A family member booked a holiday in January for 14 of us to go to Greece, leaving on Saturday. This was booked through a travel agent. He got a call on Monday from said TA saying that the hotel had been overbooked so we have nowhere to stay. Flights are fine apparently.

He spent all day at the TA yesterday trying to sort it out. Everywhere is fully booked and we can find no real alternative available despite spending all day looking! The holiday company have offered no alternative or explanation as to why we have been the ones to lose out despite booking 8 months in advance. TA has been really good at giving the holiday company both barrels but they don’t seem to be interested at all.

I have tried contacting the holiday company direct via their online chat but as we booked via a TA they won’t speak to me. I have also tried Twitter to see if I can get some sort of response, but nothing so far.

Has anyone been in this situation before that can offer some advice? As it stands we have 4 generations including me and my kids with nowhere to go without spending an extra £1000 each on an alternative 🙁

Any advice gratefully received!

I appreciate my rant will score 0/10 due to lack of CAPS/swearing etc but I’m starting to lose my cool so may unleash some sweary bits shortly!

Try contacting some hotels in the area yourself, I’d imagine there’s half a chance of available rooms given the recent demise of lowcostholidays, which may not show up as available on TA’s system?.

Was it sold as a package holiday?

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/package-travel-regulations

If so, in theory you could book the same standard of hotel and claim the cost back from the holiday firm.

We have been contacting as many hotels etc as possible since Monday with no luck so far.

One lovely lady has no availability but this morning she has offered to ring round a few places for us to see what she can find. Fingers crossed!

I can sort of understand how this can happen, but the lack of any support or offer of an alternative from the holiday firm has really p*ssed me off! Grrrr!

@martinhutch – thanks for the link. At least we should be able to get a refund if nothing else.

Try and find another holiday, some last minute offers should be available, then demand a complete refund on the holiday you have.

So are you going to name and shame the holiday company who have left you in the lurch?

Last minute offers don’t seem to exist any more. Just looking whilst working 🙂 and prices are between £5000 and £15000 for 1 room for 2 weeks not including flights.

The company in question is Thomas Cook and I wouldn’t touch them with a sh*tty stick! Customer service is non-existent when things go wrong it seems.

Had a quick Google and it is quite a common occurrence with people waiting months for a satisfactory response.

The TA is a family friend so she is pulling out all the stops but its like talking to a brick wall when contacting TC.

be careful if they offer compensation , we had a similar thing but we had landed at the hotel in turkey they put us up in a chav hotel overnight and then they moved us to another hotel the next day which was miles away, but turned out to be a lot nicer , the rep said we will sort your compensation out and offered us £25, and said that is all you will get I told her to swivel wrote a letter when we got back and got back about £300 .

have you considered a villa might be an option

I’ve managed to reach the tender age of 57 without ever using a Travel Agent but I would have thought your contract is with them, not the holiday company. Does it not work like that?

have you considered a villa might be an option

For 14 people, that would have been my first plan.

Sorry, I know that’s really unhelpful.

I don’t really know to be honest. I’ve always booked things myself online and never used a travel agent. This year my Grandfather-in-law organised it for the extended family and he used the local travel agent as she is a family friend and he doesn’t know what online means!

Hopefully we can sort something out via the TA but not looking promising at the moment.

We did look at Villas, but if I’m honest I wasn’t that keen. I only get one holiday a year and as much as I like my in-laws I also like my own space to chill out for a few hours by ourselves.

Saying that though, I think at this point in time I would take anything that is offered to me!

Any campsites? 😉

Are you all trying to get in the same hotel? Maybe if the party split up, it would be easier to find somewhere? Plus you’d be away from the in-laws.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. Being selfish, I’m inclined to book something for just us and the kids but the wife had her heart set on going to Greece with her family so is really upset.

Hey ho, 1st world problems and all that but stressful nonetheless!

dont know your exact breakdown of adults/kids etc or how many to a family but i just put 7 adults wanting 3 rooms into olympic holidays for tsilvi (zante) and it came up with laganas (not really the best family orientated place but its next to kalamaki which would be nice) and it was showing available for this saturday at around £450 each.

dunno if something like that would be any good to you but you could have a look on their website. i assume youve looked at jet2 also? we’ve always rated them a lot higher than thomsons/TC. yes theyll be including flights which you say are already sorted, but could you get a totally different holiday for a decent price and claim back original?

best of luck.

Ah, Thomas Cook. Yep, never again. Had a load of beef with them a couple of years back with them over a hugely sub standard hotel. Initially a derisory refund offer but I managed to get £600 quid back by going to the CEO’s office.

Which it transpires they’d already been refunded by the hotel! Bawbags, the lot of them.