A tale of woe involving a man called Mo!
We recently booked a family holiday to Ibiza through Thomson Holidays website. The hotel was recommended to us by friends and the whole family are getting really excited about the thought of spending some time in the sun.
We had booked a ‘family connecting room‘ so our boys could be in their own room. The online booking and payment system worked fine and we had confirmation that our family connecting room was allocated to us. Perhaps the clue was in the use of the word ‘room’ but we had genuinely believed that what we had paid for was a room with a door connecting to another room, i.e. something appropriate for a family. At no point did Thomson’s online booking system prompt us to book a second room, i.e. the room adjoined to ours. It transpired that all we had achieved was to book a room (singular) with a door connecting to another room (now occupied by someone else!).
This only came to light when my Wife received an email from Thomson Holidays giving us the countdown to the holiday and things to remember. One of the things it prompted her to remember, apart from sun cream, towels etc., was to book a second room should we have selected a family connecting room. Oh, oh…
My wife leapt in to action and started the inevitable long process of trying to speak to someone at Thomson Holidays over the telephone. Eventually she got through to a young lady who was helpful but did not have any authority to do any more than sympathise. However, this support representative did concur with my Wife’s assessment that there was no way to have booked a second room, nor a prompt to do so, along the entire process of booking this holiday with Thomson online. She said she would pass details on to her Team Leader.
Inevitably with this involving a support team, my Wife had to chase. Thomson Holidays are no different but eventually she got to speak to the ‘Team Leader’, a guy named ‘Mo’. Mo wouldn’t budge an inch implying we should have realised. When he conceded this, he then tried to blame the site explaining to my Wife that the requirement to offer the second room at the time you select ‘family connecting’ was technically very difficult to implement. Yawn.
The call went nowhere except for Mo promising to find out what he could do. At this stage we were ‘happy’ to pay extra to get the room layout we thought we’d already paid for. My Wife checked with Mo, the not very helpful Thomson support Team Leader, that he would indeed call back. He confirmed that he would.
Mo never did call back. 
Although we had pre-empted this, it was still disappointing to say the least. Eventually, after another call from Wife, Mo got one of his very nice, but without authority, team members (Kirsty) to call my Wife back with the inevitable apology but that there was nothing Thomson Holidays could do. No more rooms available. Kirsty did confirm that the issue with website was being investigated and that someone (probably Kirsty herself) would keep us informed as to the outcome of this investigation. We’re not going to hold our breath!
We’re still going on the holiday and will no doubt have a great time but the Thomson Holidays online booking system needs a serious review and some redevelopment. In the meantime, buyer beware!
