often happen when you book a non packaged holiday through a third party. It probably cost more than doing it yourself and you still have the hassle of dealing with OTB when things get changed. They charge ridiculous service charges for dealing with amendments/cancellations etc. Their standard charge for a change of hotel is £80 plus any difference in cost. Lowcost also charge services charges. It gets complicated to work out whose charging for what. OTB book with lowcost who book with the hotel. OTB says your contract is with the accommodation supplier (lowcost) who say your contract is with the accommodation supplier (hotel).
Another problem could be that Ryanair don't accept third party bookings so they don't pay commission. How OTB can provide a Ryanair cancellation invoice without giving away how much they put on top of the cost for themselves could be tricky.

Too complicated for me - much more straightforward to do it yourself.

julesmay

2010-11-15 10:48:01

Re: On the Beach

updates

countless emails to the alleged customer service manager (he gave me his email address!!)
countless phone calls

now had refund
BUT
they still will not produce ryanair paperwork saying flight was cancelled- without that i cannot do anything

why would they not release this paper is beyond me-

steve8482

2010-11-15 16:30:18

Re: On the Beach

hang about!

we missed something important originally. Ryanair cancelled the flight, not you.

There is no cancellation invoice due from Ryanair - just a simple refund. In this case they will have sent OTB an email offering a full refund or new flight and if you DIY you just click a button to choose, that's basically it for paperwork.

This isn't you claiming back the cost of a non-refundable flight lost due to accident etc. so there's nothing to claim on the insurance because Ryanair will have offered the money back (and the insurance compnay will know that!). You haven't had the replacement flight so who got the refund? Either OTB pocketed it or they've let Ryanair keep it because they can't be bothered. If they are saying they want £17 to click the button it's scandalous and a good reason to not use OTB.

I'm also pretty sure there's something in Ryanair's T&Cs about unauthorised resale of flights. At one time they threatened to cancel any they found in the system. If OTB aren't authorised it could be very dodgy booking with them.

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