Hi, This is a letter I sent to Thomsons on the 15th August. I received an acknowledgment of our letter on the 21st August but nothing since. With the letter I also included a photo copy of the page from the brochure along with a copy of the hotel description. I think I have a good case here but wish I had visited this site before as I omitted to state what I was looking for - just moan or compensation.

I am writing to complain about the above holiday which I have just returned with my family.
One of our prerequisites when looking for a holiday is the availability of tennis playing facilities. This is why we booked our holiday this year at the Bahia Principe Cayacoa in the Dominican Republic through your Offices in Basingstoke.
We booked our holiday in March after searching several destinations and eventually settling on the above resort after speaking to your representatives. The brochure we used was the "Thomson Destinations Faraway Shores January 2009 to April 2010 (November Edition)". Having booked the holiday I had some concerns about the tennis availability as the First Choice Brochure did not mention any courts. As a result, I called the Thomson agents in Basingstoke who said they would check. They called a few minutes later to confirm that courts are available and that they had double checked the Bahia Principe web site. I did the same and was relieved to find that two tennis courts were listed. To triple check, I sent 4 emails to the Customer Service desk at the resort (31/3, 2/4, 16/4 and 28/6) - all were unanswered.
Needless to say upon our arrival, we were very unhappy when we found that there were in fact no tennis courts available and naturally complained to your resort representative who asked us to give her 24 hours to sort something out. In the meantime, I looked at other resorts in the area and suggested that we get moved to the Bahia Principe Cayo Levantado but was told that this was out of the question.

Our representative managed to get an agreement for my son and me to go over to Cayo Levantado 4 times in the first week. We agreed to give this a try but very quickly discovered that this trip took half a day (visit schedules are limited by a ferry) and meant that we played during the hottest part of the day. It also meant that we were away from the rest of the family. For the record, my wife, son and I are regular players and my son was due to play in a tournament on our return. It was therefore important for him to practice but also enjoy a family holiday. As a result, we informed our representative that this was not a viable solution.

By now it was Thursday 30th June and our representatives' day off so I called the Thomson 24x7 support team in the UK. I again asked that Thomson consider moving us to the Cayo Levantado even if it is just for the 2nd week of our holiday. He agreed to check. Shortly afterwards he called to inform us that this was not possible. However, we were told we could be moved if we were willing to pay an additional £1700 for the remainder of our holiday or £1200 for a week. He suggested we write a letter of complaint when we return to get the money back. Needless to say I declined this offer.
As our holiday was a package, the Package Travel Regulations 1992 apply to it. Under these regulations you are liable to compensate us for the problems we encountered and for the distress and disappointment we suffered as a result.

If this matter cannot be resolved amicably, I shall send a copy of this letter and enclosures to ABTA (of which I note you are a member). (Also, if, as I suspect, the mis-description in the brochure was made ‘knowingly' or ‘recklessly' by you, you will have committed a criminal offence under the Trade Descriptions Act. Accordingly, I will report it to the trading standards department of my local authority for investigation).

I look forward to hearing from you on this matter.