So they are not actually matching the price? To be honest though, I would be very tempted to book with them. Having mainly done DIY , I know that if things go wrong it's me that has to spend hours sorting it out. And if the price difference is £25 in total I would pay it.

Have posted on this before it was £10 a head last time I raised the issue I have paid that but last few times havent been charged sometimes mentioning price matching and then charging a soplement doesn't seem compatable with trading standard legislation helps the siituation. I feel soory for the shops they are in a no win situation if they insist on charging people will then book on line resulting in more shop closures

I must admit we have a very good relationship with our local Thomson / Tui shop, we have used them for years always with our main expensive holiday every year, they are more than willing to price match, at the beginning the consultant had to go and ask her manager, however now she will actually go online in the shop and match it no problem herself.

I have to say I have never had a problem in the shop and we have a good repeat client relationship, but again we know pretty much what we want when we go in, we sort the price and book it, we don't go in spend their time looking things up then walk out and not booking.

Went into our local Thomson shop about 3 years ago when looking to book Kenyan sojourn,armed with latest internet price. Basically got told that they WOULDN'T match price.A snotty individual told me that they couldn't price match because "they had to pay their wages" ...as a result I booked online and will continue to do so.

This is not new. When we booked a cruise on The Thompson Dream at the back end of last year, we went in a Thompson TA armed with the internet price. They charged us an "admin fee" of £25 to match the internet price. Basically they booked it on line as we sat in the shop, checked stateroom availability and showed us the options which were all extra just as they would have been had we done it ourselves. So we got the benefit of using a travel agent for a fee.

brewerdave wrote:

Went into our local Thomson shop about 3 years ago when looking to book Kenyan sojourn,armed with latest internet price. Basically got told that they WOULDN'T match price.A snotty individual told me that they couldn't price match because "they had to pay their wages" ...as a result I booked online and will continue to do so.

There is no excuse for someone in the shop being rude or bad-mannered in the way they tell you that they won't price match an on-line price but what they said is true. There are overhead costs involved in running a shop and they extend over and above the staff wages too. I would have no problem about paying an admin fee in those circumstances. I have never understood this internet price-matching thing, especially with the identical product of a fairly standard package. Why not just book it on-line in the first place if it is cheaper?

But if there are things that you want to check out with a real person, be sure that if any mistake is made in the booking then they are responsible etc then I think that it is reasonable to be asked to pay an admin fee if the security of actually booking in a TA shop is important to you. The reason why on-line bookings are cheaper in any industry is because the customer is doing a lot of work themselves and hence there are savings on overhead costs that can be passed on the customer. It's a bit like researching which books you want to buy on Amazon and then expecting a local bookshop to sell it to you for the same price. Or do others do that as well?

SM

I am sure a lot of people research items in stores and shops then check online prices before they decide which source to purchase the product from.

I only went into the shop because I had an email from Thomson exhorting me to visit "my local Thomson shop" !!-I was quite happy to book with them -even perhaps with a smallish admin fee - but that wasn't ever offered -it was just a straight No - would you like us to price the holiday up for you?
In fact, I still get such emails altho I have booked the last 15 or 20 holidays on line with either Thomson or FC.

But in any other situation, nickmacuk, do they automatically expect a high street retailer to always reduce their price to the on-line price? In most of that sort of price match promise they offer to refund you the difference if you buy it from them and later find it cheaper elsewhere (eg John Lewis) but even then they will only honour it for products that are exactly the same as the product they offer and even John Lewis is well known for negotiating with manufacturers to ensure that they are only UK retailer for that particular model etc so the customer has no opportunity to find it cheer elsewhere because nobody else will have it on-sale.

I still don't understand why, having researched a product and found that the lowest price is offered by an on-line retailer, people don't just book/order it on-line from that retailer? Why then go to the hassle of going into town to a shop and buying it from them unless it is because buying it from a shop represents added value in some other way? In which case I think it reasonable that you be expected to pay for that added value. It is no longer the same product in that case.

I can understand it working the other way and why people would do it ie first go into a shop to research whether this is the product you want etc and then going home to see if you can buy it cheaper in-line. This is the big gripe of independent bookshops and I can understand why they don't like people coming and browsing their shelves and then going away to buy it on Amazon. But I can also understand why many people do just that because of the savings that can be made buying books on-line from Amazon. What i don't understand is why do all the research yourself on-line and then not just book it. Why expect a TA to do it for you but only charge the same price?

Brewerdave, in that instance then I would have said, yes, and seen what they came up with! I don't usually book through TAs because I don't usually book standard packages but having on one occasion checked out what might have been available in my price range and for my dates but not booking because I did have questions and wasn't sure which destination would really suit me, I went to the shop and they actually came up with a number of cheaper deals because of the discounts that they could apply in the shop but which weren't available on line. Had they not been able to do that, I wouldn't have expected them to automatically price match an on-line price or got the hump if they had said you've found a better deal than we can offer you, your best bet is to go home and book it yourself.

SM

SMa - I think that the key issues are a) that the shop is owned by Thomson therefore part of the Group -for all they know the shop staff could have lost Thomson a customer and b) it was a straightforward "standard" holiday -no real work for the shop when they were empty at the time!!I only went in,to see if they could give me any extra info. re Thomson's organised safaris but the response after the query re price matching...............
Yes, I could have sat down for them to price it all up - but I wasn't overwhelmed by the welcome!!

Friends of our who live up North paid £20 3 years ago to have their holiday price matched, while hubby and I paid nothing to have ours priced match with our local Romford store ... seems it depends on individual stores.

However, we booked Thassos back in Feb and have booked with Thomson again ( not out of choice I might add, but they are the only TO that go there) and we were charged £20 to price match at the Lakeside Thurrock Store.

IMO they just seem to be scamming the customer for every penny and they offer nothing in return ... they even charge £5 for the privilege of printing out your boarding cards if you don't have a printer at home!!!

Holidayhypermarket, part of Tui , are cheaper online than Thomsons online, for the same holidays.

£25 seems quite reasonable to me.

It's all very well saying it was quite a simple straightforward holiday to book, but it can be about after sales service which is maybe more important.

If you book on the internet and say the Foreign Office suddenly puts a travel advisory on your destination, it's a lot easier to sort something like that out face to face with a person, than being put through to a call centre 2 or 3 times, each time speaking with a different person, and trying to explain that you can't get travel insurance now to go to Dahab or Taba but you can still go to Marsa Alam and Sharm etc.

Even something simple like a change of flight time which happens if you book yonks on advance, you can go in a shop and if it's not suitable try and sort it. They will be the ones paying for all the phone calls and communications and getting frustrated with the call centre, although I suspect they have different numbers that get them through quickly.

Just my thoughts obviously.

well we just booked on sat morning in shop and they price matched in fact beat the price by £10 from their web site. at no extra charge....

I always book with Thomson after seeing a hotel and price on line.
Most of the girls price match but the one I booked with in April didnt seem very keen so I just told her not to bother and that I would go to Hays who are nearby.
She soon changed her mind. Thomas Cook holidays are the same price in store or on lne..

Never been able to sus out internet prices. We've recently booked (with Thomsons) for a week away the end of September. Within 4 days of booking the price had increased by over 50% ! (from just over £400 to well over £600)

I realise they have to try and balance out between supply and demand - I can only think it's a ploy to put people off and get them to look elsewhere (In this case a sister apartment - which at the time of out booking was only approx. £40 more that the one we chose)

If you're booking a standard 'ready made' package holiday I can't see the point of going in a high street store. Just book online in the first place. I'd much rather be in control of my own booking, and know what I'm booking is exactly what I want. Sort out any changes or problems myself, rather than having to get someone else to do it for me. Maybe too many years of working in travel has taught me to be very wary of vertically integrated high street agents. It's a shame a lot of the good independents have disappeared. One particular large group certainly didn't help them

If you've got a complicated itinerary a good travel agent can be a bonus, but someone like Trailfinders, not a high street store.

I havent got a printer so like to book in store.Its no good going to our library to print off details as the computers are always occupied.

Hi All,

I wonder if you can give me some advice. I booked a holiday with Thomson T/A yesterday as we were walking by the shop, but I have just looked on their online site and have seen the exact same holiday for over £100 cheaper? What should I do and can I get this money back? What is the best way to tackle this? I know social media works wonders at times but wanted to see if anyone else has had this problem and how they resolved it?
I assumed the prices would be the same.

Thank you in advance.