First Choice

We haven't even left for the holiday yet and I am already regretting this. We wanted an all inclusive package deal and didn't want to use Thomas Cook due to their handling of the childrens deaths a couple of years back, so First Choice / Thompson seemed the right company to use.

Firstly we called the 'head office' number for a quote. It turns out that there is no central booking service, you will just be put through to a randomly selected branch who seem to have no incentives to get your business. The branch was inside an Asda in Wales (we are in England) and it took no less than 12 phonecalls over 4 days to get an email with some suggested package details from this branch. I have recordings of all phonecalls if First Choice would like to hear them.

Angry at this we went to our local branch. We were given a bunch of half-truths there about the options available by a rude member of staff, holiday costs here were even higher than the first quote and left even more unhappy and still no holiday booked.

Finally dragging the truth out of another branch manager it turns out that the branches cannot sell any packages that involve Easyjet flights, these are often the cheapest deals and why the branches are excluded from this is beyond me.

We finally had the dubious pleasure of ordering online – Their website is programmed to be sneaky and it increases the cost of holidays you are looking at over the course of several days if you have not booked yet. I cleared the cookies on my computer and hey presto – the lower previous prices reappeared. Disgusting business practises from a big company.

It didn't end there.

Finally decided on the holiday we booked. During the booking process I have a popup telling me that while I have been looking the prices have gone up by 拢29.98! Again, First Choice just shaking us down for a few more quid. I have video evidence of this and also of the prices dropping when I cleared my laptop cookies, just in case First Choice accuse me of lying. We are currently discussing whether to inform Trading Standards about the above fast practises, we may get in touch wioth them over the course of our holiday.

I will ask my wife to leave a review once the holiday is over as I'm sure our woes will not end here.

Anyone thinking of booking an all inclusive should speak to an independent travel agent before going to these places as at least there will be some accountability. This has been a shockingly negative experience for us and out holiday is still over a month away.

First Choice if you are reading this you should hang your heads in shame.

booked a holiday paid deposit and over 170 days before I was due to travel I needed to cancel, but these would not cancel as they stated I paid a low deposit and they needed 125.00 more to cancel the holiday, I informed them I had paid the deposit required at the time of booking, but they wont cancel even though I have emailed, telephoned , and written to them to inform them that I need to cancel they are holding out for full payment .
there are many companies online that would have just cancelled this booking with just a small admin fee like love holidays, travel republic whom have a far better customer service than first choice so please be very careful when dealing with this rabble.

So I had an email stating that my requested flight had been cancelled and that they would offer a refund or change my details.

Me being hasty chose originally the flight change, expecting the offer of a full refund to remain open for at least 7 days. This resulted in me having to shorten my holiday and travel further to the airport that was originally thought.

I then called to advise that I would prefer to take the offer of the refund instead.

They just referred me to the terms and conditions and said go to ABTA.

I find this digusting considering it was not my fault they chose to cancel my flight!!!

After travelling with them 6 times, I will not be doing so in he future. Seems as though they are you best friend when you have no problems, but the minute you have issues that they have cause you to face, they don't want to know.

Registered a complaint with ABTA.

I am having a dreadful time trying to make what should be simple changes to my holiday. Not only are you on hold for ever and a day when you do get through there are language barriers and i am basically told pay up or lose out , I wouldn't have an issue if I was paying a fair amount. When I booked my holiday it was on a per person basis and this included a free child, 2 adults and another full paying child, the costs were broken down the same for adult and the paying child yet when I try to remove the child and add another adult, what should be just 50.00 name change fee has now suddenly changed. I am informed the adult price was in 700,s and the child who cancelled was in 400,s. never did it show anywhere in the booking the price breakdown like this, each of us was quoted 615.00. Also when I booked I paid 68.00 to upgrade us to an executive room, however now I need to make a change, despit the room still having the same number of occupants , I am now told the upgrade costs 98.00 per person!!!!!!!!! I am absolutely disgusted in first choice , I thought you were a reputable company, but this is not he case for me, it is the first and last time I will book, what is meant to be a special time for us away for a family wedding has made me not even want to go now, but of course once again, I can't withdraw without paying 200.00 pp cancellation, if I were to start again and rebook the holiday it would be cheaper than what you are quoting me all because of a simple name change it is sooooo wrong I eagerly await a reply from first choice

We went all inclusive to Red Sea Holiday Village – convenient flights from BHX, quick, easy transfers, upgraded to a junior suite, the resort was lovely and clean, private beach several pools and the buffets were fantastic.
Only thing that let the resort down were the so called 'A la Carte restaurants' which you can use one night each inclusive – it was nice to have a quieter meal with waiter service, but the food was very poor. Sadly.
Over all though a fantastic holiday, and the First Choice reps were fantastic.

Up front the service was excellent.
Then when things went wrong.
They couldn't give a 'Monkies'
They didn't even have the courtesy to reply to my letters!