TCD flight cancelations

[mortus]

i got a letter this morning telling me my flight to florida had been canceled. xl airways who operate the flights for TCD have now canceled all monday flights out of manchester to sanford for the winter season 07/08.
after a small panic i phoned through to TCD and got my flight re-arranged, so i now fly out on a saturday instead at no extra charge. fortunately the people i have booked the villa through where very understanding and allowed us to change the dates of our booking as well.
hopefully there will be no more hiccups :fingers crossed:


mortus

roll on feb 08

[billiecat]

Glad you were able to change things so easily Mortus. I hope things go more smoothly now:happy-thumb

[dmrevis]

it sends shivers down my spine when hearing of things like this. its the main reason why i only ever fleetingly consider the charter airlines. I know you got it sorted out but i'd rather the security of a sheduled airline.
Have a great time.:cheers:

[Tiggers Friend]

Actions like that by charters are really, really annoying, there seems to be no regard for customer service and their contract to supply to you. Imagine it being the other way round, "yes sir, that will be a cancellation fee of £xxxxxx". :thumbsdow

[Susan Veness]

Very happy to hear it worked out for you, mortus. It's astonishing paid-for seats can just be cancelled like that.

[* Conor *]

It is not really surprising the behaviour of some airlines, they are not really losing any public credibility themselves, instead it is TCD that takes the hit.
I would have hoped that TCD would have given you alternatives anyway, as the last thing they need is public outcry.

As for the villa, it is not surprising that you were easily able to change that, while there does seem to be a good level of growth in visitor numbers this year (to Disney), there is a lot of empty vacation villas around, and I am sure that owners are being very flexible to ensure they get bookings.

[mortus]

UPDATE

thought to myself only the other day " i've not received any paper work through from TCD regarding my new flight details"

only for a letter to fall on my doormat this morning

" dear sir
we are writing to you to let you know that your flight on the mon 25 feb 08 has been canceled..... blah blah blah........"

funny i thought, i had this same letter not 2 weeks ago:confused:

on the phone i go speaking to TCD "we have no record of you phoning us back telling us which flight you wanted to take"

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek:

also the flight you want is now fully booked - :angry:

"the only flight we have available is sunday 24 feb 08 and there is less than 15 places left on that flight"

now if this holiday was just for me , my partner and my daughter i would have told the stuck up c*w on the other end of the phone where she could shove her flights and exactly what i thought of the company she works for.

but as there are 8 of us going i had to bite my tongue and come across as "i'm jolly well not satisfied....."

so as it stands i am now waiting for my new paperwork to confirm my new flight details so i can confirm with the villa owner of my new holiday dates, (the guy who i'm renting the villa off has been great and very understanding )

i will let you know how i get on over the next few days,

mortus :angry:

roll on feb 08 (maybe...............)

p.s has anybody got any email addy's or postal addresses for TCD? so i can send in a very strongly worded letter of complaint

[dmrevis]

God i'd be fuming!

[Tiggers Friend]

Mortus that is absolutely c**p. What dreadful service and completely blows TCD's credibilty. I guess the only saving grace in this is that the villa owner appears to be a gent.

[Simon Veness]

Very sorry to hear this, mortus. It sounds like someone has definitely dropped the ball. It is so important to always get these things in writing and get a name when you speak to someone on the phone. I'm baffled, though, as to why they would send you same cancellation letter twice, several weeks apart. Definitely not good. Sincerely hope the new dates all work out OK.

[Catlady]

Mortus much as you may want to send a strongly worded letter to TCD I fear that they won't take any notice of it. My friend had a problem with them a couple of months back, she paid the final balance of her holiday over the phone by card then 2 weeks later got a letter from them on a Saturday morning saying "we have not received your final payment" Of course she phoned TCD straight away and they said the people dealing with it were only in Monday-Friday so couldn't do anything til then. Although she checked her account online and made sure the payment had come out she spent two sleepless night worrying as it was not only her and DH and DD money but her Dads and his partners too. When she phoned them first thing Monday they managed to trace it (not sure where the money had gone before) but they had it all the time.:eek:
She sent a letter of complaint to TCD about the worry and sleepless nights she had had thinking that perhaps even an upgrade on her villa allocation might be forthcoming but got a very wishy washy standard "sorry letter but can't give you any compensation" back.
I wonder whether they are contravening the Tradings Description Act by not supplying you with what they advertised and you paid for.

[mortus]

I'm baffled, though, as to why they would send you same cancellation letter twice, several weeks apart. Definitely not good

what happened was when we received the first letter telling us that the flight had been canceled i phoned them up and was told that there was availability on the sat flight and the sun flight. i then explained to them i had to talk to the villa owners regarding the date change before i could commit to the flight change. then i spoke to the villa owner who was cool with it all.

i then phoned TCD back and said i would like to transfer to the sat flight, no problem i was told and that was the end of that or so i thought until this morning.
the lady i spoke to this morning said that according to "there system" i hadn't phoned back to change the flight, they only had notes of the first conversation that i had with them. they then said to me that if i give them my number they could trace to see if i had "actualy" phoned them up (thats the bit what p***ed me off the most, they made out that i was lying to them)


they checked and the answer i got was when i phoned i got through to the swansea office and they can't trace that, well i phoned from my mobile phone that day and I CAN trace it.
so that is it for now, i just have to wait for my paperwork to come through. i've decided that if it's not here by saturday post i am gonna phone them back and blast them big time:red-dont:


mortus:angry:

roll on feb 08 (maybe...........)

[Ret400]

Sorry to hear about your difficulties here.
I would not wait this one out but go back to the company. In the past I have had some success at breaking down the 'front desk' barriers. Not always but if you dont try then you are at their mercy.
In the past I have done a bit of research and just gone hunting for the main Directors. I dont want to post names here but you can track them down. Interestingly one web site I looked at was a Parliamentary cttee from a few years ago in which it implied that one of the Directors at the time, of the report, also had worked for Maxwell PLC (mmm?)

It may help but TCD is actually the trading name of

The Really Great Holiday Company Plc. whose registered office is Mitre Court, Fleming Way, Crawley, West Sus*** RH10 9NJ.

Last year I had a major problem with Disney on importing some art from their downtown disney store. weeks of no replies or call centres never made a difference. So I googled the main Directors, called the Director of Disney Park Operations and waited to see what happend. OK so they would not let me speak to him but in the end his assistant suddenly made things happen.

The trick is to get past the gate keepers and get to somebody who can act. I had a quick look at TCD Holiday terms and conditions which imply that they may give you a few £s compenasation but nothing worth the cost of a call.

One trick I was told on a plane the other week by another pasenger was to get hold (legally) of a key persons e-mail and just write to them. They had written to the managing director of one of the UK major banks because you could work out the e-mail by just taking the persons name and adding it to the standard companies e-mail addresses. Bingo a reply from the top person.

Another example would be that if I was upset with Globespan I would post a letter to/through the door of the owner of the company which is not far away from where I live and known by some of my collegues.

You often find that the top people do not know about some of the chaos that exists around them.

I suppose it depends how much you want to push it, but sometimes just doing something makes you feel a bit better. :purplejum