Office manager. Hobbies are travelling, reading, and good food and drink!
Office manager. Hobbies are travelling, reading, and good food and drink!
Member since:27.09.2002
Reviews:14
Members who trust:2
Being an inveterate holiday-goer, I generally use Thomas Cook's website to find hotels, apartments, and special late deals, mainly because it's easy to navigate and is more informative than most. www.thomascook.co.uk.
ADVANTAGES: The Thomas Cook website is one of the best I've used for holidays (I am assuming here that everyone knows how to get around the internet as Ciao is web-based!). Filling in details such as number of people, travel destination, hotel, apartment, etc, is very easy and, unlike some other sites I could mention, i.e. "Punn Loly"(!), it gives you much more flexibility with regard to dates, and also doesn't "bounce" around as much.
On many sites you have to specify an EXACT day to travel and, invariably, you get a message pop-up which says "This holiday is not available on this date", so you have to input every day in the month which, I am
sure fellow readers will agree, is very boring - especially when the majority of people are fairly flexible within the space of, say, a month! Thomas Cook's website gives you the flexibility to specify that wonderful "any day" within a month. So, 10/10 for that!
With regards to the amount of money you wish to spend, Thomas Cook's website asks you to specify your budget. It will then do a search and, if it can't offer the exact place for the amount you can afford, will offer alternatives, e.g. if you've put in £200 for Tenerife, and it can't do it, it will offer you, say Gran Canaria or, more usually, Ibiza! Again, 10/10 for that! It should also be noted that some of the prices quoted will often be reduced once you get to the booking bit, i.e. if you book on line you may get £20 off.
Booking the holiday is very easy on line: you select your hotel/apartment and then it moves on to the dates/times/airport section after you've clicked on the hotel/apartment you want. You then click on the date/time/airport you want, and it takes you into booking options such as a room suitable for 3/4 or 1/2, and you simply click on these, and follow it through to the end. All in all, a very relaxed way to book a holiday.
DISADVANTAGES: Sometimes you are asked to telephone Thomas Cook, rather than carrying on online. Why? I don't know, I haven't been able to get a reason from them yet, despite asking many times! However, I suspect it's something to do with £££££!. You input your telephone number and someone will call you back, usually within the space of a couple of minutes. Very useful (and cheap) I hear you saying. However, let us not forget that these people are there to make MONEY!!!!! They will often say "Oh, there's only one room available for those dates" (but you've already seen that there are, in fact, 9 rooms available on their website for the date you want). So, what are they doing? Trying to flog it to you as quickly as possible to get their commission!
RULES WHEN DEALING WITH THOMAS COOK STAFF:
RULE 1 Don't be pushed. Tell them that you know that there are 9 rooms available because you've seen it on their website! They will then back down by saying "oh, I'm so sorry, it obviously hasn't reached my screen yet").
RULE 2 Having got past the room number stage, you will then be offered "a room with a view", at a cost of £xxx per week. Some of you may be tempted by this and, if you're not like me who only uses their room/apartment for showering, changing, and sleeping in, you may wish to take this up. However, can I suggest that you check out "Holidays Uncovered" on www.holidaysuncovered.co.uk before booking anything.
I'd actually gone into this site to see if the hotel I wanted to book was "rated" by other tourists, and read something by someone who'd booked via Thomas Cook "If they offer you a room in this hotel with a seaview at an extra cost - ignore it! ALL rooms have seaviews!".
RULE 3 Insurance. Thomas Cook's insurance is very expensive. Again, it's up to you whether you want to take it out. Personally, I have a yearly policy and, when booking (either online or by telephone) it's useful to have the policy number with you when booking as you'll only have to call them again with the policy number later. However, Thomas Cook will still press you to take out THEIR insurance "because it covers all eventualities and yours may not be suitable". Yeah, right! One-third to the insurance company, two-thirds to Thomas Cook! If this is the case, and you get the hard sell about how good their insurance is, insist that you've been using your own policy for years (I have, actually!) and that you DON'T want their insurance, but please remember that you do need a valid insurance policy to travel with any holiday company.
OVERALL: Apart from the "disadvantages" above, which anyone with half a brain can overcome, booking with Thomas Cook is actually a pleasure, be it on line or via a "real person". I've always found them courteous and helpful and, if you're dealing with them on the phone, they invariably, give you back the discount you'd "lost" by not booking on line.
Highly recommended (and the website's quite pretty too!).
I liked this op. It gave me some useful information. I liked the "rules". Look forward to reading more of your op's. Vikki
cacalala1971 08.04.2003 19:32
VEry good op, and some good advice there, welcome to ciao btw, I really like your writing style. wendy xxx
aggapimou 08.04.2003 17:29
Excellent. Love your style! Only this morning I booked a trip to Amsterdam with Lastminute.com
great value I can tell you. £180 for a 5* in the city centre and the return flight.
thanks for the opinion.
aggapimou
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