Hi,
Just a quick question I hope someone will be able to advise me on. I returned from a Thomson Villa holiday taken in Spain about five weeks ago. Overall the holiday was ok but I had few issues that I was hoping Thomson could help me with and decided to contact their After Travel Customer Support Team via email shortly after my return from my holiday. I received an email last Thursday from the after sales team. I am pretty well covered on my responses to that email and will reply in due course. I was a little surprised to receive this answer to one of my points. Please see below my particular question and then the Thomson response:
My paragraph:
In the Thomson 2014 Villa brochure and on the Thomson website it claims that the Ciruela villa has satellite TV. It appears not to have satellite TV what it does have is about 12 channels of Spanish, German and French TV programmes via a digital box in the TV, there are no English programmes. My partner and I feel that we were misled by your brochure into believing that the Vila did have a satellite TV service and we were looking forward to spending a few hours in the evening catching up with the UK news etc. on our return from the beach and days out. I would like to claim some sort of monetary value back as the detail in the brochure over this particular point is misleading. I hope we can negotiate a partial refund at this level.
Thomson reply:
As you have noted our brochure and web media does state that we offer satellite TV. However, it does not state how many channels we offer or if we do provide English programmes. I know that it was disappointing that you were not able to watch the English News. However, it would not be something we would offer compensation for.
I am not sure if it’s me, but if I see a feature such as Satellite TV in a Holiday brochure written in English and marketed at the English package holiday market then I would expect to have some English channels on it. Any advice would be most welcome.
Kind regards
Mark
Hi Mark, welcome to the forums.
I know exactly how you feel and I would be disappointed too, however I've learnt not to make assumptions with holiday brochure jargon and if there's the slightest question mark over an item then to make enquiries first.
We usually book mainly private rentals and if it states satellite TV then I email and ask what channels they provide.
I doubt you will be offered any compensation. Sorry.
I know exactly how you feel and I would be disappointed too, however I've learnt not to make assumptions with holiday brochure jargon and if there's the slightest question mark over an item then to make enquiries first.
We usually book mainly private rentals and if it states satellite TV then I email and ask what channels they provide.
I doubt you will be offered any compensation. Sorry.
We had a similar "discussion" with Thomson a few years ago re TV in an appartment which was supposed to be "satelliteTV" equipped - not only was it all foreign channels but the only ones that didn't break up were German ! -we got a very similar reply to the OP.
As to comp. -the chances are between nil and zero - there are many people still fighting for comp. for severe flight delays -we lost a whole day of our holiday 5 years ago and got zilch other than the overnight hotel stop, and as Thomson claimed it was a "safety" issue we aren't likely to ever get any!!
As to comp. -the chances are between nil and zero - there are many people still fighting for comp. for severe flight delays -we lost a whole day of our holiday 5 years ago and got zilch other than the overnight hotel stop, and as Thomson claimed it was a "safety" issue we aren't likely to ever get any!!
As Glynis has said, it is never safe to make assumptions about anything when dealing with TOs. A statement that a villa or apartment has satellite TV means simply that it has satellite TV and unless it stipulates that it has English TV channels or you were clearly told in an email or phone converstion, then there is no guarantee that it will. Unless you can find the statement somewhere that this particular villa has English language satellite TV channels then I think that you are unlikely to get anywhere with this element of your complaint.
The crux of your complaint is that it didn't have English language TV channels and Thomson have in essence replied 'But we never said that it did, so you have no grounds for claiming compensation'. Had you not mentioned the English channels issue but simply claimed on the basis that what was provided was a digitial TV service not a satellite one, then you might have had a slim chance of getting somewhere but I'm afraid that you have probably shot your bolt by saying that your grounds for seeking compensation are that your enjoyment of the holiday was marred by not being able to watch the English language news programmes.
SM
The crux of your complaint is that it didn't have English language TV channels and Thomson have in essence replied 'But we never said that it did, so you have no grounds for claiming compensation'. Had you not mentioned the English channels issue but simply claimed on the basis that what was provided was a digitial TV service not a satellite one, then you might have had a slim chance of getting somewhere but I'm afraid that you have probably shot your bolt by saying that your grounds for seeking compensation are that your enjoyment of the holiday was marred by not being able to watch the English language news programmes.
SM
Trying to claim compensation on the grounds there was no English channels, when the villa wasn't sold as having English channels isn't going to happen.
When it comes holidays, like most things in life, never assume. If something is that important to you that you try to claim compensation for the lack of it, you need to make sure you ask very specific questions to ascertain that your assumption is correct, and get very specific answers - in writing, before booking.
When it comes holidays, like most things in life, never assume. If something is that important to you that you try to claim compensation for the lack of it, you need to make sure you ask very specific questions to ascertain that your assumption is correct, and get very specific answers - in writing, before booking.
The UK companies changed the footprint of the Satellite so that huge parts of Europe could no longer receive UKTV.
Basically UKTV was being pirated (i.e. Stolen) and the BBC were fed up with people who weren't paying for a TV licence and Sky with people who weren't paying a sky subscription getting the programmars in places like Spain, Portugal, Cyprus etc and not contributing financially to the maintenance of existing systems and the development of new programmes.
Ex-pat forums were full of this.
There is no way this is Thomsons fault, millions have lost the ability to receive UKTV abroad via satellite the alternative now being Internet TV which can be unreliable for various reasons.
Nobody knew what date the Satallite was going to change so owners probably kept telling company's they were getting UKTV as the info was correct at the time they stated it.
Sometimes things change through circumstances that are nothing to do with either the owners or the travel company.
Basically UKTV was being pirated (i.e. Stolen) and the BBC were fed up with people who weren't paying for a TV licence and Sky with people who weren't paying a sky subscription getting the programmars in places like Spain, Portugal, Cyprus etc and not contributing financially to the maintenance of existing systems and the development of new programmes.
Ex-pat forums were full of this.
There is no way this is Thomsons fault, millions have lost the ability to receive UKTV abroad via satellite the alternative now being Internet TV which can be unreliable for various reasons.
Nobody knew what date the Satallite was going to change so owners probably kept telling company's they were getting UKTV as the info was correct at the time they stated it.
Sometimes things change through circumstances that are nothing to do with either the owners or the travel company.
Hi just to say i watch Sky News Here in Qatar on my Ipad everyday it is free to air over the internet. If you want UK programs you will need to use a VPN but you can watch them.
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