Warning SEAWORLD UK is really ATD

[Guest]

Originally Posted by sly2010

Yes i understand what you are saying but not to sure you have totaly understood what i am saying using your example..
Octopus travel have told you they have no rooms so
If then you think you have now booked and pay for your room at a more expensive price holiday inn website,
Then your confermation comes through from octopus travel
If this makes sense..

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Yes, i understood, but gave a bad example The only other example i could think of was Tesco cafe, who give a Tesco receipt and clubcard points, but are not run by Tesco. Totally irrelevant to a holiday question though

[Carlmelia]

It does sound unprofessional to lie to you but it is not illegal, they'll firewall their allocations for selling to the public to service their agency agreement.

You do have the right under the distance selling act to cancel for any reason within seven days. Does any other seller have a good price and availability for the day you want? I'd be inclined to take my custom totally away from ATD if they did.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by sly2010

As the title says seaworldparks web page is really attraction tickets direct (ATD).

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As far as I can see, this is an incorrect statement.

Seaworldparks.co.uk is owned and operated by "SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc" not ATD.

On the Seaworldparks web site there is a link tab to purchase park tickets, when you click that link and purchase tickets you will be purchasing tickets from "SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc" however they are using a UK based ticket agent for the transaction, in this case they are using ATD.

It will be "SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc" that set the price they want to charge for the tickets not ATD.

ATD's own website may have the tickets at a cheaper price due to their own discounting on the RRP's of the tickets.

I would imagine the reason "SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc" use ATD as their ticket agent is that it is cheaper for them to use an established agent rather than set up a uk ticket distribution facility themselves.

So the tickets you purchased from the Seaworldparks website, will have been purchased from and the ticket price set, by "SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc" not ATD.

ATD will have been used by "SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc" to conduct the ticket sale transaction on their behalf.

I guess ATD will have depleted their allocated stock of the ticket you wanted when you enquired. In this case ATD are just being used as an agent to supply you with the ticket from "SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Inc". This ticket will not have come from ATD's allocation!

This makes perfect sense and no one is being ripped off at all.

[Kimber03]

Reading Stu's post it makes sense though ATD should have told you that instead of trying to deny it.

Some staff training required I think

[chrisbrad]

Thanks Stu for your comments.

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for any confusion that has occurred here (in particular to sly2010) and I'd like to assure all our customers that we are not doing anything untoward here, nor attempting to deceive our customers in any way.

To clarify the situation, ATD do indeed act as an official reseller for SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment (and we are proud to do so). As a number of you have pointed out, we are very clear about this on the website and have nothing to hide in that respect.

What's more, it is very normal for companies to outsource a specialist area to a trusted and reputable third party and there are countless examples of this. As you're all aware, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment specialise in operating some of the World's best theme parks and as such, they are not a ticket agent. For this reason, it makes commercial sense for them to work with ATD (the UK's Number 1 Florida ticket specialist) and for us to provide their customers with the same level of expertise and service that we do our own.

In terms of the allocation for Discovery Cove, the example that was given about hotels is very similar. As you probably know, Discovery Cove set a maximum capacity of 1000 guests each day. As ATD, we receive a certain allocation for each date and when they are sold out, we are not normally able to access any more places. This doesn't necessarily mean that the whole date is gone though, as SeaWorld obviously keep some allocation to sell themselves and therefore it is sometimes possible to book via seaworldparks.co.uk. So this is why a date may be available on their site and not ours (or vice versa)

I hope this helps to clarify the situation and once again we apologise for any confusion caused.

Chris
Director
ATD Travel Services

[DIBBadmin]

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