Disgusted with Thomsons customer care

Would welcome any comments on my recent experience with Thomsons:-

After deliberating for some time re booking Colourful Coasts on Majesty for mid-April 2015, we decided against it for several reasons.

Instead, we opted to book the Dream's new Western Med itinerary, Mediterannean Secrets, sailing in June. Because my husband has health issues, I firstly contacted the Pre-booked Cabin service to enquire if any Outside Plus cabins available on Promenade Deck 9. We have occupied this category for the past three years, chosen because of the easy access for my husband to the Lido Restaurant and Deck, and also the Promenade Deck, without negotiating stairs. (as you will know, the lifts on the Dream are notoriously slow, and when they do appear, are more often than not full to capacity.) I was informed that two such cabins (2 Berth) were still available - 9038 and 9040.

I therefore then phoned Thoms reservation number, and was diverted to a Branch in Southampton. Before completing the booking process, the agent contacted the Pre-booked cabin service to confirm if these cabins still available, which fortunately they were. I selected 9038, and the agent proceeded with my booking, taking a deposit of £467 (which included £42 to book the cabin and £25 fee to match the online price.) As I was booking a Cruise and Stay holiday, I also paid £56 extra for a superior room at the Santa Lucia in Palmanova.

Would welcome any comments on my recent experience with Thomsons:-

 

After deliberating for some time re booking Colourful Coasts on Majesty for mid-April 2015, we decided against it for several reasons.

 

Instead, we opted to book the Dream's new Western Med itinerary, Mediterannean Secrets, sailing in June. Because my husband has health issues, I firstly contacted the Pre-booked Cabin service to enquire if any Outside Plus cabins available on Promenade Deck 9. We have occupied this category for the past three years, chosen because of the easy access for my husband to the Lido Restaurant and Deck, and also the Promenade Deck, without negotiating stairs. (as you will know, the lifts on the Dream are notoriously slow, and when they do appear, are more often than not full to capacity.) I was informed that two such cabins (2 Berth) were still available - 9038 and 9040.

 

I therefore then phoned Thoms reservation number, and was diverted to a Branch in Southampton. Before completing the booking process, the agent contacted the Pre-booked cabin service to confirm if these cabins still available, which fortunately they were. I selected 9038, and the agent proceeded with my booking, taking a deposit of £467 (which included £42 to book the cabin and £25 fee to match the online price.) As I was booking a Cruise and Stay holiday, I also paid £56 extra for a superior room at the Santa Lucia in Palmanova.

Imagine my disbelief when half an hour later, I had a phone call from the T.A. in Southampton to inform me a mistake had been made, and neither cabins were available. I had a heated discussion with the agent as to how the error could have occurred, and apparently although the Pre-booking service had confirmed both to myself and the agent that 9038 and 9040 were available,

because of Thomsons booking procedure, these cabins were not available to pre-book, but would in fact eventually be allocated to passengers who had not

opted to pay the £42 fee, but had indicated when booking Deck7/9 Outside Plus category that they would prefer a cabin on Deck 9 - How unfair is that!!

I was so angry that I contacted the Pre-booking service again, and demanded to speak to the Manager, who turned out to be Thomsons Custumer Care Manager. Without going into detail re our conversation, he confirmed what the T.A had told me, and said he could only apologise for the error, and offered to waive the £42 fee if I accepted a cabin on Deck 7. I again explained that this deck was unsuitable for my husband, and re-iterated the reasons for booking a cabin on Deck 9.

Anyway, the end result was that he stated he had looked at all the loopholes in an attempt to secure me the cabin or Deck of my choice, to no avail. He has, to his credit, confirmed he will take a personal interest in my case, and look out for a cancellation if one should occur, and keep me informed by E-mail.

To add insult to injury, it took three phone calls and a whole week to have my deposit refunded. In fact during one conversation with the T.A. in Southampton, she stated I may have to visit the Branch in person for the refund to be activated!!! (I live in Bournemouth).

Apologies for the long rant, at least I've got it off my chest!!!

P.S. Sorry for previous unfinished post, must have inadvertently hit the send button too early

I can imagine your frustration ................ right and left hand again! :rolleyes: Hope it sorts itself out for you. Good luck! :) (Wish the sun would come out here - might cheer us all up a bit!)

Imagine my disbelief when half an hour later, I had a phone call from the T.A. in Southampton to inform me a mistake had been made, and neither cabins were available. I had a heated discussion with the agent as to how the error could have occurred, and apparently although the Pre-booking service had confirmed both to myself and the agent that 9038 and 9040 were available,

because of Thomsons booking procedure, these cabins were not available to pre-book, but would in fact eventually be allocated to passengers who had not

opted to pay the £42 fee, but had indicated when booking Deck7/9 Outside Plus category that they would prefer a cabin on Deck 9 - How unfair is that!!

 

I was so angry that I contacted the Pre-booking service again, and demanded to speak to the Manager, who turned out to be Thomsons Custumer Care Manager. Without going into detail re our conversation, he confirmed what the T.A had told me, and said he could only apologise for the error, and offered to waive the £42 fee if I accepted a cabin on Deck 7. I again explained that this deck was unsuitable for my husband, and re-iterated the reasons for booking a cabin on Deck 9.

 

Anyway, the end result was that he stated he had looked at all the loopholes in an attempt to secure me the cabin or Deck of my choice, to no avail. He has, to his credit, confirmed he will take a personal interest in my case, and look out for a cancellation if one should occur, and keep me informed by E-mail.

 

To add insult to injury, it took three phone calls and a whole week to have my deposit refunded. In fact during one conversation with the T.A. in Southampton, she stated I may have to visit the Branch in person for the refund to be activated!!! (I live in Bournemouth).

 

Apologies for the long rant, at least I've got it off my chest!!!

 

 

P.S. Sorry for previous unfinished post, must have inadvertently hit the send button too early

yes! i would be a little outraged about this too!

I didnt even know that this option was even available...they tell you that if you want a cabin on a certain deck then you have to prebook one (at £42) I didnt think that you can just 'indicate' when booking that you would prefer a certain deck?.... is this something new?? and if it is?? how is it ever gonna work??...because everyone will indicate say deck 6 over deck deck 5! if they had the option

eventually they are gonna run out of 6's on 5/6 category cabins and people will no longer have an option to indicate??

hope this isn't another thomsons harebrained idea??

did that make sense:confused:

You make sense geo - not sure that this scheme does!!! :rolleyes: :confused: Have a distinct feeling someone is somewhat confused - and by that I mean at Thomson's end. Surely it's not an indicative cabin selection - at least not if you're paying £42 for the pleasure!!!!! You want and should be given a specific number!

I cannot fathom the "customer care" that would see you cancel a cruise & stay package rather than give you the cabin you've booked and paid for. It's beyond belief.

Thanks for your responses and comments.

To be honest I found Thomsons attempts at explanations a trifle condescending and confusing. When I asked for the umpteenth time if the cabins in question had been allocated or pre-booked and they replied no, I asked why then was it not physically possible for them to allocate them to us.- their reply was that they weren't available on the system! - funny that as they clearly were available when I made the booking. That was when I asked the question was it possible that these cabins might be allocated on arrival to passengers who had not paid the £42 fee, and they confirmed that yes this was correct, that somebody may have requested an Outside Plus on Deck 9, although not guaranteed.

Thomsons Customer Care Manager also bamboozled me by stating that because the T.A. had been informed by the Pre-booking service that these cabins were available, then went ahead with the booking, because they weren't apparently available on the system, they had to process the booking as Outside Plus 3p which we didn't qualify for!! Doh... the booking was for an Outside Plus for 2 adults, and they had already confirmed that 9038 and 9040 were 2 berth cabins.

Sadly this experience has left a bad taste in my mouth - I won't shoot myself in the foot by vowing not to cruise with Thomsons again as I love the Dream, and gather from numerous reviews that their other ships are excellent too - helped in no small measure by the wonderful crew.

Shall just wait and see if any suitable cabins become available.

So how does one go about "requesting" a specific cabin type when booking without paying £42?:confused:

I can understand your frustration, sometimes Thomson's manage to get it soo wrong.

Mind you it could be worse, you could try there complaints department (I assume this is run by a single person working in a cave somewhere). We did to get a £500+ refund on a cancelled excursion. Went through the channels, gave all details and was told they take all complaints very seriously and someone would contact us shortly to take up the complaint.

Just under 7 weeks before we got the follow up call....Quality!!!

This is stupid.

Sometimes Thomson are impossible to fathom.:confused:

Basically what they are saying is don't pay for a cabin, just put a note in special requests! Where it does say these are not guaranteed.

I haven't got anything constructive to add but have to say it's incredible that a company of Thomson standing could get something so straightforward so wrong. Surely it must be obvious to those responsible for overseeing such a holiday reservation procedure that this policy(if it truly exists) is detrimental to the company's reputation and creates only a negative affect even among many of it's regular returning customers.

if people can indicate (when booking) a part of the ship that they would prefer to be allocated a cabin in without paying the cabin reservation fee that would mean that blocks of cabins are held back and not available to people who have paid extra to guarantee a (particular) cabin and who might like to reserve one of those (held back) cabins

they do this on the airline too..... hold back/grey out blocks of seats (the last 3 rows on dreamliner) specifically to accommodate groups/families who haven’t paid to select their seats but who turn up at check in wanting/demanding to sit together...those blocks of seats are not available to people who have paid extra so that they will have to make a second choice (and thoms dont tell you that certain seats will be unavailable until the seat plan opens long after they have banked your cash)

I am all for saving money but this is just ridiculously unfair:mad:

While completely agreeing with Ginjoli and unbelievable that cancelling a booking is more economical for a company than trying to ensure the cabin can be booked, sadly in my experience this confusion is not restricted to travel companies! Even at my doctor's surgery if you speak to one receptionist, you get completely different information from another! And I am a nurse who works there! Have also had conflicting information from Vodafone recently and RBS!

This year when we arrived at our hotel we were informed we had a room upgrade to a new luxury garden room at no extra cost - it was the best room we have ever had! Yet people in the same row of rooms were offered the same upgrade and had to pay extra! They were not happy bunnies but it seemed to be a random decision which benefitted us! We ended up keeping stumm as it seemed to upset some of the older gents! And yes we were on holiday with Thomson! Though to be fair I think it was a hotel decision not Thomson! Maybe they thought we needed a treat! :D

I would cobtact the CEO and MD - I now got through them with my complaints, and I have always been asked when telephone how I wpuld like it to be resolved - the last i had my money back into my account within 24hrs of my emailing them

google CEO email addresses - then type in TUI in the search box, It will bring up Peter Long and David Burling email addresses

Just an update on our recent dealings with Thomsons.

Had a further E-mail from Thomsons Customer Contact person in Swansea who had promised to do a regular check for any cancellations on Deck 9 on the Dream Med Secrets in June. He persisted in trying to persuade me to accept an Outside Plus cabin on Deck 7, despite reminding him over and over that I wanted a cabin on Deck 9 because of my husband's health issues.

I then indicated I would have no alternative but to raise the matter with Thoms Complaints Dept.

In the meantime, friends who had joined us on the Dream in 2013, and who vowed never to cruise with Thomsons again due to a complete mix-up with special needs requirements, and failure on Thomsons behalf to even reply to their subsequent E-mail, asked if we would join them on a cruise they had just booked with P. & O. After much deliberation and a lot of 'homework', I decided to go ahead with booking a cruise on the Oriana end May/June.

But...... before actually proceeding with the booking process, I decided out of curiosity to ring Thomsons to enquire if any Outside Plus cabins available on Deck 9 on the Dream for our original planned itinerary in June.

I was gobsmacked to be told that yes there were two cabins still available - surprise surprise....... 9038 and 9040, the very cabins I had been told were unavailable to book!!!

I consulted my hubby as to what he wanted to do, and to my surprise he said let's go for the P.& O cruise, Thomsons have messed us around enough.

So, despite my fond attachment to the Dream, we are looking forward to a new adventure with P & O in 2015. - will be interesting to compare like for like with Thomsons, who I feel have let us down badly, and sadly don't seem to care.

Thanks for the update. Talk about admin incompetence - the very cabins you wanted are available after all. How could they get in such a state of confusion?

Anyway, hope you enjoy your first experience of P&O and I'll be very interested to know how you feel it compares - as I'm sure will many others. :)

I think the reason they get themselves into this state of confusion is because they are effectively charging people twice for selecting a cabin, something that doesn't happen with other lines.

With Thomson you pay a hefty supplement on booking to be on a particular deck, typically £250 pp if you want , say, a deck 6-7 cabin on the Spirit.

Then you have to pay again to secure a particular cabin number (£45? or is it more now?). Except you DON'T have to pay that second amount, you can just accept any available cabin on those decks. That means, of course, that they have to have some cabins available for those passengers who have already paid for that grade of cabin.

Life is much simpler elsewhere, you pick your cabin and pay the price quoted and it's sorted! Come on, Thomson, dip a toe in the 21st century!

Just an update on our recent dealings with Thomsons.

 

I consulted my hubby as to what he wanted to do, and to my surprise he said let's go for the P.& O cruise, Thomsons have messed us around enough.

 

So, despite my fond attachment to the Dream, we are looking forward to a new adventure with P & O in 2015. - will be interesting to compare like for like with Thomsons, who I feel have let us down badly, and sadly don't seem to care.

Can't say I don't blame you - Thomson really have a lot to learn in the Customer Care department in the UK; shame as they are letting the staff down on the ships. I think the Oriana is a nice ship - I am sure you will have a great time. Do report back to us after you have been please.

I do agree with you Kate - they really are so second rate in this respect. As you say - you book for an upgrade and have to pay again for a specific cabin.

Other cruise lines allow you to choose your cabin on booking - unless you book a Late Saver type price. In that case you are given a guaranteed cabin grade (minimum - can be upgraded) but no specific cabin allocation until just before sailing. But the huge difference is that a Saver Fare with no cabin choice (the same situation you are in with Thomson if you don't pay the £42 cabin booking fee) is actually £100's cheaper than the fares which come with a cabin selection!!!!! £500 isdifference isn't unusual if you are prepared to take the risk.

geo - I didn't know that about the 'greyed out' plane seats! I was wondering what that was all about as we booked ours a few days ago (sad that I am I was there at midnight waiting for it to go live!) and although no seats had been booked I wondered why a relatively preferential area of seats couldn't be booked. :confused: You've now answered my question. It really is unfair that people who pay can end up worse off than those who don't! Mirrors the situation I've mentioned before when our friends got a Premium upgrade having not paid for seats together and those who had were not considered! Don't get me started! :D

I do agree with you Kate - they really are so second rate in this respect. As you say - you book for an upgrade and have to pay again for a specific cabin.

Isn't the upgrade fee the same principle that applies to all cruise lines ?

If you want a higher deck and/or better accommodation you pay the extra cost - relative to the default price for the lowest/cheapest grade of cabin on offer.

The only difference is that Thomsons add an extra chargable option by offering to reserve a specific cabin for a further £42.00.

Why that should be an administrative problem for them beats me.

On P&O the only way to reserve a specific cabin is to pay a select fare. This might be a bargain or if the cruise is heavily discounted you may be irritated to find that you have paid possibly hundreds extra PER PERSON for the privilage plus having first dining choice. On Thomson reserving a cabin costs £45? PER CABIN.

Which is farer?

You do have a point, dave, but I've been in a position where I've booked early with Thomson to get a particular deck, only to find the price has drastically reduced the very next day! So that happens with all cruise lines/ holiday companies etc.

I'm basing my experience on Fred Olsen- we booked a saver fare (late-ish but not last minute) , and during the booking process we were able to see exactly which cabins were available on each deck, and chose the deck/cabin that suited our needs and pockets.

Yes, we paid more than the standard inside lead-in price, but the extra wasn't as much as we've paid with Thomson for a similar position. So when their deck supplements are already so high, you should be able to book and feel secure that you will be able to have a suitable cabin in the position you've paid for.

You do have a point, dave, but I've been in a position where I've booked early with Thomson to get a particular deck, only to find the price has drastically reduced the very next day! So that happens with all cruise lines/ holiday companies etc.

 

I'm basing my experience on Fred Olsen- we booked a saver fare (late-ish but not last minute) , and during the booking process we were able to see exactly which cabins were available on each deck, and chose the deck/cabin that suited our needs and pockets.

 

Yes, we paid more than the standard inside lead-in price, but the extra wasn't as much as we've paid with Thomson for a similar position. So when their deck supplements are already so high, you should be able to book and feel secure that you will be able to have a suitable cabin in the position you've paid for.

I find 1 or 2 of the posts unusual, we have booked our second Dream Cruise, and were given our requested Cabin Number on booking at no extra cost.

Our only Customer complaint with 'Guest Relations' was our trip this Year on the Dream when we went to see 'Guest Relations' To query Disabled access on and off the Ship at ports of call, Another Disabled Gentleman also went to enquire, and was IMMEDIATELY Verbally Attacked by the 'Guest Relations' desk operative stating that they were not there to Carry Guests on and off the Ship , which had not been mentioned , this is/was Guest relations at its best.