I acquired a scan taken a few months prior with the associated report, we emailed the details to the Exception team. The Exception team did eventually get back to us a week later and stated that this evidence was not sufficient and does not prove my inability to fly. We was advised that I would need to provide a supporting GP which agreed with my decision to cancel.
I then contacted my GP, explained the situation and asked for a letter to be written for me to supply to Thomson. The GP agreed to this, however there is an administrational charge incurred for the letter, which I had to pay.
To cut a long story short, I emailed the supporting GP to Thomson Exception Team, the GP letter clearly supported my reason of cancellation and provided further medical information relating to the symptoms and explaining that I had been referred to the further specialist care of Gynaecology. A week later the Exception team replied refusing the refund reimbursement, specifying that the doctor did not advise me NOT to fly.
As you can imagine I was disgusted with this response, purely semantics, the doctor would not have advised that because I never asked the doctors opinion prior to cancelling. Due to the excessive pain I was experiencing which occurs when in a resting position, I could not physically sit on a plane in agony for 9hours plus.
Even though I had followed Thomsons process and supplied supporting factual evidence, they clearly never had any intention of awarding the deposit. I further emailed a response to the Exceptions team, which to date they have not responded. Upon a query with a customer service agent, we was informed that the Exceptions team had closed the case. Exceptions team member had not communicated the closure the case to myself, as far as I was concerned the matter was still open. I then raised a complaint with Thomson Complaint team and after three days, they simply ruled in favour of the Exceptions team and apologised.
no matter what you do these organisations will do and say anything to keep your money, even though they have in place a procedure to allow customers to escalate, these are simply there for 'lip service' and nothing more, simply a tick in the box showing their compliance that they offer customers the opportunity to complain. However, the procedure is unfairly governed which seems that there is no real intention to rule in favour of the customer.
I decided to raise a complaint with ABTA, who also responded in favour of the Thomson, quoting some standard cancellation policy, I replied to ABTA and advised this was not a standard cancellation, had it been, I would have accepted loss of the deposit, but it was due to health reasons which I had no control over. After nearly a month ABTA has finally responded and said they will liaise further with Thomson (Tui) and make a decision.
I am not holding my breath, these organisations all stick together.
***** UPDATE 02-NOV-2017 ******
I also forgot to mention that I also emailed Thomson MD (David Burling), and appealed to his better nature, It was a brief letter simply highlighting the issue, I offered to provide supporting evidence if require, but that both the Complaints & Exceptions team had all the same correspondence and evidence. I also posted the same letter via Recorded Delivery.
Since posting this story. ABTA did as promised contact Tui (Thomson) to investigate further. Earlier today Tui (Thomson) emailed confirmation that on the back of Abta contacting them regards the complaint raised, they have further investigated and reviewed evidence I supplied and have now awarded me full reimbursement of the holiday deposit, which was what I was claiming. They apologised for any inconvenience and stress caused and wished that my health treatment goes well.
Thomson (Tui) said they will post a cheque for the full refund deposit amount which could take up to 28 Days. So I shall wait and see if the cheque arrives, but looks like either the pressure of ABTA or possibly the MD route has forced Thomson into re-evaluating and overturning the Exceptions team decision. One query I have is why they cannot refund via the same manner that initial payment was taken via Credit Card and to make customers wait even further, when they know that they were clearly wrong and behaved terribly
So hopefully a Success Story (I will update if I do receive the full refund)
***** UPDATE 03-NOV-2017 ******
in light of the question raised with regards non purchase of travel insurance. I feel that T.O do have a duty of care to cover specific circumstances such as mine and others. This policy they do not advertise, as preference is that customers purchase travel insurance at time of booking, but the fact that travel insurance is not compulsory at the time of booking, leaves an open question...? When we cancelled myself from the holiday and enquired about the deposit refund, it was the T.O customer service agent who advised that provided I was able to supply medical evidence and that I may be asked for a supporting GP letter, once provided the Exceptions team will review and should award the refund.
This tells me that T.O. will refund deposits for particular circumstances and have a hidden process which they do not advertise, so we the customers are unaware. But I believe in practice even though they have this process, they will initially blindly refuse to award, which was the case in my experience and you will have to go through the pain of a fight to hopefully achieve success. They make you think that you need insurance upfront, but this has proven that there are loop holes depending on the circumstance!
Obviously if you fly out without insurance then you have no hope should an issue arise during the holiday, that is a risk not worth taking, it would be foolhardy to do so.
******* UPDATE 09-NOV-2017 ********
Today I am happy to say that the full £250 deposit refund cheque was received from Tui.
Yay
A positive end to the this dilemma
:-)
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Edited by
Miss Injustice
2017-11-09 19:46:32
Updated posting with new information
