It took 3 days after he posted a negative review! And of course it could simply be coincidence.

SM

Well done getting it sorted and thanks for letting us know the outcome.

He waited over a month before posting anything negative .
They didn't respond within 28 days acknowledging his complaint .
When he then tweeted in public , they responded and ask for 14 days .
They refused to accept a review of his stay .
They say they're looking into it .

.....he gets fed up waiting .......... He contacts the appointed suppliers of TR , it's resolved in 3 days , it could however simply be a coincidence

I'm not knocking TR , the problem is not their fault , that's plain to see , but their customer service is lacking .
They have their criteria of how they operate , RJW understands how they operate , but is not happy at the poor customer service , that is a fair point to criticise unless you're happy to receive or accept poor service .

Travel Agents and Tour Operators tend to deal with correspondence by date order as they receive it - hence the 28 day benchmark provided by ABTA.

Most of the bigger agents and operators do tend to run a few days over the deadline.... especially due to lots of amalgamation etc within the tourist industry.

The fact the OP waited until after the recommended guideline is commendable. He/she should have received an acknowledgent (standard letter) from TR to indicate 1) they had received the complaint and 2) to say they were looking into the complaint.

If they were looking into the complaint and were running a little over the deadline it is highly likely that these 2 instances could have coincided as no information is requested from the Hotel/Bed Bookers until the person dealing with the complaint from the customer actually gets that piece of correspondence in their mitts or on their screen.

The trigger may well have been pulled by the Twitter post. It may have prompted them to take a closer look at the situation because the 28 day period had passed.

We will never know unless someone from TR comes along and responds and I really don't think they are going to do that as it's got absolutely nothing to do with anyone else on how they deal with their complaints.

The main thing is, it's dealt with and the customer got their refund.

As for the reviews - TR do allow reviews but maybe they are choosy about which ones are posted. There's one on this hotel in Cyprus for instance (Panareti Coral Bay Resort http://www.travelrepublic.co.uk/hotels/cyprus/paphos/coral-bay/panareti-coral-bay-resort.html) where the customers were overbooked on arrival. However, the accommodation did manage to sort something out for the guests and received a favourable review in the end.

Maybe the review posted was not about the accommodation but about the service from TR?

I know TR did used to post customer comments about their service but I couldn't see any on the pages I was looking at this time. I guess they've changed the format for reviews...

I must admit it never made any sense to me to click on the review tab only to find comments about the travel company and not the hotel I was interested in!

cyprus100 wrote:

We will never know unless someone from TR comes along and responds and I really don't think they are going to do that as it's got absolutely nothing to do with anyone else on how they deal with their complaints.

I may nothing to do with anyone else how they deal with complaints but it doesn't make them look very good. It does impact on them whether they like it or not. It doesn't really matter if they do have so much correspondence that they can go over the 28 days. They shouldn't. And again, it doesn't look good. It would tell everyone one just how many complaints they have to deal with, that they can't even acknowledge the complaint on time.

Being pedantic about this the holiday booked was a "Dynamic Package" The OP may complain abiut TR but the contract was not with them. Yes it is good business practice for them to try to resolve the situation but they are in a similar position to the OP. They, having received a complaint have then to take the matter up with whichever company the contract is with and await a reply from them before they can give a meaningful reply. Perhaps the actions of the OP has moved things along but it might equally be a coincidence.
We regularly get complaints about various agents but with third parties involved that is the problem with dynamic packages. We should not forget that even the TOs are not always as quick as some might think, there are plenty of tales about their delaying tactics to be found on HT,

fwh

Fiona, I can't make out whether TR didn't acknowledge the letter of complaint within the standard 28 days or not. Generally all any of the TAs and TOs do is acknowledge letters via a standard automatic reply within 28 days but they rarely manage to resolve the complaint within that time. Furthermore they usually only send that acknowledgement just before the 28 days are up so that the clock re-starts with a further 28 days. Re-reading this OPs posts it's not clear whether he is saying that 'they didn't even acknowledge receipt of my letter' or 'they didn't respond the specifics of my complaint' within the 28 days.

In the end we can all only judge as we find and TR have always provided me with good customer service but then I have been fortunate enough never to have been double booked by the hotel either.

SM

I read it that TR did not acknowledge the complaint within 28 days but I might be wrong.

Hi Sma,

Just to confirm, as soon as I sent the complaint form I received an automated response advising me that they would contact me in 28 days ( Abta guidelines ) to tell me if there was any progress and if they needed more time to pursue this. They didn't do this, I received nothing after 28 days. I only got a response when I tweeted them and they asked for my booking ref again to which they then sent me an email asking for more time as they hadn't heard from hotelbeds.

regarding whether this was merely a coincidence that my issue was resolved on the very same day I contacted Hotelbeds / Fincas myself, It could well be (only TR know) However I used a different email account to contact hotelbeds, and that account was the one that Travel Republic's Kathryn Dunbar, (customer service director ) used to get in touch telling me that hotelbeds had contacted them. ( the logic being that she could only have replied to me if Hotelbeds had passed on that specific email address establishing that the 2 companies were in contact with each other ) I certainly think Hotelbeds contacting TR's customer service director must have helped in some way.

just an off topic point about you never being double booked - sometimes, it's not a bad thing. Was double booked in turkey a few years ago and the hotel manager put us up in 5 star accommodation in the sister hotel of the 4 star one we were supposed to be in till our room was available.

cheers

Travel Republic ......

I booked a weekend break to Italy with Travel Republic - travelling on Friday 23 August 2013. A couple of days before I logged on to my booking again just to double check flight numbers and times (I was organising my lift to and from the airport). I was quite shocked to see that my flight had been cancelled but my accommodation was still active.

Turns out the cost to them of the flight had risen so they cancelled it (after I had already paid) - and failed to get in contact with me to let me know. On speaking to them they said they could re-book my flight at an additional cost of around £250! I declined and requested a refund on the hotel, the reason being the is no point having a hotel I can't get to! Apparently though the hotel is non-refundable. I am currently disputing this with them, however there attitude is shocking.

I also spoke to my insurance company - the advisor who answered my call already knew all about them.

My advise would be NOT to use them.

i agree

i booked flights with them after reading all the comments where people said they had no trouble with the ignoring the ones that said they did, and i booked a 15 kg suitcase on with them. when checking in online with ryanair i rang travel republic to make sure i had a suitcase booked on and they reassured me that there was a 15kg suitcase booked on and not to be worrying. when i arrived to the airport to check in my bag they told me there was no bag checked in on the flight so i contacted travel republic and they said sorry nothing we can do you will just have to pay the 260 euro (out of my spending money) to bring your suitcase with you and we will refund you when u are back!!! that was the 9th of july 2013 and it is now the 24th of September and i still have not been refunded i keep on ringing but they say its being processed. SO I WOULD ADVISE EVRYONE NEVER TO BOOK WITH TRAVEL REPUBLIC BECAUSE IF YOU COME INTO TROUBLE THEY WILL NOT HELP YOU .

If you had a checked bag booked it would have shown on your booking on Ryanairs website. You shouldn't book a Ryanair flights through a third party. The forbid their flights being booked this way and it breaches the terms of use of their website. They do have a number of problems with bookings done via third parties, and any third party that will knowingly book something that they shouldn't, isn't worth using IMO.

If you had a checked bag booked, it would have been printed on your boarding pass, showing the prebooked weight. If it wasn't printed on it, it wasn't booked, irrespective of what TR were telling you.

I'm confused - why would you book a Ryanair flight via Travel Republic rather than direct with Ryanair? I've booked Jet2 flights via TR because it was cheaper than booking direct but I've never come across that with Ryanair.

SM

Confused as I thought Ryanair didn't allow third party's to book their flights.

I thought they had gone to court over it.

TR sell ryanair flights at the same cost as ryanair do on their website , if you are booking a package you would buy flights and accomodation and transfers together because it seems logical , not that you necessarily have to , but why is TR selling ryanair flights or allowing customers to purchase ryanair flights ??
Must admit they do seem to be ideal partners though

andy66 wrote:

TR sell ryanair flights at the same cost as ryanair do on their website , if you are booking a package you would buy flights and accomodation and transfers together because it seems logical , not that you necessarily have to , but why is TR selling ryanair flights or allowing customers to purchase ryanair flights ??
Must admit they do seem to be ideal partners though ;)

But the majority of OTAs don't sell package holidays, so you're not really gaining anything, apart from flight plus financial protection. You'd should have supplier failure on your insurance anyway when travelling other than on a package. It's generally included in the travel disruption cover (or whatever the particular insurer calls it) which is necessary for DIY travel.

doe wrote:

Confused as I thought Ryanair didn't allow third party's to book their flights.

I thought they had gone to court over it. :think

They have taken a couple of German companies to court, and OTB have impending action against them, but until there is a successful court case in the UK, the shonky OTAs will carry on selling them, not caring whether they breach Ryanair terms of use of not. I never understand why people buy flights through a third party, especially the cheaper ones like TR, OTB etc. That said, a decent company wouldn't be selling them anyway.

Sunaddict wrote:

andy66 wrote:

TR sell ryanair flights at the same cost as ryanair do on their website , if you are booking a package you would buy flights and accomodation and transfers together because it seems logical , not that you necessarily have to , but why is TR selling ryanair flights or allowing customers to purchase ryanair flights ??
Must admit they do seem to be ideal partners though ;)

But the majority of OTAs don't sell package holidays, so you're not really gaining anything, apart from flight plus financial protection. You'd should have supplier failure on your insurance anyway when travelling other than on a package. It's generally included in the travel disruption cover (or whatever the particular insurer calls it) which is necessary for DIY travel.

Perhaps I should have made it clearer , I said " booking a package " instead of a dynamic package , I realise now having read through rafts of complaints recently that they don't sell package holidays in the true sense of the word . I wonder how many customers who wish to purchase a holiday know that ryanair do not allow their flights to be sold via a third party , surely if they see the flight listed as able to select they must think that TR are not breaking the T&Cs of a airline by selling to them ?

That said I agree with your last post .