Advice please, what would you do?

[The Eighth Dwarf]

Oh here we go with my tale of woe, need advice cause to be honest I`ve no idea how to handle this situation.

OK from the start, last August we stayed at the animal Kingdom Lodge in a savannah room, this was our first ever trip to disney. We came home and went to the travel agent( THOMAS COOK ) in September and booked for this year sept 4 2009 14 nights staying at the Wilderness Lodge with the free Disney Dining plan.

Everyone still with me, good then I`ll continue.

So after reading through loads of dining reviews on the Dis we thought it might be worth looking in to upgradin to the delux dining plan, so we phone THOMAS COOK last month and ask for a price.

They say it will cost us £1800 to upgrade to the DxDDP, so we thought we`d just give that a skip cause it was more than we thought it would be.

Anyway this got me thinking, and we looked at our original invoice, and it didn`t mention any dining plan.

So I went in today and asked, are we definately on the free disney dining plan, and the girl looked at our booking, made a few phonecalls and then came back to me and said no you are not on the ddp, and can I prove that the offer was indeed on last sept we I booked the holiday.

So after threatening to cancel the best they can do for me is I pay £1300 to stay at my original choice hotel with the dining plan or they had the brass neck to offer me the chance to cancel my booking and move to the AKL with the free DDP for an extra £70.


This holiday cost us in the region of £5000, surely we are entitled to be treated a bit better than this..

Just for the record I`m not after compensation or anything like that, I just want what I`ve paid for.

So what would you do,

Cancel the holiday and book elsewhere, with the possibilty of losing £500 deposit.

Go with the AKL at the same price(I`ve since managed to get them to waive the £70)

Go to the AKL and never book with THOMAS COOK ever again.


Sorry for the long post and any advice is welcome.

 

[jackieleanne]

That's disgraceful. I would keep with it especially as they are now wavering the £70 but the cheek of it to even say about charging you that. After this holiday though I wouldn't book again if they had done that to us.

Edit: How many is it for it seems a lot? you may be able to find the deal with Dis Uk/Dis US getting tickets and hotel package for free DDP and then booking flights sepearate or even going Dis UK with virgin flights or Virgin / TCD for cheaper and with Free ddp as it is currently out now so don't see why Thomas cook couldn't keep you to original booking and put in DDP free like you had paid for.

 

[jtlover]

Go to AKL and never book with them again!

 

[UKDEB]

I would prove to them that the offer was on when you booked and insist that the free DDP is added to your existing reservation. Or am I missing something?

 

[team harris]

When we booked our holiday last August for this coming August, we contacted Thomas Cook as we had travelled with them before. They told us that they were not able to offer us free DDP, as they had not been included in the deal. The only way we could get it, was to book through them but using a different travel company. Seems like they did not explain this to you at the point of sale and you could possibly look at some kind of mis-sell ?
Hope you get it sorted

 

[chocomochamouse]

That's terrible Surely any competant TA knows the free DDP on at that time so when looking back to see when you made the booking it should be obvious that you are entitled to it.

I would stick with trying to prove your point and get what you originally booked for, and if that means jumping up and down in the TA, shouting, speaking to head office or threatening them with legal action or going to the local press, I would!

We have booked with Thomas Cook, and trying to get an answer out of them re ticket collection has been a nightmare. Everyone you speak to gives a different answer. When you have paid a LOT for your holiday, is it too much to ask for someone to give you a straight answer?

Good luck

Think I might just go check my invoice...

 

[cherjp]

That's terrible Surely any competant TA knows the free DDP on at that time so when looking back to see when you made the booking it should be obvious that you are entitled to it.

I would stick with trying to prove your point and get what you originally booked for, and if that means jumping up and down in the TA, shouting, speaking to head office or threatening them with legal action or going to the local press, I would!

We have booked with Thomas Cook, and trying to get an answer out of them re ticket collection has been a nightmare. Everyone you speak to gives a different answer. When you have paid a LOT for your holiday, is it too much to ask for someone to give you a straight answer?

Good luck

Think I might just go check my invoice...

So far my experience with so called competent Travel agents has been non existent, and apologies to any TA out there, but when I went in recently to a couple of them and asked for prices, when I told them what I wanted they didnt know what I was talking about... " dining plan? whats that..., no its ok we can get your theme park tickets cheaper than the tour operator" oh no you wont buddy i need to book it all together to get the free dining it didnt instill me with much confidence at all.

Make sure that you speak to the manager or go higher than the manager and stand your ground, take your proof of when the free dining was on if you can.

 

[MandyD]

Hi, I am a new member but have followed the boards for some time now.

I have found a web page which refers to free dining being offered for stays between 2nd August and 3rd October 2009 for new bookings made between 20th August and 4th Novemeber 2008. It specifically mentions Thomas Cook Signature but I am sure it would apply to all Thomas Cook bookings.

Unfortunately, as a new member I cannot post any links etc but it was tcsignature.com/pages/static/offers.disney.html

Hope this helps

 

[pol]

Sorry to hear about your problems with TC, we are flying out with them from belfast on 4th sept, for two weeks. I only book the flight with them, I have booked AKL and free dining with Disney UK. It much cheaper this way than booking with TC. I'd check invoices first before changing anything.

Good luck

 

[stephensmum]

Sorry to hear this, I myself don't have any confidence in T Cook & find it very difficult to get answers from them. In your case I think you should try to get prove that it was offered when you booked, plus the fact that they told you how much an upgrade was. Get the manger to speak to you in the shop (not customer service manager) & refuse to accept anything other than them paying for it to be added to your booking. I did this in 2005 over paying for reserved seat when they changed airlines they wanted me to pay extra charges, i got them to pay it in the end. Whatever the outcome DON'T GO WITH THEM AGAIN. Hope you manage to sort something out & it does'nt spoil things too much for you.

 

[The Eighth Dwarf]

Thank you all for your input, it really is appreciated.
So just an update, we have decided to just book into the Animal Kingdom Lodge , I`m a sort of see the glass half full sort of guy so here's the positives I`m taking from this,


1 Just imagine how bad it would have been to have found this out whilst checking in at the Wilderness Lodge,That really would have caused me stress I can tell you.

2 We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge last year and really enjoyed it.We know our way round the place and the kids loved the swimming pool.

3 Jiko for dinner instead of artist point, we ate there last year and it was stunning.

What I`m not going to do is let this entire episode get in the way of me or my family having a great time, so as far as I`m concerned the countdown to our return to the Animal Kingdom Lodge starts starts now.........




Oh having said all that here is a copy of the email I sent Thomas Cook, depending on how they handle it they well may have lost all of our future custom.




Sir/Madam

I would like to complain in the strongest possible terms about the treatment I and my family have recieved.
My booking reference number is XXXXXXXXX
Last year we enjoyed a holiday in Orlando which we booked with Thomas Cook, this holiday cost us in the region of £5000.
When we returned in September we booked to go again this year, again through Thomas Cook and again it cost in the region of £5000.
Thats over £10000 we`ve spent with you and we had fully intended to book again next year, I seriously doubt that will happen now.

In September we booked to stay at the Wliderness Lodge, we bought our Disney tickects at the same time. We had specifically told your customer service representative we wanted to take advantage the free Disney Dining Plan offer that was running at the time. The young lady told us she would look into it and get back to us. This she did the next day, she informed us that we would be staying at the Wilderness Lodge for 2 weeks and included was our ultimate Disney tickets and the Disney Dining plan. So we booked.

We had thought no more of this until we recently asked for a price to upgrade to the Deluxe Disney Dining plan. We were told it would cost us £1800, this didn`t sound right to us. On Friday morning I went into your shop in Belfast Castle Court and asked if they could confirm we were on the Disney Dining Plan. Unfortunately they couldn`t do this as it turns out we were not. The young lady who had taken our booking had either lied to us or had neglected something she was meant to do. I assumed that you nwould just add the Disney Dining Plan to our booking once you realised your mistake, but it turns out I was wrong and in fact I was asked to either pay £1300 or prove that I was entitled to the free Disney Dining Plan.

Now I think you willm agree its not up to me to prove anything, nor is it reasonable to ask me to pay another £1300 for something you have already told me I have. This left me feeling very angry and in fact I wanted to cancel nand take my custom elsewhere cause surely in these very harsh economic times there are other travel agents who would be only too glad to have our custom. But again I was disapointed because now if I cancelled it was going to cost me over £500 in lost deposit. Again this was unnacceptable to me.

So the only way out of this was for your customer service agent to cancel my holiday, and re book me into a different hotel because there was no availability for the Wilderness Lodge.So we have had to move to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Unbeliveably, you actually had the nerve to ask me to pay another £70 because the Animal Kingdom Lodge holida was slightly more expensive than our original holiday, though I did get this fee waived in the end I wasn`t particularly impressed with being asked.

So there you have it, it`s up to you now. I can gurantee if you don`t take this complaint as seriously as I do, you will have not only lost my custom but I will tell everybody exactly what I thnk of Thomas Cook.


Your sincerely Simon

 

[stephensmum]

We had difficulties with T cook last August. I sent a long letter explaining what had happened & their sent me a standard letter back. I was so angry & copied my original letter & put a covering letter expressing how upset I was that they could do this & demanded that they look into the matters properly this time. At the 28 days point I got a letter saying that they would investigate fully & needed 28 days to do that. That was in February & I still have'nt had a reply. What happened on our holiday was bad enough but the way it was dealt with & now how they are dealing with the complaint means I would never use them again. I hope it works out better for you. Have a lovely time at AK.

 

[The Eighth Dwarf]

Oh dear and so the saga continues........................

So when we left we had decided to let thomas cook cancel our holiday and rebook us into the animal kingdom lodge. Which they did.
The problem now that our invoice has arrived it turns out this holiday is £400 cheaper than the one we booke initially.

After much heated debate in the shop it turns out thomas cook have taken our original deposit because "we" cancelled our holiday.

So they have sold us a holiday worth £4500 for £4950, and they have no intention of giving us our deposit back.

So in effect they have made another £400 profit from a mistake they made in the first place.

I`m now waiting on a phone call from their legal department to see if we can get our money back.Can`t believe the hoops I`m having to jump through or the downright intransigence they have shown me.

 

[stephensmum]

I was thinking that this was unbelieveable as I read your post, but as you'l gather from my postings I have come to expect the worse from Thomas Cook. I'm really sorry for all your going through & hope that you get somthing more satisfactory sorted with the Legal Dept.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Try posting here
http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/

They have great advice and can put you in touch with Ross fernihough, a travel /holiday lawyer

 

[The Eighth Dwarf]

thank you Obi wan, lol always wanted to say that

Another update, well after all this Thomas Crook have caved in and refunded my deposit. So I`m pretty satisfied with the outcome.
Think they should have gave in without all the hassle but I suppose in these hard times they want to hold on to what ever cash they have.

So hopefully that is the last of the drama and we can settle down now to counting the days till 4 th september.

 

[stephensmum]

Glad it's sorted.