Holiday Advice

[Luna]

Next tuesday my mum and step dad are due to go on holiday to greece for 2 weeks. They go with two other families so they have all booked the same hotel and so on.

On Saturday they were starting to get worried as they had not recieved their tickets yet so went to the travel agent to check things out.

When they got there the travel agent advised them that they no longer do those apartments, couldnt give a reason why, and they were in the process of switching them to a different hotel. This was the first they had heard of it and the other famiies hadnt either. When they questioned why they hadnt been told of this changed they were told under their terms and conditions they didnt have to inform them until they arrived in greece. (Dont believe this for a minute) and they apartments they are moving mum and step dad into are more than a mile away from the rest of the party.

Also one of the other families who are going are now being told they are going to be put into a 1 bed apartment - even though there are 2 adults a 17 year old boy 15 year old girl and a 9 year old girl.....surely they cant do this?

Has anyone ever had this problem before? Is there anything they can do.

They have basically been told accept it or cancel....

Any help would be much appreciated

[Abi]

Some people i know have had this problem before. Sometimes they are mre open to negociations if they offer to upgrade/demote the kind of apartment they get, so they can get into the same hotel, or one which is quite similar. But you're right, they didn't find out untill they got there, and then the holiday reps sent them to another hotel. Pretty unbeleiveable really, but its just what they do, i guess.

[alan45]

Next tuesday my mum and step dad are due to go on holiday to greece for 2 weeks. They go with two other families so they have all booked the same hotel and so on.

On Saturday they were starting to get worried as they had not recieved their tickets yet so went to the travel agent to check things out.

When they got there the travel agent advised them that they no longer do those apartments, couldnt give a reason why, and they were in the process of switching them to a different hotel. This was the first they had heard of it and the other famiies hadnt either. When they questioned why they hadnt been told of this changed they were told under their terms and conditions they didnt have to inform them until they arrived in greece. (Dont believe this for a minute) and they apartments they are moving mum and step dad into are more than a mile away from the rest of the party.

Also one of the other families who are going are now being told they are going to be put into a 1 bed apartment - even though there are 2 adults a 17 year old boy 15 year old girl and a 9 year old girl.....surely they cant do this?

Has anyone ever had this problem before? Is there anything they can do.

They have basically been told accept it or cancel....

Any help would be much appreciated
I think they are in breach of contract. It would all depend on when they knew of the changes. If its one of the hight street firms contact their head office customer relations and if you get no satisfaction try ABTA

[Chloe O'brien]

When I was in Greece two years ago I was given a twin room. Half-way through the holiday there was a woman in her 30's put into the room nxt door from us with her 17 year old son and they had a double-bed, because the Greek family thought they were a couple but they got them a room change the next day, so I'm sure that the mix-up will be fixed when they get there.

As for the holiday company cancelling the orginal booking without telling anyone then they are in breach of contract. It happened to me and my friend about 15 years ago when we went to Egypt. About 6 weeks before we were due to fly out we were contacted by Lunn Poly saying that they had cancelled our holiday as they didn't have enough people to fill the flight. We went ballistic they said that we could pick another holiday but we had already had all the injections. We ended up getting our money back but lost the deposit. We then went to Thomsons and they found us a better holiday to Egypt than we had orginally booked and it was cheaper.

[Abigail]

If something is changed for whatever reason the company has to provide a service of equal value or higher. In this case they have to provide the same standard of room/apartment or a higher grade if that isn't availble. They can't give you a lower grade apartment so don't let them fob you off. Go on the ABTA website or ring them and get some advice.

[Luna]

thanks for your advice everybody but mum has decided just to go with what they said and take the rooms they offered to save any hassle told her she was mad but hey what can you do......