So, the fantastic Facebook group 'We love Excellence Playa Mujeres' has seriously be doing my head in! It's a great group of people, all posting about their holidays at EPM; when they're going, what they do when they are there, daily 'live froms' etc etc etc and all with photos.
Im on the group (watch out for my 'Tuesday Traveller' question of the week! 😉) - seeing everyones photos and enjoying their experiences along with them just hasnt been enough, Ive been really, really wanting to go back..........
So, with this in mind, as soon as I realised that the Thomson Dreamliner flights were open, I started to contact travel agents requesting quotes. Seriously, its been one of the worst experiences in years for booking a holiday this time.
I think we're very experienced travellers, averaging three - five holidays per year. I like to do my research, and when I come to book a holiday, Im very exacting in what we want. Im always looking for the best deal pricewise, and if I can get a sweetner thrown in for free, then that's the icing on the cake.
I started out about four weeks ago contacting Blue Bay Travel, Thomas Cook, First Choice and Beaches 4 Less - a company which come highly recommended by several of the group on Facebook. We'd travelled before with both BBT and TC and we have a great agent at Thomas Cook who always trys to give us the best price, but he's limited when booking anything with Thomson.
I was very specific with what I wanted: dates, flights - Thomson Dreamliner, Premium Club, the hotel, etc etc etc
Initially, the quotes that came back were as much as £1k apart - the dearest being First Choice who run the airline!
Im going to say that, my first choice at the start of this process would have been Blue Bay Travel. We had booked with them previously, and had good service from them. However on this occassion, the agent was really, really rude, and really inefficient - she didnt email me the quotes, and on my second call, a couple of days later, came up with a lot cheaper price, but when I drilled down it wasn't flying premier club or with Thomson on the dreamliner. She told me she couldnt get all the booking specifics that I wanted, but had got me a cheaper package! so I told her Id go elsewhere.
A few days later, I was contacted by email by a supervisor from BBT. They had listened to the recorded conversation and wanted to talk. He called me that weekend, apologised and said basically that Blue Bay wanted to do something special by way of an apology. I then get quoted again and his 'something special' ended up £1,000 more, but they threw in a 'free' swim up for one week. I then telephoned him and said in the space of a week it had gone up by £1k, bearing in mind this is for summer 2017. He said it was because there was a discount the previous week that had now finished. He advised me to try again in three weeks time or wait until August when the Virgin flights would be released.
I waited the three weeks and asked for a quote again last week - the price is down from the previous quote, but still £400 more than the original and if I wanted the 'free' upgrade to swim up for both weeks it was an additional £210 - I asked how much if I didn't have the free upgrade and they said it was the same price. However, once again I checked over my quote and it didn't include everything I had asked for.
Every time BBT quoted they give me a different combo, either different flights or no extra luggage or as in the second instance no premium seating. It seems that the agent tries to give you the best price they think you'll accept before you realise they haven't included everything. Im a seasoned traveller and knew enough to ask each time, but I would have been really cross if I waited a year to find that I hadn't got premier club seating as requested.
So, yesterday. I started a third round, and included Thomson Worldwide, Kenwood and Jarvis & Hayes, plus Nick from Beaches 4 Less. All of them quoted high - one £1200 higher than everyone else, except Nick.
I spoke to Nick late yesterday afternoon. He told me he would come back to me this morning, which he did. He's undercut all the other quotes, and more importantly, got all my requests right first time. He has wonderful customer service, went through lots of important information, including vaccinations, zika virus, if we had any dietary needs, visas etc etc etc. We've now booked with him, firstly his price was the best, but more importantly his customer service was fantastic. I really felt that he'd taken time with us.
So thats it, my moans over. Couple of lessons learnt, book the best price on the day you are ready to book. Double check the details of your booking and make sure the agents got it right before parting with any money. Shop around and dont be afraid to say no, its too dear! And lastly, Find a great travel agent who you can build up a rapport with, someone you can trust to give you a good price and great service. After all, purchasing a holiday, should be an enjoyable experience. 😉
