Due to my boyfriends tax rebate, we decided to treat ourselves (after losing money on our first holiday) to a week away somewhere fairly hot in November. I was told by bf that with the money we were getting, we could stay in the best hotel we could find.

www.thomson.co.uk

Obviously, because our husbands/boyfriends are friends I had an excellent service from the woman at this branch! As well as knowing what hotel we wanted and knowing the rough dates we wanted to go, the transaction between myself and the travel agent went smoothly. She ran through all the details with me about the hotel and the area, we did get a slight discount from the online quote but not much as it's a premium hotel, and I paid by credit card (waiting for the rebate money to come through meant we had to risk it!!) I was told that we would be getting the confirmation through the post, but she gave me a reference over the phone and said I should call her if I had any further questions.
An important thing to note is that she did not push me in to getting the insurance. She told me how much the insurance was but then also told me that it was very likely I could get a good deal elsewhere online - although this may have been again as we had partners in common and she felt like being more friendly!!
The details from the Thomson branch came through a couple of days later and I filed them away for November.

The morning of the holiday arrived and as you can imagine, I was extremely excited! My last week off was last Christmas and after a hectic six months working on Britain From Above as well as the upset of our aborted Sorrento holiday in July, I desperately needed a break, so I was literally jumping up and down on the bed with excitement! I'd made sure we had everything in a plastic wallet ready as we had to leave for the airport at 2.30am the next morning, so I had the information sent to me by Thomson, our parking details, passport and our insurance details. All ready to go!

Basically, I had assumed that the information that was sent through by Thomson was an E-ticket - It had a reference number on there but it turns out it was a Thomson reference number and actually at the very bottom was the words that made me heart sink - "should you have not received your ticket 2 weeks before your due travel date, please contact us giving your reference number."
By this point I was distraught, annoyed with myself and very very upset! I had NOT received any tickets through the post and as I had stupidly not read through everything I had NOT called up to chase it!

Anyway, I came across a 24 hour number on the paperwork I was sent, so I gave that a ring. The phone was answered almost immediately at 2.30am by a very pleasant man who listened to what I had to say, and then immediately reassured me that it should be fine, I should just go to the Thomson desk with my reference number and explain the situation and they would be able to issue me with new tickets. If there was any problem, I was to call him back immediately (he gave me his name too) and he said he would do his best to sort it out.
Relief!
Similarly, when we arrived at the Thomson desk at Gatwick, the man on the desk was extremely helpful and very sympathetic and immediately printed off new tickets for me.

So, some people might be reading this thinking that it was a given that we were going to get new tickets, but I had no idea whether we were or not, I just thought I had ruined our holiday and we weren't going to go anywhere! Admittedly it was our own fault for not checking the tickets, but of course Thomson are partly responsible for not sending the tickets to me also.