But you aren't making a general inquiry or booking inquiry - so if it was me I would still be contacting Hotelbeds direct because they are the people you had the contract with for your accommodation.

SM

Travel Republic may not have known the hotel was overbooked. Hotelbeds may not have done either.

Your contract, as agreed at the time of booking, is with Hotelbeds whether they trade direct with the public or not, so ultimately it is them you need to take this up with. Travel Republic can only act as a go between like any other agent, and pass correspondence on. They have no say in how long it takes Hotelbeds to look into the problem and respond.

Like I said - HotelBeds have No contact with the general public, as they say on their site, they are Travel trade only, so there is no way I (or any member of the public) can contact them. for anything regarding a double booking or any other matter. The only way to Contact them is through an agent, which in this case is travel republic.

All I would like to know is ultimately who has taken my money for something I have not received: Travel Republic? Hotel Beds? Fincas benidorm? Only Travel republic know the answer and they just say they are 'chasing it up', if they gave me details of who actually has my money and who's account it went into then maybe I can go after it myself, as I don't think they seem particularly bothered.

My other point was that Travel Republic fail to respond to complaints within the ABTA guidelines and they also refuse to publish reviews of my stay (because I never even got to stay in the place I was meant to stay at) This means all customers who they have double booked don't get a chance to respond on their own site.

Travel Republic may not know the answer. They have taken your money and passed it on to Hotelbeds in return for them booking you a room. Hotelbeds will pass it on to the hotel, in accordance with the payment terms agreed between the two parties.
Travel Republic can't answer your complaints until they hear back from Hotelbeds. Hotelbeds aren't members of Abta so they don't have to respond in accordance with any guidelines. All TR can do is chase up Hotelbeds, and let you that's what they're doing.

Presumably you had confirmation, and or an accommodation voucher for your accommodation? In the vast majority of cases it is the accommodation themselves that overbook. They resell a room from a company allocation to a direct booker. Like airlines, they rely on cancellations and no shows, and when they don't get any.................

You may never get a response from Travel republic as they may never get a response from Hotelbeds, TR can only respond to you on based on what they get from the bedbooker they use.

if you book a dynamic package, ultimately there are more people/companys involved in the chain than there are if you book a standard package holiday with the likes of Thomson/Thomas Cook/Cosmos etc

So it takes longer to get a response to queries, with letters or more likely emails going back and forth and needing to be chased up.

Thanks for the reply,

Yes, I had a booking confirmation voucher, so it appears even with a booking confirmation - that actually means nothing!

Like I say, I do not believe they (TR) are doing anything to contact HotelBeds, they do not respond to official complaints until prompted via facebook or twitter ( as that's in the public view )

I even waited over a month before posting anything negative about them to give them a chance to respond

Also the fact that If they know they have double booked you they will not allow you to review the accommodation you eventually ended up in!

It looks like I should also warn people of the dangers of using HotelBeds.com and Fincas benidorm as well!

You booked a "Dynamic Package" - Can I suggest have a look here for more information on how it works.

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/forum/understanding-your-holiday-booking-t158718.html

TR like other "Agents" will try to assist where they can but as others have already said they have to wait a reply from Hotelbeds and they (Hotelbeds) can take as long as they want.

I can understand how you feel but your contract whilst with Hotelbeds they keep their customers at arms length. If you visit their website they say

Please note that we are a supplier dealing with the travel trade only. As such, members of the public are advised to contact their tour operator or travel agent directly for general information or booking enquiries. Your cooperation is appreciated.

Unfortunately that is how the "Dynamic Package" works. You could of course try emailing them but doubt it will achieve anything

fwh

rjw74 wrote:

Thanks for the reply,

Yes, I had a booking confirmation voucher, so it appears even with a booking confirmation - that actually means nothing!

Like I say, I do not believe they (TR) are doing anything to contact HotelBeds, they do not respond to official complaints until prompted via facebook or twitter ( as that's in the public view )

I even waited over a month before posting anything negative about them to give them a chance to respond

Also the fact that If they know they have double booked you they will not allow you to review the accommodation you eventually ended up in!

It looks like I should also warn people of the dangers of using HotelBeds.com and Fincas benidorm as well!

If you have a booking confirmation voucher it means the accommodation was booked. It sounds like the accommodation themselves have overbooked, either very late, or just decided to not tell the 'owner' of the overbooked apartment, Hotelbeds, about it.

TR are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They can't resolve your complaint. They can only contact Hotelbeds, who in turn will have to contact the accommodation. Hotelbeds have to wait for the accommodation to reply, and in turn, TR have to wait for Hotelbeds. Involving so many middlemen is never a good idea IMO, because it just makes it so much more complicated to resolve problems.

managed to get a refund!

After receiving yet another 'we are chasing this up / have not had a response from HotelBeds, thank you for your patience...etc' email from travel republic. I decided to go straight to Hotelbeds myself. If you go to the contact section on the hotelbeds.com site, on the dropdown menu I selected 'travel organisers' and then 'I want to contact hotelbeds', I then filled in the email form, giving n/a as the company I worked for and then just told them about the double booking. As mentioned before, Hotelbeds are trade only and advise you not to contact them directly if you are a member of the public.

I also emailed the fincas benidorm offices and sent a link to a review of what happened to me, which I had posted on Tripadvisor.

I then received an email Travel republic saying ' We have been contacted by Hotelbeds who have received an email from you regarding a refund.' This was surprising as for the first time I had been contacted by an actual person at Travel Republic. The Emails I had had from them previously regarding this complaint came from 'no-replyCR <no-replyCR@travelrepublic.co.uk' so you can't reply to them.

Later that day I had an email from Travel Republic offering a refund, and that it would be credited to me within 3 days!

I can only speculate that Travel Republic hadn't made much effort to get in touch with hotelbeds in the first place, as going direct to them seems to have prompted a response, or it could be that Fincas Benidorm saw the review and urged Hotelbeds/ Travel republic to resolve the situation ASAP as it had reflected badly onto them.

It's a shame that I have had to publicly criticise these companies ( TR/ Fincas / hotelbeds ) as it seems they only really respond to bad publicity, this whole matter could have been resolved without mentioning it in public if Travel Republic had a better standard of customer care and responded within the ABTA guidelines. If I was the owner at Fincas Benidorm I would be very angry with Travel Republic / Hotel beds as this complaint is now in the public domain, something which could have been entirely avoided had Travel Republic made the effort.

Hope this helps anyone in a similar situation

Why? It's just as likely that it was actually Fincas who double booked the accommodation in the first place. It is rarely the TA or the bed booker that double books rooms. In these sort of situations the TA won't hold set allocations of rooms and will only book a room if the bed booker or hotel tell them there is one available. When I have ever booked a hotel via TR they have always sent a confirmation of the reservation request and then only sent the booking confirmation/accommodation voucher AFTER the booking has been accepted and confirmed by the agent acting on behalf of the hotel.

So the most likely culprits are either Hotelbeds or Fincas themselves. Hotels routinely accept more bookings than rooms because they know that there will always be a number of 'no shows' and they know that if they only ever accepted total bookings equivalent to their maximum numbers of rooms they had, then they would never ever achieve full occupancy. Your direct email to Hotelbeds (as I previously suggested) and your bad review of the accommodation is probably what prompted Fincas to respond to both Hotelbeds and TR , thus ensuring a speedy resolution rather than them stalling in relation to TRs emails etc.

I'm glad that you have been able to get your refund but in future you do need to remember that this is one of the risks of not booking a package with on of the big TOs. Double booking does still happen even then but at least you know who your contract is with and who has to take responsibility for resolving the situation in resort. The other thing to remember is that TR were never responsible for the actions of the manager or the state of the accommodation. Frankly, re-reading your original post it is pretty clear to me that Fincas did and still do have a lot to answer for.

If I was TR I'd be angry. Bad publicity for something that isn't their fault.

TR can't have overbooked, they have no rooms allocated them to overbook. Agent, bedbanks, and tour operators do not routinely overbook. Accommodation providers (hotels, apartments etc) do.

It still looks to me like Fincas Benidorm were the cause of your problems. They are the most likely culprits for the overbooking, and they are definitely the only ones responsible for the state of your accommodation. Hotelbeds may have overbooked (but it wouldn't be usual) but Travel Republic definitely were not the cause of your complaints.

To be honest you have been giving Travel Republic a bad name for something they haven't done.

It should be Fincas Benidorm who get the bad press, or possibly hotelbeds, but more likely the former.

I hope one day travel republic have the time and resources to deal with all those who bad mouth them on public forums when it's the hotels that knowingly overbook themselves. The bottom line is people will continue to use TR as all they care about is getting the cheapest deal. It's just a shame most have no understanding of what they are actually booking.

Hi Sunaddict and SMa,

although I agree that the booking was indeed the fault of Fincas / Hotelbeds, Travel republic appeared to do nothing till prompted, and as Hotelbeds and Fincas don't really have a customer complaints or contact email ( the info@ for fincas doesn't work so I had to contact them via the email for letting agents ) trying to get a refund via travel republic is the only option you have.

Like I said, I gave Travel Republic 28 days to respond as they requested, ( I didn't post anything online before then, giving them a fair chance to contact hotelbeds) they didn't respond (breaching ABTA guidelines) They were still sending me 'we are following this up' emails after a further 2 weeks. Yet an email to hotelbeds and fincas by myself appeared to prompt a response and refund from travel republic the same day!

If they are not to blame for the booking which I agree with ( I understand how it works ) they're to blame for the poor handling of the complaint. Any bad publicity given to travel republic because of this has only been through fault of their own customer relations department and the suppliers they choose to act as agents for.

Cheers

I think that the most likely scenario is the one you suggested yourself - that Fincas saw the review, knew they were at fault and that it reflected badly in them, finally refunded your money to Travel Republic via Hotelbeds and TR then promptly refunded it to you as soon as it was returned to them.

SM

Hi doe

As mentioned in my previous post, Travel Republic ( although not responsible for the holiday ) are the only point of contact to try and resolve the situation.

They failed to respond after 28 days, only when I asked them what was happening via twitter did I get an email.

I didn't post this in a public forum as soon as I got back, I waited and gave them more than enough time to respond and when they didn't I posted a fair and accurate description of my holiday experience of using Travel republic, as I say, If you or they ( travel republic) feel this is unfair and they are completely not to blame, I suggest they take the matter up with their suppliers and TR's customer relations department who are responsible for any bad publicity caused, as I'm pretty sure If I hadn't said anything or not contacted the suppliers directly myself I would still be sat here out of pocket waiting for TR to do something

Cheers

Hi doe,

Sorry, forgot to mention that the post I sent direct to Fincas about my experience, which may or may not have prompted the response, only mentioned Travel republic as the company I had booked it through - I laid the blame for the experience on Fincas themselves.

TR Customer Relations department had their hands tied. They can't make hotelbeds reply to them, any more than hotelbeds can make Fincas Benidorm reply.
I would imagine your contact with Fincas made them do something, which in turn follows on down the line.
TR weren't going to refund you any money out of their own pocket, (for something that wasn't their fault) until they were sure they would be getting it back.

To be honest, if you've never worked in retail travel, you won't understand how hard it can be to get a supplier to respond to you, especially one that doesn't have any governing bodies. Even getting the tour operators to respond is like pulling teeth, and if you're lucky, on the 28th day you'll get an acknowledgement, or a holding letter. Very rarely you would you achieve an explanation or satisfactory outcome. I've known complaints with the major UK tour ops go on for several months.
The agent constantly has to chase replies, and during that time it's the retail agent that get's it in the neck from their customer (who think they're doing nothing).

rjw74 wrote:

Hi Sunaddict and SMa,

although I agree that the booking was indeed the fault of Fincas / Hotelbeds, Travel republic appeared to do nothing till prompted, and as Hotelbeds and Fincas don't really have a customer complaints or contact email ( the info@ for fincas doesn't work so I had to contact them via the email for letting agents ) trying to get a refund via travel republic is the only option you have.

Like I said, I gave Travel Republic 28 days to respond as they requested, ( I didn't post anything online before then, giving them a fair chance to contact hotelbeds) they didn't respond (breaching ABTA guidelines) They were still sending me 'we are following this up' emails after a further 2 weeks. Yet an email to hotelbeds and fincas by myself appeared to prompt a response and refund from travel republic the same day!

If they are not to blame for the booking which I agree with ( I understand how it works ) they're to blame for the poor handling of the complaint. Any bad publicity given to travel republic because of this has only been through fault of their own customer relations department and the suppliers they choose to act as agents for.

Cheers

I think that RJW is being very reasonable in his complaint , regardless of the double booking and substandard room he has paid money to an agent which is TR and an agent by definition has a power to act and is authorised to act , which they didn't do despite him giving a reasonable notice , in the end he had to take that power and authority himself to reach a quick and satisfactory conclusion , he hasn't unfairly criticised TR but they didn't do too much to help him with a problem , at some point someone must take responsibility and if you pay and authorise an agent to act on your behalf you would expect them to follow up / conclude a problem if one of their appointed suppliers fails to deliver a service .

I think we can establish quite easily that the fault of the problem does not lie with TR , but their customer relations dept seems to be lacking , in that RJW managed to resolve the problem speedily and efficiently through his own intervention .

Welcome to HT. RJW and thank you for your clear and accurate account of what happened and the conclusion . Well done for finally getting your refund .

andy66 wrote:

rjw74 wrote:

Hi Sunaddict and SMa,

although I agree that the booking was indeed the fault of Fincas / Hotelbeds, Travel republic appeared to do nothing till prompted, and as Hotelbeds and Fincas don't really have a customer complaints or contact email ( the info@ for fincas doesn't work so I had to contact them via the email for letting agents ) trying to get a refund via travel republic is the only option you have.

Like I said, I gave Travel Republic 28 days to respond as they requested, ( I didn't post anything online before then, giving them a fair chance to contact hotelbeds) they didn't respond (breaching ABTA guidelines) They were still sending me 'we are following this up' emails after a further 2 weeks. Yet an email to hotelbeds and fincas by myself appeared to prompt a response and refund from travel republic the same day!

If they are not to blame for the booking which I agree with ( I understand how it works ) they're to blame for the poor handling of the complaint. Any bad publicity given to travel republic because of this has only been through fault of their own customer relations department and the suppliers they choose to act as agents for.

Cheers

I think that RJW is being very reasonable in his complaint , regardless of the double booking and substandard room he has paid money to an agent which is TR and an agent by definition has a power to act and is authorised to act , which they didn't do despite him giving a reasonable notice , in the end he had to take that power and authority himself to reach a quick and satisfactory conclusion , he hasn't unfairly criticised TR but they didn't do too much to help him with a problem , at some point someone must take responsibility and if you pay and authorise an agent to act on your behalf you would expect them to follow up / conclude a problem if one of their appointed suppliers fails to deliver a service .

I think we can establish quite easily that the fault of the problem does not lie with TR , but their customer relations dept seems to be lacking , in that RJW managed to resolve the problem speedily and efficiently through his own intervention .

Welcome to HT. RJW and thank you for your clear and accurate account of what happened and the conclusion . Well done for finally getting your refund .

No one knows how much TR did, or didn't do - only TR know the answer to that. Just because they didn't seem to be doing much, doesn't mean they weren't! An email to Fincas probably gave them a kick up the proverbial to respond to Hotelbeds, which enabled them to respond to TR, and TR to the OP. Once Fincas had contacted Hotelbeds it would only be a very short space of time until the complaint would be resolved.