Have I done something wrong

I'll pm you. - No problems
Kath x

Oh! creamycheesecake you did make me smile with your "have I done something wrong" query. How I empathised with you, 'cos I'm just like that - quick to feel guilty! Don't worry, the pm from Kath will reassure you. They are a friendly lot here - and always willing to steer you in the right direction. (And we all need it at times!) All best - Jenny

Hi Creamycheesecake,
Been following your "Kosmar refusing refund" with interest. Hope all works out for you. Don't give up - even if you feel like it at times!!
Carrie x

Alice, have been reading all your post regarding Kosmar, my god what a shower of they sound. I do hope you come out on top, and reading the replies, I don't really think you have much to worry about Let us know how you get on, and good luck, Tony.

The email I sent to my travel agent tonight is as below.

On behalf of my wife, 10yr old daughter Laura and 7yr old daughter Charlotte, could I just say, "THANK YOU FOR RUINING OUR SUMMER HOLIDAY AT PARGA"

We went to Parga with Kosmar in 2003, staying at the Belos apartments, the balcony of which looked onto a 10ft high concrete wall, which was very disappointing. I looked at all of your other accommodation whilst I was there and hand picked the apartment that we booked, because of the views and the proximity to the restaurants that overlooked Valtos beach, and access to the beach itself. We vowed we would go back to enchanting Parga when our kids were older, and this was to be the moment. Is it too much trouble to ask you for an explanation as to why you only became aware NOW, that there was a potential problem with this accommodation, when it never featured in your brochure, and laterally on your website??????

I hope you will understand how bitter I feel about this, and, pending your reply, intend to make holiday makers aware of our experience, via the many holidaymakers forums.

KOSMAR HAVE NOT REPLIED

Below is an email sent to our travel agent re.Kosmar following the cancellation of our family holiday 4 weeks ago. It is self explanatory.

Hi There,

The holiday that has just been cancelled by Kosmar was booked in June 2006.

Could I thank the agent from your company that contacted me at work last Friday, 13/05/07, to give me the news that Kosmar had contractual difficulties with the accommodation that we booked and couldn't offer a suitable alternative. I didn't catch her name, but would like to say a big "thanks", for trying so hard to look for an alternative holiday without success. I said it would be best to cancel the holiday under the circumstances, as there was no way we would consider taking up Kosmar's offer of 2 studios at other accommodation, given that we are a family with two children ages 7 and 10yrs.

Since Friday night I have spent literally hours on the internet trying to find another suitable holiday with no success whatsoever. All suitable family accommodation in Greece has obviously been long snapped up, leaving nothing left but the "2 studio syndrome", or apartments that are 2 miles away from the resort centre. I have had 7 holidays with Kosmar over the last 10 years, and I will never book with them again. There always seems to be a flight time change after the booking, which is never favourable, and in the case of this holiday, they waited until we had booked until they told us that we would have to endure a stop of at Kefalonia on both legs of the journey. The accommodation we booked never yet appeared in the 2007 brochure, and I did wonder about that. When I saw that it was no longer on the website, I did start to wonder why???

Kosmar Holidays have ruined, and I mean ruined, our long standing holiday plans without as much as an apology or explanation to ourselves.

We have now had to change our annual leave via our employers, which luckily we were able to do, and have ended up booking 2 weeks in Spain at an apartment owned by a family member. Not what we wanted at all!!

Barnie1528, so sorry to hear of your dealings with Kosmar, the more people know of this shower of the better. If you read back through this thread, which I take it you have done, you will note that you are not alone Maybe worth taking advice Glynis gave in her post earlier ref Ros

Barnie1528 - so sorry to hear about your problems with Kosmar. Did you get a refund including your deposit? I'd be amazed if you did (see Kosmar refusing refund thread). Do contact Ros if you feel it necessary. We have had no option but to take Kosmar to court - received a letter from Ros today saying proceedings have now been issued. Should come to court towards end of year - will let you all know outcome.
I don't know what anyone else thinks, but when Kosmar blame contractural reasons, is it because another TO uses the same accommodation but pays the owner more than Kosmar?? For example the Lassia Studios which we should have gone to last year were also in the Manos brochure. Maybe if we had booked with Manos we wouldn't have had a problem. Perhaps anyone booking with Kosmar should go for a "Kosmar only" accommodation?

Thanks for you support.

I think it is unlikely that I would be entitled to compensation given the fact that we got back our £400 deposit and the fact that they gave us sufficient notice. It still gripes us that they have not given us the courtesy of a reply to our comments. I am also annoyed that they had £400 of our money for almost a full year and have certainly made a bit of interest on it.

Regards

Barnie 1528

Having read everyone elses problems with Kosmar I thought that I'd post my own!

2 friends and I booked with Kosmar last october to go to the Vergina Apartments in Crete. We are due to travel on the 29th June (Friday!!) and 2 weeks ago my friend was sent an invoice stating that we were infact staying at the annexe and not the actual studios themselves where we thought we were staying. We were informed that we are due to stay above a shop, using a rear entrance, which for 3 18 year old girls, as you can imagine, is a bit of a safety concern, especially as the annexe is not located in the main complex!

As you can imagine we were very angry to be told so close to our departure. We visited the travel agent (Thomas Cook) and the manager was very helpful and was on our side, although he said that there was nothing that he could do as they were only acting as an agent for Kosmar. My friend rang Kosmar to complain and they were very rude to her. She has also faxed them a letter but we have been informed that there is nothing that they can do as the change is not a "major" one. In my opinion, it is appauling that they only informed us of this change 2 weeks before departure. I have also phoned ABTA and they said that they can't do anything as the standard of our accommodation hasn't changed and they told me that we should write to Kosmar after we return stating that we have accepted the change but are completely unsatisfied and that we would like some compensation.

Has anyone had any success in achieving compensation from Kosmar? I will definately never be booking with them again!

We have another Kosmar thread HERE, which might be of interest.

Peter

Keri1988 - just looked at the Kosmar description of the Vergina Studios and Apartments (Malia I assume?), and there is no mention of an annexe or of any of the accommodation being above a shop. It only mentions that one of the studios is "on the rooftop with a patio" - the official classification is "A".
Peter of York may know - would Ros be of any help to Keri1988?
With regards Keri1988's question regarding compensation from Kosmar - I will let you know the outcome of our court case in due course!!

We have travelled with Kosmar a many times before and always found them to be very good.
I thought they were one of the better operators.

I most certainly would contact Ros Fernihough on 01922 621114. She is a travel law lawyer and often assists our members and will offer her free advice.

This is what I usually recommend, (and/or contacting trading Standards).

Many of the complaints aired on this forum could do with professional advice, not the often varied advice of us amateurs.

There are two matters to be considered -

1. Interpretation of the Statute Law as it applies to holidays and the associated contracts involved.

2. Knowledge of 'stated cases' in respect of similar circumstances. These are where a court has made a decision and set a legal precedent which may apply to your particular case.

The first you can get a fair grasp of if you read the Package Holiday and Trade Descriptions Acts. Familiarity with Acts of Parliament is a bonus!

The second involves receiving, reading, and understanding law reports, and is where a specialist lawyer such as Ros really comes into her own.

Peter

Many of the complaints aired on this forum could do with professional advice, not the often varied advice of us amateurs.

I have lost count of the number of times I have said that we can only express our own personal opinions - there can never be any substitute for professional advice.

fwh

Funnyboy,

You may well be forgiven for finding Kosmar to be good, but eventually you may run out of luck.

Our first holiday with them in 1996 to Crete, was certainly a cheap holiday, but the carrier from Newcastle was "Sabre", which was a repainted Dan Air 727, and what we later learned had a noise complaints book all of its own at Newcastle airport. We were sat at the very back of the plane and there was a very strong smell of aviation fuel. But yes we still had a good holiday.

In 1997 we went with them again to Crete with our 5 month old daughter from Newcastle. The flight times in the brochure showed a departure time of 2200hrs. When the tickets arrived, it was then that we realised that it was 0200hrs, which meant that we arrived in resort, Greek time at 1030hrs in the morning. The carrier in this instance was Cronus, a Greek carrier.

In 1998 we flew with them from Manchester and the carrier was Caledonian and we had a perfect flight both legs.

In 1999, we went to Kos, and as I recall the carrier was again Corus, or a name that I have long forgotten because they were such a small concern. We had to endure a delay of 4 hours sitting on the plane at Newcastle, and a 3hr delay on the return leg because of a part for the aircraft needing to be flown in. The accommodation in Kos (Sunshine Apartments) was however brilliant and perhaps the best Kosmar place we have stayed.

In 2001 we went with them to Zante. The flight was Air 2000 and was very good. The accommodation however was absolutely dreadful with very little room, given that it was classed as a one bedroom apartment, for my wife, myself, 4yr old and one year old daughter and was dropped by them the following year.

We, by this time had started using other tour operators but in July 2003 decided to give them another chance with the booking to Parga, as per my earlier post. The airline was Scandic, and both flights were very poor with one blocked toilet on the way out and both toilets ultimately blocked on the return. As mentioned our balcony/patio had a view that was a ten feet high grey concrete wall. With young children, a reasonable view from the balcony, or in this case, any view, is a must, as the children need to be bedded down at a reasonable time and Mum and Dad then want to enjoy some time together. We ended up spending more and keeping the kids up later so that we didn't have to go back to a claustrophobic environment.

Having looked at other suitable apartments whilst there we chose what we thought was a gem, and as my previous post states, we booked same last June when the holidays came on sale. This little set of apartments was owned by a local taxi driver, as the website informed us, and there was only one two bedroom apartment which was on the top floor. When I went to book the flights, the flight times there and back from Manchester simply did not add up, and I reckoned that Kosmar were once again being economical with the truth. As I recall it showed a departure time of 0900hrs and a return landing time of around 1130hrs. In view of this we opted to go all the way from County Durham to East Midlands, because although it was a very early departure at 0800hrs, it was as per the flight arrival times on Ceefax in 2006. I later noted that the Manchester flight departure was actually 0500hrs, and the East Midland departure time was changed to 0700hrs, which I estimated would mean that we would have to leave home to travel to the airport at 0130hrs. We were willing to work round this in spite of the next "whammy" that we would be touching down at Kefalonia for an hour on both legs. But when they told us that our accommodation was not available only a few weeks ago, when the apartment never actually featured in the 2007 brochure, there has to be a time when one must decide that saving a few quid isn't everything. They, as previously mentioned, have ruined our family holiday, and have still not even said that they are sorry. They have simply not replied.

Is should also be pointed out that if you book on the strength that the flight carrier has good ratings and seems dependable, the flight carrier often changes too. It has on at least two of my Kosmar Holidays.

How long can one keep forgiving???

Thanks for your advice - and yes it is in Malia :-)

Surely thats against trade descriptions though as there was no mention of it in the brochure!

One would think so, but please give Ros a ring for professional advice.

Perhaps a less cynical attitude is needed when commenting.

Just because A has a problem it does not mean that B does, yet we seem to be developing a thread with postings suggesting those who do not are in a minority.

At various times I do not doubt that we may all have a complaint of some sort. I certainly have.

But postings suggesting that we should never use a particular TO again are, to say the least of little help. We would quickly run out of companies who we could book a holiday with if we took notice of every criticism made, ALL TOs seem to do it wrong at times

It is very rare that someone posts in praise of a TO - but then as with the media we only hear the bad news.

One other point people should consider is that not every complaint is down to the TO or airline. Problems do happen that could not have been forseen.

Our aim should be to help those with a problem rather than relate a catalogue of problems that can only depress further those who are already worried.

The best advice is always to seek the help of a professional if you cannot resolve the problem quickly.

fwh