“This is to draw the attention of all to the unethical and illogical dealing with me and my wife by Thomas Cook India. I have written this so that customers who may plan to book with TC, do so with due information.
My wife and I, both senior citizens, approached Thomas Cook (TC) for a tour of Switzerland in August 2023 shown on their App. The total amount indicated was paid and all documents were given to them. We also appeared for the visa interview. In July 2023, we were informed on phone by TC that the trip has been cancelled from their end. No reason for cancellation of the tour was given. Even 10 days before the cancellation, TC sent us for visa interview perhaps knowing fully well that the tour will be cancelled. Our passports with visa stamping were returned to us. Subsequently against our request for refund, TC refunded about Rs 64000/- less than total amount paid. We demanded refund of the full amount as the trip was cancelled by TC on their own (only 14 days before departure) and we cannot be expected to pay for any services which are of no use to us and also not availed of by us due to this cancellation. All such expenses must be borne by TC themselves. Further, we had to incur expenses by way of wrong advice by TC for redemption of Fixed Deposit, travelling a number of times to TC office and Visa interview centre. In addition, the harassment caused by cancellation and inordinate delay even in partial refunds
project a dismal picture of TC. After considerable delay and raising the matter with the highest authority in TC, they wrote that the deductions were towards TCS, Visa charges, Insurance, Telegraphic transfer (!) and gateway link charges (!) and that Insurance and Telegraphic transfer charges would be refunded through credit note valid for 6 months (!) (that is arm twisting for booking another trip and perhaps lose more money). Then they wrote that they will refund a paltry amount of about Rs 16000/- as goodwill gesture and wanted a blank cheque of my account. When I pointed out that they can easily process the refund based on the data using which they had processed partial refund earlier, they still insisted on
Account Holder Name, Mode of payment, Bank Name, Bank Account No., IFSC Code, Branch State, which I have refused to give them. It appears that TC is trying to collect more information about my account for unknown reasons. Till date no further refund has been processed. Under reviews regarding TC, more similar incidents have been reported.”
“Worst travel agency experience I've ever had, I highly suggest you stay well clear. We booked an all-inclusive trip online from their website and everything went wrong from the start.
Firstly, they added the wrong return flight date. We specifically requested a 7 day stay, yet the invoice we received had a return flight for the next day at 1:30am in the morning. This is a small disaster for us with a baby and a 6 year old, who needs to be back in school the next day.
Second, there was only one luggage included for the return inbound trip for the whole family, when the online booking details specifically stated there was one "return" check-in back included for each passenger.
Not only did Thomas Cook refuse to assist us with any form of compensation (the total extra to make the changes was over £500), they outright refused to speak to us on the phone or to accommodate our request to speak with a manager. This company will only provide support via online chat for existing bookings, which they obviously do to hide from assuming any responsibility for their mistakes. What kind of travel company does not provide phone support for their customers?? Not only is this completely unprofessional, it ends up wasting hours of the customer's time to wait for a live chat response.
To top it off, they didn't even get the names right on our invoice confirmation, so we had to get on yet another chat conversation (it took the next day to respond) to have the booking corrected. Never again with this agency!”
“Not worth even that much. We ordered taxi services through them, the taxi driver did not come to pick us up, and it is impossible to recover the lost money. They lie that the taxi was waiting for us, even though we were outside at the time, no one came, no one called. We tried to contact ourselves, the taxi company did not talk to us, they hung up.”
“Very bad service. Staff is very bad . Promises to reload amount within speculated time and doesn’t complete it, also don’t reply to your mails and message. Please prefer booking by bookmyforex they reloaded my amount within hour. Their senior members also promise for atm withdrawal with no charge still amount gets deduct. This people gives you false promises to get the customer for their forex cards. Cannot be trusted this kind of service. Wasting customers valuable time .Delivery of card is also not on time . They just create the booking but don’t check whether card is available or not at their location center. Please don’t believe there sugar coating talks because they just do false promises but in reality it doesn’t work”
“Absolutely furious with Thomas cook and will never book with them again and I feel completely trapped that I can’t cancel or I loose all the money I have paid so far. Travelling with my son who is in a wheelchair and it takes them a week to answer a simple question about the hotel which I chased numerous times. Not everything can be done on WhatsApp sometimes you need to talk to someone. I am totally exhausted booking through this company.”
“Booked a holiday to Rome and the transfer arranged by Thomas Cook was 55 mins late picking us up from the airport. When I phoned TC from my hotel the representative refused to listen to my complaint and kept repeating what I was saying wrongly. Whether this was her following company policy not to accept blame or she was just unable to understand but her stonewalling just made the situation more frustrating. She finally apologised but not until after me repeating my complaint multiple times. I am never using Thomas Cook again.”
“We, the fifteen of us, from the different parts of the country, selected Thomas Cook / SOTC to travel Australia, considering the reputation, under the impression that we would be taken care well. That is the only reason why we paid a higher amount compared to that of many other tour operators. Unfortunately, we had the worst ever experience.
First and foremost, there was no tour manager and we were not informed about this till we reached Australia. The scenic attractions were pretty much limited whereas other tour companies had many attractions for the same places. The trip was not coordinated well at all. If we had to struggle this much to find the driver, the attractions, the timing etc why would we need a tour operator in the first place. Everything is available on the net and we could have done it ourselves with less than half the price. The service was pathetic to the extent that we were not even given bottled water for drinking. Again, we could see other groups from India getting bottled water as soon as they checked in to the hotel.
Further, the food arrangements were horrible. We had to sit on the road side open restaurants with flies around. About the food, the less said the better. Many of us had to leave the restaurants without eating anything some of the days.
There was no guide for us. The coach drivers kept changing many times throughout the days. Miscommunication was to the extent that drivers come way too early and become impatient and annoyed and we had to face the music.
The worst part is, even when we are informing this to Thomas Cook, there is no positive response from their side. Instead, the virtual tour manager was raising her voice at us, trying to convince that we have to bear with all this.
Once Thomas Cook received the amount from me, they never picked up my calls or responded to my messages . Since I was travelling alone, I had questions regarding the travel, however, they ignored all my messages. I could not expect such a terrible customer service from Thomas Cook.
None of my relatives or friends will never ever travel with Thomas Cook”
“Rip off merchants… not real travel agents!! You are better off booking everything yourself. We booked a holiday in Florida all paid for, flights, disney tickets etc only for them to call us literally hours before we got on the flight to say that the hotel we had booked was not available any more!! There was absolutely nothing we could do about it with three excites children and having already paid for park tickets etc. They put us in an inferior hotel with no bars or restaurants on site. We complained when we got back but they literally ignored us… went through ATOL who said that we had to wait for Thomas Cook to respond before they could do anything … they never responded!!”
“Appalling Customer Service. Not a 4 Star Hotel. Misleading website Information.
I booked the holiday via Thomas Cook travel and we were looking forward to a nice relaxing break based on the information on the Thomas Cook website and the La Laguna Hotel website. What I was expecting as per the information supplied and what we experienced fell far below the standard of a 4 Star Superior Spa Hotel from the descriptions advertised.
Once in our room we were not impressed as the room looked out on a raised covering that had limited view. The room was in need of updating and looked to be the same décor since the hotel was built. The bathroom had a bath with a shower hose that did not look safe to be standing in. I went to reception and asked to be moved and was told the hotel was nearly full and all the rooms were the same.
I was offered a Junior suite for an additional charge. I was happy to pay for an upgrade and I asked to see the Junior suite hoping it would be a vast improvement but it had the same outdated decor and bathroom. I declined this as it was not worth any additional cost and settled for another double room on the 2nd floor.
This was not any better. The door was falling off the cupboard where the fridge was enclosed. The beds were uncomfortable and well used. There were some loose floor tiles in the room when walking. The air conditioning, even when it was turned off at night still, had noise coming from the ducting in the ceiling.
The morning after arrival I went to use the "Gym". This looked like a converted bedroom with very little machines to exercise with. No exercise mats were available to put on the floor. Air Conditioning did not work. The TV did not work as no remote control. There was a toilet shower room in the gym but it did not have any towels or soap and the shower area had never been completed. Some of the gym equipment was not safe to use. When I spoke with reception, they advised I let them know in advance before using the gym so the air-con could be turned on. On my next visit to I informed the reception to turn on the air-con but after 20 minutes nothing was done and it was impossible to use because of the high temperature.
At 9.30am the same morning we went to the Hotel restaurant for breakfast and joined a queue waiting for available tables. The restaurant was very busy and had only two waitresses working. I noticed queues waiting at the coffee machine and at various areas of the buffet bar. It was chaos with no organisation from the staff. We finally got a table after 15 minutes and then queued again and had long waits for fruit, cereals and hot buffet items to be replaced. The 'hot buffet' food was never hot! This breakfast service did not improve as the week went by. One of the coffee machines was out of service the following day and was still out of service for the remainder of the week.
The hotel pool was closed for a day and a half and no communication or apologies were given to the hotel guests to inform them what was happening. I asked could I use the pool at the Spa but was told it would be an extra charge. The sunbeds around the pool area were well used and extremely uncomfortable.
Hotel La Laguna is not a 4 Star Hotel. It was understaffed and the hotel reception were not interested if you raised any issues with them. The hotel rooms require a major update and it's overpriced for the appalling service received. It is clear if you book a standard room with Thomas Cook Holidays at this hotel you will get one of these outdated rooms.
Thomas Cook Holidays website does not have any photos of the rooms. I would not recommend the Hotel La Laguna or Thomas Cook Holidays as both companies advertise misleading, false and incorrect information.
I have written to the hotel to highlight the above issues but they have not even acknowledged my complaint and replied. I guess they will reply to this once it’s on Tripadvisor with the usual scripted response.
I have also written to Thomas Cook Holidays but their response was if I had raised the issues with them when on my holiday they would have got them resolved ! I don’t think so !”
“Had a terrible experience with holiday booking
took me while to find a perfect holiday, after purchase I have received holiday confirmation without flight confirmation and money has been taken from my bank.
Two days later I have bean informed that flight prices gone up and additional payment of just under £80 is required.
at this point I have accepted the price rise but the next day I have received another email with price rise this time by nearly £400.
During the conversation through chat because its impossible speak with Thomas Cook over the phone and bean told
"team that takes care of these in departure date order. The urgent bookings take priority and are taken care of first"
You don't have to be a travel agent to know that flight prices will likely change 3 days later.
On the end I cancelled my order and I will never use Thomas Cook again”
“Booked holiday. Holiday was not what was sold. Many things advertised not available. Contacted Thomas Cook via Facebook messenger whilst away logging issues.
Made complaint when back with photo evidence. Hotel denied even with photos.
Thomas cook were not interested.
Not the company it once was and certain not the customer service.
Never will book with them again!”
“Sneaky business practices. What they advertise on their website is not true what they sell. I got the borderless prepaid card from them where they advertise it has free ATM transactions on all AllPoint networks but when you actually go to use it, you are dinged around 8$ for it. There is zero customer service. Their phone number goes to an advertisement agency. Don't know how this company is selling this card. Never buying their card or products again.”
“OTALLY RIPPED OFF !
GOOD LUCK TRYING TO CONTACT THIS COMPANY !!
Booked a package holiday on Tuesday night and paid in full only to be told on Wednesday that the hotel wasn’t available. After hours of trying to speak to a human we were told to reselect another hotel - This was also unavailable - We checked online and they were still advertising the original hotel so when we pointed this out they said we could rebook this hotel only to be told that it was unavailable again !!
We asked to cancel and they said we can’t cancel the flights or holiday insurance !!
AS OF 6PM TONIGHT THEY ARE STILL ADVERTISING THE ORIGINAL HOTEL AND PRESUMABLY TAKING BOOKINGS THEY CANT FULFILL”
“No way of contacting Thomas cook they have a WhatsApp and chat but you are simply communicating with an automated service, despite several days of trying to contact them no response from there apparently wonderful chat buddies who don’t appear to exist! Will never book with them again! Your chat seems to go into cyberspace never to be responded too! Appalling service!! I’m ok to communicate on chat and WhatsApp but I do expect a response!!! Three days later and I’m still typing into cyberspace!”
“Never book with this company. The CEO is a waste of time! We wasted over £1800 on a holiday in Turkey. Ripped off at every step of the way. Thomas Cook make sure that they con you out of your hard earned cash.
Book you in a annex instead of the advertised hotel. Don't arrange transfers. One complete disaster! Never book with this (once great company, now underhanded charlatans! Don't bother contacting the CEO Alan French, he's couldn't care less! I assume that he will be sacked soon, as he is useless!”
“The main problem is that it is impossible to actually speak to anyone. I got sick of bots!!!
Everything is so generic and when i had questions about a specific problem, I found it very time consuming and difficult to get an answer to the simplest of queries. I feel like I have paid premium price for organising a holiday but done all the work myself”
“Apalling! - The booking system wouldn't take payment from my PC, only my iPad? - Then I receive an itinary from Ryanair, asking me to login to a Ryanair account, then upload a 'selfie' and a picture of my ID?? - Oh, yes, of course, 5 pages of T'&C's to agree to first? - Just cannot contat anybody either?? - Tried Phone, 'Chat' and WhatsApp, all making you jump through fiery hoops to get nowhere. - Cancellation now will incur fees with both Thomas Cook and Ryanair. - I hope they go bust!! - Don't use them!”
