Being driven mad by travel agent!

[darbs]

We booked a package last year and I was put as Ms but am a Mrs, it didn't matter at all so I wouldn't worry about it.

[toonarmani]

Originally Posted by Katnic1

That was the problem. We land at 1530 but don’t take off until 2145. They needed to book us an extra days car hire in the first place, but they were price matching a quote I’d had, so penny pinched without telling us. The ironic thing is that Virgin have an earlier flight departing at 1930, but when we booked we asked specifically for the later flight to give us a full day to get back to Miami. Why they thought we would want to return the car 5 hours before the flight is beyond me!

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If you land at 3.30pm, it's probably going to be near to 5pm when you collect the car, so that's when the booking starts (if later, then even better for your situation if booking not changed).

On your return, you would just need to drop it off before 5pm (depending on who you booked with you can get a little grace period), and if arriving around 3 hours before your flight that would be fairly close to what you would originally done anyway, rather than 5hrs, so may not work out as bad as you think.

Hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Katnic1

That was the problem. We land at 1530 but don’t take off until 2145. They needed to book us an extra days car hire in the first place, but they were price matching a quote I’d had, so penny pinched without telling us. The ironic thing is that Virgin have an earlier flight departing at 1930, but when we booked we asked specifically for the later flight to give us a full day to get back to Miami. Why they thought we would want to return the car 5 hours before the flight is beyond me!

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I honestly could not make head nor tail of your hire car issues as you explain them, but I do wonder if you are making this a bigger issue than it needs to be. It all seems very manageable to me, discuss it with them at the desk when you collect.

Also wanting a company to price match and then complaining that they are managing the costs seems a tad unreasonable. They are a business, they wouldn't survive without trying to make a profit and they don't need to tell you anything about their strategy.

[emmafleur]

Just to add, I had flight only booked with Thomas Cook so no ATOL certificate. I had paid with my credit card so got all my money back for the flights plus extras I’d incurred as a consequence of Thomas Cook going bust. If you pay by credit card you might be doubly covered with Section 75 as well as ATOL.

[Katnic1]

Originally Posted by Claudette

I honestly could not make head nor tail of your hire car issues as you explain them, but I do wonder if you are making this a bigger issue than it needs to be. It all seems very manageable to me, discuss it with them at the desk when you collect.

Also wanting a company to price match and then complaining that they are managing the costs seems a tad unreasonable. They are a business, they wouldn't survive without trying to make a profit and they don't need to tell you anything about their strategy.

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The car hire issue is sorted now as we moved the date and location.
The remaining issue and what I was asking advice about, is that the Atol certificate has changed from a package certificate to a flight only certificate.

As regards to the price match, they didn’t offer me like for like as the other price I had was including car hire until 2 hours before departure. As I explained to them exactly what I had been priced for and what I wanted, that’s what I thought they had given me. I didn’t phone them asking to price match, I phoned for a quote. When I explained that I’d had a cheaper price they offered to price match it for me. I don’t think it’s then unreasonable to expect what I asked for.

[ERICSMUM]

Re your ATOL cert. when they amended your car hire did they "un-couple" it from the flights which stopped it being a package ?

[ERICSMUM]

This would annoy me too, booking a holiday is stressful enough without this sort of nonsense.

[Katnic1]

Originally Posted by ERICSMUM

Re your ATOL cert. when they amended your car hire did they "un-couple" it from the flights which stopped it being a package ?

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I’m not sure as they still haven’t got back to me. The Gold medal invoice still shows both the flights and the car hire elements as one total price on the invoice though, so I don’t think so. I won’t chase them Up today as I know a Saturday at this time of year is a busy day for them.

I’m struggling with dealing with a 3rd party all the time, as I normally book everything direct myself. Gold medal only deal with travel agents otherwise I could have sorted myself.

Thanks for everyone’s advice though.

[Peko]

All sounds irritating, though if it helps, the chances of Gold Medal going bust are virtually zero.

It’s owned by Dnata, which in turn is part of the Emirates (airline) Group, so effectively owned by the Government of Dubai. Virgin and Alamo are pretty safe bets too, so ATOL is pretty unlikely to come into play here.