Reputable but not fully competent (Thomson Holidays)

Member Name: Lools_24

Product:	Thomson Holidays
Date:	29/07/09 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic hotels, great prices if you book early

Disadvantages: Not enough staff and staff need more training

I have travelled with Thomson three times now, the first two times were to Tenerife (Costa Adeje and Playa Las Americas respectively) and were satisfactory to good holiday experiences the third time was to Ayia Napa in Cyprus and was a poor to very poor holiday experience therefore my review will contain the good, the bad and the ugly!

***Booking***

I did mention in a previous review I like to book a holiday online, as I am in control of the booking rather than going into travel agent and having a representative book my holiday for me.

I ventured into a Thomson branch before I booked my first holiday to Tenerife to pick up a brochure and I was slightly put off by how over bearing the staff were. I was only in the shop about 3 minutes and I was asked by 3 separate members of staff if I wanted to sit down and check out prices with them. The staff were friendly but I did feel under pressure to actually purchase a holiday so after that experience Mr Lools and I steered away from the Thomson branches.

Booking online was very easy. The search function allows you to search prices on a number of destinations, which include specific resorts, the type of accommodation, price range, and standard of accommodation. Thomson is actually probably the easiest of all sites that I have booked with as it is quite interactive and you can set your own search parameters as price ranges are not set tick boxes in fact a scroll bar which you can drag to the nearest £5 both for your upper and lower price limit.

The search results are displayed by lowest priced first however you can choose how you want search results displayed. I like that quite a detailed description is displayed when you are given search results but if you click on the particular holiday you are given an even more detailed description.

Confirming your booking is very easy. I like that the holiday price shown in the search results is what you actually pay. Unlike the Thomas Cook website you can deselect options which then make the holiday price cheaper rather than selecting (necessary) options which then make your holiday more expensive. There options screen during booking does allow you to add on extras such as late check out, extra baggage and flight seats together but the standard options such as resort transfers and flight meals are included in the price. The payment screen is also simple to use. Do note that if you use a credit card then you will have to pay a fee of around £5 on top of the holiday price.

Booking early with Thomson (9 months in advance plus) is definitely advisable to get the best deal. There is often around £400 off. At this stage Thomson definitely has the best deals and is cheaper than other tour operators for exactly the same holiday.If you book 6 months- 4 weeks before you depart in my opinion Thomson are a lot more expensive than other tour operators for the same holiday.

I did search for a late deal with Thomson this year, but they were a lot more expensive than other tour operators in fact the holiday I booked with Thomas Cook was £200 more expensive per person with Thomson. The best late deals appeared to be from Gatwick and Manchester airport so if you want to fly from these airports then take a look on the Thomson website.

****TIP when booking ****

A friend mentioned to me that I might save (a lot) of money with Thomson by flying from another departure airport if I was willing not just to travel from Newcastle airport (which is about 6 miles away from my house). When I booked both holiday's to Tenerife I checked out prices from both Newcastle and Teeside airport (which is 40 miles away), my parents were happy to give Mr Lools and I a lift to both. The times of flights from both airports were within 10 minutes of each other on exactly the same day for the inbound and outbound flights BUT flying from Teeside airport made the holiday £100 cheaper per person! £200 saving to travel and extra 30 minutes each way is definitely worth it. Even more surprising when I booked the holiday to Cyprus with Thomson I searched from Newcastle airport and also from Doncaster Sheffield (I had a tip off flying from this airport was cheap). The flight times and dates were exactly the same as if we few from Newcastle but saved a massive £430 per person by flying from Doncaster!! Granted this was a 2 hour car journey and a £40 parking fee for the week but Mr Lools and I still saved around £800 on the holiday!

The tickets arrive around 4 weeks before you are due to depart. This is around the same time that you must pay off the remaining balance on your holiday if you do not pay the total balance immediately.


***Flights/ Airport Experience***

***Outbound***

We have never had a problem on all three Thomson holidays on the outbound flight. Check in was easy. 20kg is the standard baggage allowance and on 2 of the holidays my case has been over that yet I have never been charged a fee. Boarding has always been on time and the flight has taken off at the time stated on the tickets.

On board the flight staff have always been helpful and friendly. We have always had standard leg room seats and this has been ample, even for a 5 hour flight to Cyprus. In fact I felt that there was more leg room on the Thomson short haul flights than when I flew long haul with Air Kenya from Amsterdam to Nairobi.

The flight meals have always been very nice, the food has been a good standard and tasted good, which surprised me as I am not a fan of food on aeroplanes!

Finding a rep when you have landed and are looking for your coach for your resort transfer is difficult due to only a small number of reps and masses of holidaymakers. When you do eventually find them they give you a coach number and you board the coach, we never had a rep on the coach we travelled on to the resort so stay alert as the driver only calls once when you stop at your hotel.

***Inbound***
Flying home was not problematic from Tenerife on both occasions, the flights were on time. No rep was on board the coach to take us back to the airport so it was down to the Spanish driver to tick our names off the list when picked up at our hotel and take us to the airport. When we got off the coach a rep was waiting and simply yelled "all Thomson customers go to the Thomson check in desks" (well obviously). The flights were exactly the same as the inbound flights on time, comfortable with decent meals.

Flying home from Cyprus was a nightmare; we encountered a 12 hour delay! When picked up from the hotel we were taken to the airport (by a driver only). When we arrived a rep boarded the coach and told us there was going to be a slight delay so they were taking us to a hotel in Nicossia rather than sitting in the airport all day. The driver alone took us to the hotel where three other coaches of holiday makers were and there were 2 Thomson reps in charge of all these people. We were at the hotel for 8 hours where we were given a bottle of water each and a meal was put on half way through. People had to sit in the hotel lobby/ lounge area, where there were not enough seats for everyone. Because we had a seat we didn't really want to move (and later have to sit on the floor) so were sat down all day. Eventually we were taken back to the airport.

The reps just instructed us to go inside and check in at the Thomson desks and did not come in the airport with the 4 coaches. Because other Thomson flights were delayed it was chaos inside Larnaca airport (which is badly designed to cope at the best of time). No one was controlling the queues so people were pushing in. As you can imagine with lots of tired holidaymakers things got heated and fights almost broke out!! Three 18-30's reps and 2 first choice reps actually stepped in and controlled the queues..... but there was not a Thomson rep in sight!

On a positive despite both Mr Lools and I being over our 20kg allowance returning home on all 3 holidays (by around 5kg between us due filling our cases with bottles of cheap booze) we have never been made to pay extra.


***Hotel***

All of the hotels that we stayed in on Thomson holidays have been fantastic. Both the brochures and the websites contain detailed information which was accurate and described the hotel perfectly. I do think that the ratings in the Thomson brochures may be slightly higher than what the hotels should be. The rating for our Cyprus hotel was 5 T which was spot on as this was definitely a 5* hotel. For Tenerife both hotels were described as 5T and in fact these were only 4* hotels which was also detailed on Trip Advisor. It may be worth checking this out before you book to ensure you are not paying extra for a lower class hotel.

Information from Thomson in the hotel was clear which outlined when and where to get picked up from on the return resort transfer and all details about excursions and who to contact.


***Staff***

With all three Thomson holidays the overall package holiday was let down by the staff. The staff were friendly, both at check in, during the flight and the reps in the resorts however they did not really take control of situations or were really visible. We attended at welcome meeting on the first holiday but this was more of a pushy sales pitch rather than an information session about of holiday and the resort!

The number of Thomson staff at the airport was very low in comparison to other tour operators. Understandable there will not be a rep on every coach during a resort transfer but for those that do need extra guidance and support this could be an issue.

When an issue did occur in Cyprus it was clearly evident that the staff were not trained or competent to deal issues and take control of situation but this was made worse by the fact there was not enough staff to deal with this.


***Overall***

I would definitely recommend Thomson if you are booking early (i.e. 9 months or more in advance) there are fantastic discounts of around £400 per holiday. When booking however it is worth checking other airports to fly from as you may find if you are worth travelling slightly further to the airport you could make a massive saving on your overall holiday price. Thomson definitely are a reputable company and the brochures and websites are very accurate in terms of their description of the resort and hotel. All Thomson hotels I have stayed in have all been excellent hotels although I do not feel Thomson's own rating of hotels is reflective of the actual hotel standard.

Unfortunately Thomson does not seem to employ enough staff and therefore when problems do occur there are only one or two staff members who have to deal with a large number of confused/ tired/ exasperated customers. This is made worse by the fact that the staff do not seem well trained or competent to take control of situations in the same way other tour operator staff do. Definitely not the worst tour operator you could travel with just keep your fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong!

Summary: Great hotels and great holidays just keep your fingers crossed everything runs smoothly