hi...if it was me I would have paid with my credit card....if you did too...sugest you contact your credit card company and raise a dispute....you didnt get what you paid for...you were sold something didnt exist in first place...worth a try....tweetie

Hi phil24b
There is a chap who works for Travel Republic who posts on this web site who will probably pick up this thread and try to sort this out for you, he is very good and allthough he works for TR he does this off his own bat and has been very helpfull to several members.

Regards
Alan

No doubt that when Steve picks it up he will try to sort it out. Unfortunately due to HT being offline due to the new server work this will create a delay. I have sent a PM to Steve asking him to have a look for you

fwh

Hi phil24b,

Write to Travelrepublic and tell them you're claiming your costs and 'LOSS OF ENJOYMENT'. This is the advice ABTA would give if you chose to pursue it with them. TR are ABTA bonded and regardless of who your supplier is, they have a duty as you travel agent to get it resolved to your satisfaction, so if they try and play the 'We aren't you agent' line, just ring ABTA and they will tell you exactly what to send to TR.

Good Luck!

TNG

Hi phil24b, we tried to reply on MSE, but the response was deleted by the MSE mods. Maybe it isnt in their interest to see people trying to help each other out, even if only to advise we are working on it! We got them to post the same reply two days later, which wasnt an awful lot of help to you initially, as we are still chasing Sun Hotels to find out what happened.

Problems like this are not just 'passed' to hotel providers because we are passing the buck, it is because the booking has been made with the holiday provider, and we need them to accept responsibility for not advising us the hotel was closed. We will of course manage this for you, and ensure we do get a response.

I will try and get things moving along.

Steve

hi steve....being the dumbo that I am I just had to ask...whats MSE...nice to see you on here helping out...great stuff....tweetie

tweetie,
moneysavingexpert
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/

they have a travel forum, but in my opinion the advice given there varies considerably from very helpful to blatant untruths.
i regularly refer people from there to here, but you can lead a horse to water..........................

Thanks Jimd-f, sorry for using abbreviations Tweetie Pie! I have mixed opinion about them to be honest, I find their forums both very good, and very bad, a bit like Trip Advisor, so somewhat confusing!

Steve

Hi,

thanks everyone for the reply, I'll wait upto the 28 days TR quote for a reply and see what happens from there.
Will update soon as poss

Phil

Hi Steve, it's been 23 days now since i posted my letter tof complaint o TR and havn't heard a thing.
Next Tues will be 28 days, chances of hearing anything by then?

Rule number 1 when buying virtually anything online USE_A_CREDIT_CARD

Rule number 2 when buying virtually anything online USE_A_CREDIT_CARD

Rule number 3 ......

Not a debit card you have little buyer protection

The exception to this rule is that sometimes - if you can get someone in your bank/building society who knows how to do it - is a visa debit card. They have a chargeback scheme which offers similar protection to the section 75 cover a credit card does. However it is time limited

This is the worst travel company I have EVER been with, and I advise everyone to pay just that little bit more money and use a different travel company for that extra peace of mind, as when something goes wrong, it becomes a nightmare to resolve!!!
We booked and paid for our accommodation to Greece last September and were due to fly out mid July 2012. I emailed our hotel 3 weeks before we were due to leave to ask if they could pick us up from the airport, as I read that they do a free shuffle transfer. They replied saying that they did not have any booking confirmed for us and they are full, even though I gave the reference and names of our party. I called Travel Republic who said not to worry, we have accommodation booked at our chosen resort and they haven't heard anything from their supplier Med Hotels that we aren't booked anywhere else. I emailed the hotel owner back stressing that we do have accommodation booked and told her that Travel Republic use Med Hotel on behalf of TR, where she said that she is refusing to take any bookings from Med Hotels as they didn't pay her for last years bills. Alarm bells started ringing, so I called the TR customer service team on countless occasions almost every day speaking to someone different. Non of them had a clue, they were all useless, one of them told me to get of the phone as he needed to take other calls!!!! What kind of Customer Service is that. To cut a long story short, this went on every day not knowing where we would be staying, and then the day before our flight to Greece we got an email saying that we would be staying in the apartments opposite, which didn't cater for breakfast which we had paid for nor did it have a swimming pool. The apartments where also cheaper! I accepted the accommodation under protest as it was far too late to go and look for different accommodation. They also had told us a week before that they wouldn't put us into this accommodation as it's not up to their standard. I was fuming, but had to accept this.
I didn't want this to end there, This company really got my back up, so when we got back from our holiday I contacted their Customer Relations Department to complain and put in a claim for not providing breakfast which we paid for and also for the amount of stress caused before our holiday had started and for the amount of hours wasted on the phone to their useless customer service team. I didn't hear anything for a while, so I posted something on Facebook, to which I got a response saying they will get someone to reply to my email. The reply was that they will investigate my claim and have a response within 28 days. They don't start the 28 days from when you contact them, they do it from when they respond to your email which is ridiculous. Anyway, 28 days passed and I didn't hear anything back , so I posted on their Facebook wall again and I was told that someone will get back to me. This went on for another month. I was persistent with them as I wanted my money back from what we had originally paid and also some compensation for all the trouble they had caused. My first offer from them was a lousy 10% discount of any future hotel booking. What a joke! I had already told them that I'd NEVER use them again, so I refused and a week later after I kept on posted negative comments on their facebook wall I was offered £48 for our breakfast for 4 days. I accepted it but this was disgusting, as that money was rightfully mine in the first place and they waited 3 months to give me it back without any apology. I wished I had the time to take it further as they are a disgusting company and should not be allowed to still be trading. If you really want honest reviews, keep looking on Facebook, all you see are mostly people complaining about how they have been treated. I told the customer relations manager that I will be posting this on every review site and I am keeping my promise. I want everyone to be aware of this dreadful company and to stay away from them. They don't care about you, they just want your money. They are cheap for a reason!

I'm sorry that you've had such a dreadful experience but this is yet another case of where the original problem lies with the supplier and/or the hotel and not TR. Yes, TR don't seem to have handled this very well once the problem became known but both TR and Med Hotels have many satisfied customers on this board. What explanation did TR give you as to why you couldn't stay in your chosen hotel? And did they take this up with Med Hotels as the supplier on your behalf. As for Facebook, I tend not to attach any greater credence to reviews there or on Travel Adviser either because I think they tend to attract in the main reviews from those who have had bad experiences whereas here I know that people I have come trust here over the years have had good experiences with both companies. And I too have had good experiences with TR as well though I;ve never knowingly used Med Hotels.

But I'm wondering whether the hotel is entirely blameless here? Many hotels overbook as a matter of course - in order to keep their occupancy levels to the max they accept more bookings than beds knowing that in most cases they will have last minute cancellations. In a situation where a customer has not booked direct with the hotel then it is relatively easy for them to blame the 3rd party supplier rather than admit that they are responsible for the overbooking. Apart from what the hotel told you, have either TR or Med Hotels given you a reason as to why your booking wasn't honoured?

In the circumstances, I think it would be helpful if you would name the hotel - after all they might have done this to other customers too, and members might want to try and avoid booking this hotel if they have a reputation for overbooking.

SM

well in this case i think the situation has been handled appallingly. Travel Republic is a travel agent and I would expect them to handle things better than they did here. Yes, they can't help it if their suppliers let them down but they can go all out to sort things as best they can.

I agree Fiona, it was barbarylane who found out his booking wasn't confirmed by emailing the hotel 3 weeks before his holiday on another matter , at what point were TR going to let him know , he did all he could to find out why and it seems that the hotel wasn't accepting bookings from med hotels because of lack of payment ? It could be that the hotel could be overbooking but that can't be the assumption every time something goes wrong , it could be that the agents and suppliers and other endless middlemen could be holding back payments to the hotels and causing problems .
It really comes to something when you keep on having to complain on Facebook just to get a refund of what is rightly yours in the first place , although this does seem to be the way to get a response from the customer services dept at TR .
From what barbarylane has told us it seems that TR as his agent did very little to help or resolve the problem , they said they would not put him an accommodation as it wasn't up to their standard and then promptly dumped him there one day before his holiday minus breakfast and a swimming pool ! How can anyone be impressed by this level of service , I can certainly sympathise with barbarylanes dissatisfied feelings , it looks like the agent couldn't be bothered to help .
I know many on here have experienced good service and no problems , so TR are not all bad , but then they're not all good either ! You can only draw on your own experiences to whether you are 100 % confident that you won't end up in a situation like barbarylane and having to resort to Facebook to prod them in to action......... eventually !!

I have also had a disaster with Travel Republic.
We booked a 10 day holiday with them to Menorca. Our 2 children were taken very ill on 2nd day at the hotel and had to be taken in an ambulance to hospital where they stayed for 4 days. We found out that others were ill at the hotel too (the hotel confirmed this) and so as soon as they were discharged we flew home.
Travel Republic are not interested in our complaint. I am not asking for an extra money (although we had to spend a lot on taxis, flights home etc.) but just a refund for the accommodation but they are not interested.....
I have tried to get their attention on twitter but nothing. I have to say we have used them once before and everything was fine but now there is a problem their customer service changes completely....

That doesn't sound that bad to me.....

The last "disaster" holiday was more than 2 years ago so it seems that TR are doing okay

To ANITAW

TR will more than likely have to take this up on your behalf. They are agents for the hotel reservations which is a different kettle of fish than booking a full package deal with a tour operator.

If there is illness confirmed and you have all the relevant paperwork related to that it may be worth your while to take it via the solicitors who work alongside HolidayTruths. I think it's Simpson Millar....