Holiday Companies - Beware

Good advice Eloethan
Thank you

I agree with you petra about Trust Pilot. I raised the issue of what I believed were untrustworthy 5 star ratings, citing the very similar wording used, and was told they would investigate. I heard nothing further.

I am still so angry about this. This agent is still receiving a significant number of terrible reviews. I feel so sorry for the people who say their longed-for holidays have been a complete disaster and have caused them terrible stress. Meanwhile the company/agent (which is spending vast amounts of money on TV adverts) - while posting "holding" responses on Trust Pilot saying they are dealing with the matter - actually don't deal with the matter at all, and complainants just give up in the end.

If the Op is talking about On the Beach featuring the obnoxious family on their tv ad , avoid them.
My GD and her friend, both young at the time booked with them a few years ago.
It was “not good” to be very polite.

nanna8
The tourist tax isn’t waved, you have paid for it in the price of your holiday.
We were told this by a Chinese tour guide when we went there.

Link www.quora.com/Trustpilot-has-been-removing-thousands-of-genuine-reviews-without-investigation-simply-because-they-have-been-flagged-by-companies-deceiving-Trustpilot-to-get-rid-of-negative-reviews-and-keep-high-rating-Do-you

TrustPilot is not to be trusted.

If you have limited time I think packages are the way to go. We went to China and later Japan on packages and they were both fantastic. Great accomodation and a tour leader who organised everything . Plus you are taken to places you would probably never have found your way to. There is a lot of competition here and a ‘bad’ package would soon be found out and the tour operators would go bust. We had previously been to China independently and didn’t see nearly as much plus they slapped a tourist tax on us every time we went to any sites. When you go with a package this is waived, especially if the person leading happens to be Chinese.

We booked a month long trip to Australia via a Travel agent who individually put it together.
However Covid hit and after 10 days per Government advise to go home. It's a long story but we had to re buy a flight back home, luckily had the sense to keep all the paperwork.

Contacted our Insurers, to be told as it was an individual package not a set package, we could not claim anything back.
They told us to claim individual elements /stage. The Travel agent tried to sort but they only managed to get a partial refund for us.
We eventually got the return flight home refunded as our original Carrier couldn't get us home, it took a year to achieve it, thankfully we still had the boarding cards.

So package every big trip now, too stressful if it goes wrong!

We usually research the hotel first and its location, then see who is offering it combined with the flight.
Then always use Google Earth to actually see where the hotel is. They can be sited next to a busy road, railway or up a steep hill that’s not mentioned in any of the blurb.
Our only experience of needing help was in Florence when the schedule flight was suddenly cancelled when we were in departure. (Watching the Italian business people react was quite something!)
However, the company we’d ‘packaged’ the trip with quickly re routed us home via another airline.

This is why I rarely book package holidays. If I book everything myself, I know I'm getting exactly what I want, and I know it's all been done right. I do a lot of research beforehand - and booking it all independently invariably works out cheaper for us too. It's no less safe than booking a package if you do it properly.

A timely reminder: thank you * Eloethan*.