Hi all,

Just wondered if anyone could give me some advice please.

My boyfriend and I booked a holiday to the Dominican Republic in Feb this year to the resort of Cabarete. When we arrived in the DR we were shocked to find that we had been sent to Punta Cana airport rather than Puerta Plata (where Cabarete is). The men at the taxi rank said our hotel was approximately 8 hours away. We weren't familiar with the Dominican Republic and so presumed that the holiday company would get us to the correct airport...obviously a mistake with hindsight but usually you can trust your holiday company to get you to the correct place!

Anyway, we rang the company and luckily got it resolved fairly quickly - they arranged for us to be put up in a hotel an hour away from Punta Cana (where we'd landed) from the following night for 6 nights. The first night we had to pay locally. The hotel staff had no record of our reservation for the following day but after some negotiation agreed to let us pay & stay. The following day they still had no record of it and we had to check out of our room and wait in reception...eventually that afternoon the reservation showed up and we began our holiday.

On the phone the operator said that we could claim taxis, the accomodation and our phonebills. We sent a complaint letter with these expenses and claiming compensation, as soon as we arrived home and were advised that it would take 28 days to look into our claim. 28 days came and went. I emailed the customer services team 3 days after this time period and asked where our response was - they said they were still gathering information. I sent all the information to ABTA telling them that the company had not replied within the 28 day period.

A week later they have emailed me admitting full liability but only offering me 1 taxi fare and the accomodation for the night - after they have sent us to the wrong airport?!!! I am not going to accept this and am going to send these developments to ABTA.

Does anyone have any experience of a case like this please? I don't know what we're entitled to on top of our expenses but I'm sure we are entitled to something?!

Thanks so much for any input.