Firstchoiceholidays

I booked Sensatori holiday 2 months ago to Turkey. I received email advising I could amend without fees as unlikely holiday will go ahead. I have tried to change holiday for past 5 days, but, always get amendment fees of nearly 拢2000! Tried to call number for customer service, punch 2 to discuss present holiday and just repeats same question without getting through. NO SERVICE or ADVICE. Stuck in limbo with no technical or customer service available. Read cancellation conditions and it seems until holiday is cancalled by FIRST CHOICE you may be due amendment fees. Unbelievable in 21st century they do not have website or customer service that allows you to do what they promote. Totally disallusioned and stressed when I should be looking forward to a break!

Dont be fooled by the posts that are positive they are being put on trustpilot by employees of the company to counter-act the real story of whats happening. The UK public have been done over.

Bunch of muppets can鈥檛 even add up trying to rip us off
Be taking them court
Be warned do not use

Booked a holiday of a lifetime from First Choice Holidays.
The RUI JALISCO hotel, Mexico, restaurants, gardens and staff were excellent.
Unfortunately for my brother and I the holiday turned out to be a holiday from hell as we were held by a cartel and under extreme duress forced to have over bank debit cards and credit cards, then the PINs. They withdrew everything I had. I am now left penniless, and a charity now helping me estimate it shall take 10 years to repay the debts. I am now struggling to survive on 拢410pcm and from this I still need to pay for food, utility bills, insurance etc. As I did not report the crime in Mexico through fear of our lives nobody can help me, including the holiday company. So, the holiday of a lifetime has basically ended up ruining my life.

Definitely won't be my first choice again
Considering I've had 2 holidays with the company/tui in the last 6 months i am disgusted with the service i received firstly we was sold a 5 star all inclusive holiday that definitely wasnt 5* and was due to close for 5 month refurbishment the day we left (we was never told this ) but the fact that they was closing meant rooms were quite run down , they started closing down the hotel around us there was mattress bedding in hall ways boxes by the reception extremely repetitive food due to them trying to use up all resources before closing and even some restaurants closed. i didnt even get the ocean view that was advertised which i paid extra for. There was disgusting sewage problems which caused our rooms to absolutely wreak and it was horrendous. I've since come back and wrote a formal complaint and well I'm still awaiting a written response so i can take it further i have been trying to call customer service you can not get through unless i i physically take time off work and go in to a store my friend that travelled with me also complained and has had a response saying she's not the lead passenger and that they can only discuss with the lead well I'm still waiting I've been in store spoke to customer services who said i need to allow them another 10 days as my case was with a supervisor its now been well over that I've have wrote rewiews on hotel and have been contacted by guest on the same holiday as me say they received a part refund refund for the same reasons as me and the same date from the same company so they know there was definitely a problem but yet i can't even get a written response please be careful when booking your once in a life time holiday cause they made a mess out of ours. They were doing work on site whilst we were still on our stay and had tractors, scaffoldings and loads of other eyesaws and safety hazards all around the site. Upon departure when i requested a word with the manager i received sarcastic comments along the lines "If you ever chose to stay with us again please email me in advance so i can make sure they look after you" which was totally unacceptable. There was also immense mould in our bathroom which is sickening.

What a shambles of a company, we are told today that our 5 star hotel with swim up room that we are due to stay in from 10th May is now not ready, so they have moved us to the 4 star sister hotel with no swim up room and offered us 拢111 back, the swim room alone was 拢280 extra
Leaving our little daughter in tears as the swim up room was for her as she is not over confident around water and big crowds, You should be ashamed of yourselves, You have Known for ages that the suites would not be ready, yet you can still book the Aqua Bay Suites right now on ,line……………………………….. ITS A SCAM TO GET MORE MONEY FROM PEOPLE

Im furious and will never ever book with these SCAMMERS again.

Do not pay extra for a room upgrade with first choice as you don鈥檛 get it. It was as if the hotel where we stayed didn鈥檛 know we had paid for an upgrade. Also First Choice failed to mention that Jamaica was a no smoking country. I read that lots of people were cancelling Jamaica and going elsewhere because of this. However this was not a problem as the hotel was very relaxed about smoking.

After spending weeks on deciding where to go decided to go to Gran Canaria with first choice. Every thing was going fine put payment details in pressed button and the site went down. It said to try again later or ring office (office was closed). I thought I would check with the credit card company to check if payment had gone through and was told it had. I rang the next day and found out that although they had taken the money I did not have a holiday booked. I got a refund and had to re book holiday again ( it had gone down by 20.00 which was bonus). It is concern that I had been charged for something that I did not even have and had I re- entered the details I would have charged again. The customer service department were helpful and polite I did ask them to ring me back as you had to pay 10p a min plus network charges which they did. I am just not happy that using a card can cause so many problems this was the second time in the last two weeks that I have had ,card problems.

I am not quite sure why I am spending my precious time writing this review, as previous attempts to get a resolution to what I would consider a small issue have either been ignored or disregarded.
I should be flying out on holiday with my husband in a few days, we have used the ap to look for seats and discovered that they have been allocated at different sides of the plane. We simply thought this was an admin error as why would a couple travelling together be placed so far apart when it is very clear there are seats in close proximity of each other. In my naivity, thinking contact with first choice could fix this. My email contact was not responded to. My husband telephoned in and after a 30 plus minute wait, the response he received lead us to believe this is common practice, the agents hands were tied and in order to resolve the issue we would need to buy the already allocated seat we didn't choose or want and secondly buy another seat close by. We cannot physically do this the ap hasn't allowed it and frankly should we have to? My husband was flatly refused his request to escalate and prompted to use the email route which so far seems to have fallen into a big black hole. First choice, my brother sadly passed away yesterday….. I want to be near my husband. I don't want to be sitting next to a stranger for 12 hours. We may not take the holiday at this time, but first choice, you have generated so much distress that you are certainly instramental in this decision.
A sad customer.

Have complained to First Choice for a small compensation because they did not give what their brochure offered (hotel resort had 4 speciality resturants, which where offered as part of all inclusive package, on month of arrival the hotel changed their policy and speciality resturants where made chargeable). After 6 months, although they apologised, no offer was made, we beleive that as our booking was with First Choice, they should take responsibilty. Unfortunately First Choice are part of the TUI group, who have a monopoly in the UK holiday market and if things go wrong, dont expect any customer care.

Tried to book a First Choice Holiday Village. Initial price showed as just under 拢2500 for family of 4, so 拢625 per person.

Free child place gets added and cost of holiday jumps to 拢2700. 拢900 per paying person.

Total con.

Booked a holiday with my 7 year old daughter but they split us up on the plane. Why do this?
Terrible start to the holiday before we鈥檝e even begun. Dread to think what the rest of the holiday will be like.

This was the first time we had used the First Choice division of the TUI brand. What a mistake.

Hotel was sold to us as a 5 Star resort, we have been to numerous highly rated hotels in the TUI/Atlantica brand so knew what to expect at that rating/price point. Unfortunately not the case…

On arrival we were handed a paper map, keys and a brief description of how to get to the room. It was pitch black, no signs, no directions, map not to scale and had to lug our suitcases across the 100+ acre site.

Day 1, it quickly transpired that there are not enough sunbeds for the guests, this means you have to get up at 7am to reserve one or you will sit on the grass all day long. This happened to us numerous times and this is despite trip advisor reviews mentioning this going back 3 years.

I have never heard of this before but people allowed there kids to crap in the pool on a daily basis. This meant pools were shut all of the time. Unsure if this is because of the class of people at the resort or not but it seems the only viable explanation to me. First Choice made no effort to prevent this in any way other than shutting down the pools for 6 hours every day.

Food was awful re-heated, re-used, re-presented dross. Very few vegetarian options and those that were available were usually tainted by meat in some way by other customers. No effort by staff to prevent this from happening. Speciality restaurants were a joke, served uncooked chicken, raw beef, everything cold, no spoons for desert, no drinks offered etc etc. Really Really bad.

There were many other issues, very poor holiday, no where near 5 Star. Here is the thing though. I decided to push through a complaint with them, Initially they ignored it for about 30 days, then I went through ABTA (thinking they would have to respond), they did respond after about another 40 days (ABTA stipulate 28) so in total over 2 months to get a response 'thanks for the feedback'.

It wasn't feedback, it was a formal complaint….. ABTA now advise small claims court. No apology, no voucher, no partial refund. Will not be using again, was sold vastly inferior holiday in comparison to their OWN standards.

Don't even think about complaining, unless you want to go through small claims forget it. Oh, and be warned you will spend at least 40 min on hold every time you call their 'in resort' complaints line, or their after travel complaints line. At which point they will tell you that you should have complained in the resort…

There have been so many issues with the service provided by First Choice that it is hard to know where to begin. Sadly, if you read their Facebook page and here it seems that many people are having the same issue.

Before we went on holiday, we we booked 4 days of football camp and training for our 7 year old, who is absolutely football mad. He was really excited about going to he camp so we booked it in advance as we expected it to be really popular and wanted to secure his space.

When we arrived at the hotel, at the first possible opportunity we went to the booking point (literally the first day it was open) and tried to arrange the course. I was advised that there were only 2 days of training left, and these were basically the last 2 days of our holiday. This despite the fact I had already booked and paid for the course in advance, and many of the kids that were being given priority on resort hadn't even been paid for. If they can't guarantee a place, then why offer them in advance. I have still not received any acknowledgement or money back that I am OWED.

My next complaint is the ridiculous complaints process, which must have been custom designed to infuriate their customers. I followed the instructions on the First Choice App (which are also on the website) and rang the complaints number. I was put through to an irritating man who advised me that I wasn't following the correct process. He advised me that I should have filled in a form at the hotel – which is my next complaint as this wasn't mentioned by the resort staff who said I should ring after the holiday.

The customer service staff member was clearly not interested in this and then went on to tell me that to make a complaint I needed to email in or fill in a form. When I asked him to take the complaint over the phone he refused and when I asked him to send me the complaints email address as I was driving he also refused saying I needed to write it down. Having endured the process for 43 days so far I now understand why he was making it so hard for me to log a complaint.

I don't think it was malicious, but if he is towing the party line on process, then you really need to take a look at the way your interact with your customers. You are a country mile away from companies such as Jet2holidays who would have already sorted this out for me.

In summary:

– So far, it has taken you 43 days to send a response to my complaint
– You sold me something you couldn't deliver and still have my money
– Your resort staff either need more training to tell me what your process is, or need firing for knowingly not sharing the correct process with me
– Your complaints process is RUBBISH and not accurately reflected on your website or app and is a huge inconvenience for your customers
– Your call centre staff are literally no help and might as well not be there if their sole purpose is to take a call and tell people to fill in a form

I booked my holiday over a year ago and due to my own extenuating circumstances needed to change my booking. The cancellation/amendment fee was massive, but it wasn't down to First Choice, it was my problem. However, they have bent over backwards to help me and I could not be more happy with them. They have guaranteed me continuing to use them for many years.

Took me 5 attempts to get our ATOL certificate for our holiday. Made me very suspicious. Kept telling me it was on its way.
Finally received it after 6 weeks鉂楋笍

We have had many holidays over the years with First Choice but we have decided to start looking at other holiday companies after very poor customer service. We booked a day trip with them which was very poor value for money. The worst day trip we have ever had. The response from them took many weeks with me often having to chase up a reply before they finally advised me that, although they would feed my comments back to staff, they would not give a refund at all. Not even a part refund which was all I was expecting. The reason they gave was because I reported the problems directly on our return instead of actually on the holiday. I do not think this is fair as it did not take away the fact that the day trip was very poor value for money.

Ive just received a reply from Firstchoice re my complaints regarding the worst holiday of our lifetime, they Thomson-Firstchoice have taken no heed of our total disappointment of the so called holiday they provided, it was only marginally better than a holiday I took as a teenager at a Butlins Holiday Camp, the tatty so called bungalows were located among'st hundreds of screaming children ( just in case you are wondering we've done the children/grandchildren stint) loud music until late, a bun-fight at the one restaurant for 800 plus people, I could go on but It hurts me to remember the cost of a week wasted in misery. do not believe their descriptions and avoid them.

An update from First Choice.

Someone in the store has apparently investigated the person in the store who is "in charge", and found that she was telling the truth.

Thank you for taking the time to email us about your recent experience and I鈥檓 sorry that you鈥檝e had cause to contact us on this occasion.

Holidays are something we all look forward to and with this in mind, I understand the disappointment caused when things don鈥檛 go to plan/meet you expectations, especially when you鈥檙e yet to travel.

To summarise the points you鈥檝e raised, you mentioned that after booking your holiday you noticed within a few weeks the costing had changed and in this instance had decreased.

I鈥檝e taken the time to look into your points and also spoken with the Travel Advisor that assisted with your booking and also with Jessica who you spoke to on the 8th march. I can confirm that all the information she gave you was correct and to explain further, the prices online are fluid and subject to change at any time, this is monitored by head office and prices change due to supply and demand.

I have re-checked your holiday this morning and can confirm the costing is currently at 拢3445.00

In light of your email and disappointment of our booking conditions I am happy to offer you a full and final gesture of goodwill of 拢100;

Yours sincerely

Karen

Well thank you Karen!

My response

Hi Karen,

First, many thanks for your reply. Are you also reacting the letter below sent to the directors? (I wanted this to be addressed by someone not based at the store).

Could you please advise your position within the company?

I feel I still have a point to be addressed. Maybe read the letter below. However, your statement, cut below, is not really in question.

"I鈥檝e taken the time to look into your points and also spoken with the Travel Advisor that assisted with your booking and also with Jessica who you spoke to on the 8th march. I can confirm that all the information she gave you was correct and to explain further, the prices online are fluid and subject to change at any time, this is monitored by head office and prices change due to supply and demand.

I have re-checked your holiday this morning and can confirm the costing is currently at 拢3445.00".

My issue is that I could have cancelled my holiday, rebooked with your company and saved 拢324. The time it took waiting for the manager to ring me back after my query actually cost me 拢324. Because in that time your fluid pricing policy had moved again. I believed I was dealing with a reasonable company?

Or are you saying, like Jessica, that I'm lying and that the holiday was never 拢1338 plus room upgrade of 201 plus leg room 拢90

Total cost = 拢2964
Cancellation = 拢500
Net saving = 拢324

My understanding is that legally you need to keep a record of all price changes you make. So can I please request a statement of these changes since initial publishing of prices in your brochure?

I reality, I don't even want the money, just use it to upgrade me to Diamond club or Hideaway Section of the same hotel.

The principle of the matter is that I have now been called a liar by 3 people and you throw 拢100 good will gesture at the situation. I think that is poor customer experience.

Best rgds

paid 拢8000 for a holiday and been messed about totally
indian call centre of no use
total farce

Having booked a holiday for over 拢2000 pounds had cause for serious complaint on return. Submitted complaint and after three months (time limit should be 28 days by law) was offered 拢100 travel voucher ! Why on earth would I want to travel with them again after first experience! Appealed first complaint with request to review, Not heard a thing, local Manager (South West) arrogant and rude and more than happy to take the money but not the least bit interested in after care of his clients. Would not travel again with Thomson or book through First Choice ever again !! Am getting married in Mauritius later in year with 20 guests flying out with two weeks accommodation – guess who we WONT be using !!! Their loss I am pleased to say of about 拢30,000!!