Tour Operators and Travel Agents

Discussions regarding Tour Operators and Travel Agents
Re: Thomson / TUI
727 Posts
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Hi

Flying to cacun with Thomson on 31st May from Manchester, does anybosy know what flights will be shown? Also what kind of plane it will be

Thanks

Jan
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Hi Jan,

You need to put your question to the experts in the Thomson Airways flight forum.

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=68846&start=1360

Angie.
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I am trying to price up a 'dynamic' package with Thomson for hotel & flights -summer 2011.

If I select the hotel first it doesn't find a flight. If I select flight first I can select the hotel I want.

However, during the flight selection bit I add hold luggage, take off meals etc before selecting the hotel. When I add the hotel the extra £32 (£16pp) for the luggage dissapears off the running total and there is nowhere to put it back in. Obviously we need hold luggage so why is it doing it?

I appreciate that with a 'dynamic' package it all has to be paid for up front but it is quite a bit cheaper and we prefer to hire a car at the airport rather than use the transfers too.

Is there as much protection with a 'dynamic' package as there would be with a normal package?

Thanks,
Pippa
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Hi Pippa
I wouldn't have thought what you are trying to do is not a package, more a case of a DIY holiday. When you book flight and add a hotel, or vica versa, the individual components are priced separately, as opposed to quoting just one total amount. I may be wrong but I think this then precludes it from being a 'package' which would normally have to be sold at an inclusive price, without the customer knowing what the individual components cost.
To package a holiday you have to hold an Atol. If a travel agent was to book this for you, in order for it to be a package, they would have to hold an Atol and quote you an inclusive price.
I could be wrong though, it has been known :rofl
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Pippa,

I've investigated pricing separate flight/accommodation through Thomsons online for a few hotels that we like and they invariably work out cheaper by taking the TUI package deal as it comes.

After witnessing problems that fellow independent flight/accommodation guests had in April due to the volcanic ash flight restrictions - I'm convinced that a package is the best option.

Just my opinion.
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How strange is this?

Looked at my booking for September in My Thomson today as I paid the balance the other day. Was wondering if I should pay for seats together (2 of us) as I hadn't done so when booking as it is only a 2 hour flight to Pula.

Not only did it come with the statement that I had paid for reserved seating (I most certainly hadn't) our seats had automatically been allocated in the extra space rows (which normally cost extra). I couldn't change them to ordinary seats so just accepted these - we are able bodied! I have the print out of our seat numbers.

It does say that sometimes reserved seats are included in the cost of a holiday but I thought this was just Platinum and Al a Carte packages.

We did book last November so perhaps have got an added bonus! Strangely my husband did take a call the other evening asking if we wanted to pre-book seats and meals.....

At the end of day if we don't get the actual seats allocated to us it won't matter.

Pippa
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Have a holiday to Croatia booked (as you will see from above post) in September. It is paid for in full.

I am having a few 'minor' health problems at the moment - very bad IBS and a thyroid which for years has been underactive now gone overactive. I am hoping that once the thyroid medication has been sorted out then my IBS will not be as bad.

I am hoping it won't be necessary but would Thomsons let me postpone this holiday until next May - with an amendment fee of course. I presume that I would have to make a decision in the next couple of weeks if I don't feel inclined to travel. I don't think my health problems are serious enough to ask my doctor for a letter so I could cancel and claim on the insurance.

What do you think? As I say I hope changing my plans won't be necessary but at the moment I feel pretty miserable!

Pippa
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You need to check the terms and conditions or speak to your travel agent. Sometimes if it is within 56 days of your holiday you have to pay cancellation charges as they class it as a new holiday.
Outside that period they used to charge £35 per person per change or if they allow you to change within the 56 days £50 per person per change.
I would try to get some accurate info asap.
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hi pippa....they might....but I had a similar problem with thomascook not so long ago....I had booked last oct for my son and his his wife to join us for a week of our 2 week hols this july....they could only go for the week and also needed to go from a different airport... so had to have a seperate booking....my daughter in law became pregnant early december....she would have been 34wks pregnant on the day we flew back....at first she still wanted to go...and the deadline for flying with thomascook is 34wks....but in the end was getting stressed trying to sort her insurance ( she hadnt got round to getting it before she found out she was pregnant) and worried incase anything caused the doctor or midwife to refuse her a letter to fly.............in the end about 4 weeks before final payment was due we decided it would be bettter to cancel ( as no insurance if she couldnt go when time came)...

I first phoned the shop and explained....asked was there anyway I could use the deposit Id paid towards our holiday (as it me paying for a family get together...only some of us needed to go from different airport and only for a week).....answer was no as seperate booking....then I asked could they change the date they went till after baby was born (baby due end sept)....they said yes would cost to change date and £20 to add baby on (they already had a family room booked as was cheaper option at the time) and to go into shop to sort it....I phoned my daughter in law and we decided the following april would be good to go and take a baby....

When I went into shop to sort it....the story was different.....it seems thier holiday season finnishes end of oct....we could have changed the date but it had to be last week in oct ( not a good idea to take a 3wk old baby )......seems any change of date has to be within that season....even though where we are going is an all year resort.....so had no option but to cancel and loose my deposit...tweetie
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Thank you for your replies. We did change a thomson holiday a few years ago from a winter to a summer one and just paid the ammendment charge and any difference in cost.

I have read through the t&c and you can change after 56 days at a cost of £50pp. All we would be changing would be the date - everything else would remain the same.

We don't go until 21st September so hopefully none of this will be necessary. I will be having a blood test next week to see what the thyroid levels are after having the medication cut to under half the previous prescription - the general consensus of opinion is that my IBS is particularly bad because of the thyroid problems - do hope this is the case and it settles down. At the end of the day if I am really not very well at the time we are due to go then I feel sure my doctor will supply me with a letter for my insurance company who have both thyroid and IBS on my list of health problems.

Pippa
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can anyone tell me what plane tom104 to punta cana is ,we go on 29th of september,any help will be appreciated.
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Hi la672003 .... this is our Thomson Holidays topic, for discussion about the tour operator side of the business.

Flight enquiries are handled in the Thomson Airways topic in our Airlines & Airports forum, please click here.

David :wave
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I married with Thomson 5 years ago and decided to use them again for our vow renewal. We looked at some Riu hotels in Jamaica but they were out of our price range because we were told it was £859.00 for just a renewal. Due to this we had to go with another hotel within our budget which we were quite sad about!

I looked at weddingsbyriu.com and saw that for the hotel we wanted to go too, on the same date would be a cost of $635.00 no matter if we were booking from the uk, japan, australia, america, you get the point. That is the price.

I questioned thomson why in charging 859.00 pounds they were charging around 3 times the amount wanted by riu and they said that it is to do with them handling all our documentations, there are none apart from we have to take a copy of our wedding certificate with us.

Our current hotel we are booked into to have the same service, same documentation has not been marked up by over £500.00 pounds so how can they say its a down to documents that their price is around 1700 dollars when its really 635? Why is there not a huge price mark up on the hotel we had to go with?

They are not willing to budge and do not seem to be able to give a answer. Having used them to marry and having booked at least 15 holidays within the last 5 years i feel like we have no customer support and they really dont care
  • Edited by Glynis HT Admin 2010-07-26 17:32:35
    Edit to alter title slightly
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One thing to note is RIU is owned by TUI and this may be why they can just charge whatever they want for the RIU hotels.
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All,

sorry if the question has already been asked but does someone know when winter 2011/2012 will be put on sale (generally, not only related to Thomson) ?

I like to plan ahead ;)

Many thanks in advance !

Julmops
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Hi normally the last thursday in october .col
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last week i was going to book a hotel only for 4 adults & 2 children for next june & going to benidorm , i found a decently priced hotel with thomson ,went thru all the online booking proceedure but i was not allowed to pay a deposit so i rang thomsons & was told that as i did not book a flight then i would have to pay the full amount which i think is a bit steep as there are another 10 months to go, needless to say i declined, i waited 30 mins or so then rang back got a different operator,explained what the 1st operator said & no2 operator then said i only need to pay 750.00 once again i declined, my main gripe about paying is that they dont pay the hotel until your jollies are due so why should they keep your hard earned cash for so long making a nice little bit of interest for them ?
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My gripe with Thomsons is they ask you to pay 8 weeks prior to departure but now 10days before we travel and still no tickets it was never like this with thomsons always had them 3-4 weeks before travel but the last twice we have had this problem.
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aprd68
You can always book direct with the hotel and then you don't usually have to pay until arrival.
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