Warning how not to let Cruise 1st agent deal with a booking if you need extras

music2party

2017-03-04 15:16:22

Having booked a 17 day Sydney 2 day hotel room only stay and 15 day NCL 2nd cruise of Austria and New Zealand for Nov 2017 with Cruise 1st. As the presenters had stated on tv if you want to add any extra days on please just say when booking as we are travel agents also so will make sure you get the best price?

However when booking we were told I will handle your booking first and then deal with any extra days? We feel for it and are now trying to add extra days after booking as the agent never rang back as promised to sort our extra days out.

We contacted Cruise 1st customer service to request a quotation to stay the extra three days earlier in our hotel and change our out flight date. The email reply I have received offered to change our flights for £100 each and the extra three days in the same holiday hotel would be for a room only deal £845 each making a total cost £945 each to extend our booked holiday by three days.
I found this quote unbelievable and therefore went online putting the three extra dates in for the same Sydney hotel for the double room only quotation. It came back £625 for the room and not each. so a different of over £1000 from the Cruise 1st one.

I contacted Cruise 1st C/S and was told in an email reply that is the price we were given by our suppliers Travel Cube and if you can get it cheaper then I suggest you just pay for us to alter your flights and book your own accommodation yourself as that is the best price we can get. I replied I would be reporting this to the Salford Trading Standards and their suppliers Travel Cube as I and many others I have told think there is no way this can be treated as a fair profit and has to be a customer rip off price as it is done to a large tv audience and many may think that is the best price and pay it? also we are now making alterations to a booking through no fault of our own apart from not being forceful enough at our first contact and booking and paying our £400 deposit each.

I felt strongly about this so I have reported this to both Salford Trading Standards and Travel Cube who are both investigating I have been told and will be in touch in due course. i have been told since a £100 per return flight each alteration charge is too high as well and more than Emirates would charge Cruise 1st to do it, also Cruise 1st have told me there is no refund to cancel my transfer cost from the airport to the hotel if arriving three days earlier on a coach!!!

After my last email threatening to contact trading standards and Travel Cube there has not been a reply from Cruise 1st.
So we are left not knowing what to do next and need some advice please John & Sue retired in Eastbourne.

Edited by music2party 2017-03-04 15:18:27

Fiona

2017-03-04 17:38:35

Hi John and Sue and welcome to HT.
How strange of the agent to book the whole thing when you would obviously be needing different flight dates.
Were you told your call would be recorded? This would help to prove what the agent said to you.
If you were to arrange your own accommodation, what cancellation fee would be charged?
If you can save a fortune by booking the hotel yourself it may be worth the £200 charge for changing the flights. The £200 you are quoted for changing your flight- is that just the fee for changing flights or does it also cover the fact that the actual flight price may be different?Usually if I change a flight I am quoted the fees for rebooking and also any difference in flight prices.
It may be worth taking the £200 hit( if that is the total price difference for the flight) if they will just cancel the room reservation without penalty.

Edited by Fiona 2017-03-04 17:50:47

fwh

2017-03-04 21:07:18

Did you not receive a confirmation of your booking in writing? Surely at that point alarm bells would ring. Whilst Trading Standards may investigate but I'm afraid that it is likely to become a case of he said/I said and difficult to prove.

As Fiona says was not the call recorded? it would be unusual these days if it was not. I don't understand where TravelCube comes into it. they are an online booking site exclusive to retail travel agents.

It really is important that people check all the paperwork when they receive confirmation of a booking. When we were in Lanzarote lat month someone said that they had booked a wheelchair to be waiting for them when they arrived at the hotel but his paperwork made no mention of it.

Edited by fwh 2017-03-04 21:08:25

music2party

2017-03-04 21:57:24

Cruise 1st Adding Extras Warning!

In answer to both the replies received I was not told if the phone call was recorded or not we were called back on my mobile to request our deposit and told us while on the phone your booking is now secure as being on tv we had no idea how many spaces for this tour package was left. It is not our fault that the second call promised after that did not come as promised.
To answer the 2nd reply we didn't receive any paperwork straight away and I know we have been led into booking the tour package first. and it was when we received the paperwork by email and much later now in the post we knew we have only been booked on the tour only. But even if adding extras afterwards as we now are do you really think it is ok for a company to add over a thousand pound to the actual hotel quote required for that hotel advertised on any website online including their own! Travel Cube are interested in receiving notification that they are being blamed for this by Cruise 1st customer service and thanked me for bringing it to their attention. As we had used this company in 2011 and no trouble at all and a great first cruise experience as well. We went back and made the mistake to trust them again which we now know was a big mistake end of.
Plus the customer service make it impossible to speak to management so we are stuffed unless any one knows a manager at Cruise 1st and tells us his or her email address? We want to book our own room at the hotel, and accept their £200 flight alteration offer but can't get confirmation from any one at Cruise 1st if it can or will be done so can't afford to book a room which is not refundable until we know we will be there to use it.

Edited by music2party 2017-03-04 22:06:33

Glynis HT Admin

2017-03-05 09:17:14

It appears a Dan Townsley could be it's Chief Executive:-

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/58343/royal-caribbean-sells-cruise-1st-after-agreeing-management-buyout

Dave10

2017-03-06 12:53:12

We requested a change to our flight home from Australia two years ago and the UK agent asked for £648 each to have a one week later flight. I refused and when we got to Melbourne rang Quantis/Emirates and they did it for $A50 each plus $A40 administration fee, same flight just a week later. Terrific service and not rip-off Britain tactics.

Edited by Dave10 2017-03-06 12:56:15

music2party

2017-03-06 13:26:27

What a great idea Dave we hadn't thought about staying three days after our cruise as being in Dec so things to do for Christmas and only having about 22 days but on the plus side we can deal with both the hotel and the airline direct Thanks John & Sue

music2party

2017-04-10 11:33:00

Our Cruise 1 st and now ABTA update.

We finally received an email response from the customer service manager informing us that at the time of writing they can offer us an overall hotel price of £485 per room for 3 extra days however our airline flights have now been ticketed so should we wish to change the outgoing or return flight dates it will cost us £815 per person to do so. It also stated should we wish to cancel our total package tour we can do so by forfeiting our £800 deposit paid to date. That was it as far as the customer service manager is concerned so please let us know how we wish to proceed and if we were not satisfied then please raise our complaint with ABTA as they were not prepared to deal with our complaint any more.
So we contacted ABTA supplied all our First Choice emails trail so it could be clearly seen that we had not been dealt with fairly and our complaint was not escalated to a manager as requested. Or have Cruise 1st bothered to find their customer service agent that failed to call us back after promising to do so. They have now confirmed all telephone calls are recorded so this should not be a problem to prove.

The outcome of the ABTA investigation is they asked their member for a response to my complaint which by their own membership rules stated every member should do their up most to resolve any customer complaints before referring a customer to ABTA.
I could prove within the Cruise 1st response they lied about certain aspects of our emails together. I responded to ABTA pointing this out hopeful of getting our full deposit back. However ABTA further response was that they were not able to force their member to offer a full refund or offer advise of what we should do next. So in other words in our eyes as long as their large company member keep paying their membership fees ABTA will support them and not us the customers so that was another complete waste of time.
Next we will see if we can get any media interest or as I put into my email to ABTA we will pay our balance go on our package and cruise holiday in Nov and make sure every other person on this holiday and cruise hear of how we were treated by Cruise 1St and how they tried to rip us off for over £1000 and when challenged blamed their suppliers!

Edited by music2party 2017-04-10 11:35:08

Glynis HT Admin

2017-04-10 22:47:11

I've heard this before about ABTA not looking after customers & being pretty useless really.

Enjoy your holiday 👍

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