So, if you’ve been following my TUI blog and tweets you will know that we had some appalling service from TUI during our Ibiza holiday and I felt compelled to complain to them about it.  Yes, me, complain!  It’s unheard of!

So, TUI takes up to 28 days to respond to a complaint.  We are well past that deadline, so I’ve been mercilessly bombarding @TUIUKcares with sarcastic tweets and heckling them on every complaint tweet posted, in the hopes of forcing them into a reply in order to just shut me up.

And it appears to have worked.  I can’t believe it’s pure coincidence that they respond by email just a couple of hours after my latest barrage.

So, what was the outcome of their ‘in-depth’ investigation?   Well if you read my previous post here you know it was quite a detailed story and that post is more or less copy and paste from my email to their after sales team, who I was advised to contact to air my grievances.

Before I share my reply, I suppose a pertinent question would be “What did I expect to be the outcome?”  Or, “What did I want from them?”  Because actually, that’s two entirely different questions.   What I expected from them is exactly what I got.  In fact I predicted it so perfectly I could and should have written my prediction in a post before they answered.  Maybe they will consider giving me a job there.

What did I hope to achieve?  Well I certainly wasn’t after a refund.   I wanted someone to have a serious look at what went wrong, explain why it went wrong, tell me what they would have expected to have happened, and inform me what they were going to do about it to make sure it didn’t happen again.  In short, to show me that they DO indeed care enough to do something about the atrocious way we were treated in a totally careless and incompetent manner.

But my prediction was that I would get a standard cut and paste response something along the lines of “Sorry, that wasn’t very good was it?” and a voucher off of my next holiday.  I guess somewhere between £25-£50.  Nothing that wasn’t already covered by their discounting allowances. And of course it would rely on me throwing even more money at them.  It wouldn’t be a cheque, which would have REALLY said “look, we are sorry and we are prepared to give you some of your money back”.

But like I said, it’s not about the money.  £50 doesn’t compensate for the hassle and stress caused battling your travel operator to provide the transportation promised in your contract, instead of actually enjoying your holiday.   And being left behind at the hotel by your coach back to the airport.

Now, it would be cynical for me to suggest that their after sales team copy and paste generic ‘apology’ sentences into a letter, rather than expend a little effort and write a proper thoughtful response with some detail of their findings.   I’m sure my response wasn’t computer generated from a standard template.  Or was it?   You decide.   This the response…

“Thank you for contacting TUI Customer Services, your points have been reviewed and I am able to provide the following response.

We are very concerned to read that your holiday did not meet your expectations and I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience and upset this has caused. 

We review all feedback received and take all complaints seriously.

On this occasion I agree that the experience you have had has not met our usual high-standards. 

As a result of our investigation into your complaint, I will be providing you with compensation to the value of £50 (fifty Pounds).

This will be in the form of a holiday voucher and should arrive within the next 28 days. 

This voucher can be put towards your next break and can be used online or in a TUI Holiday Store.

This will be received within 28 days.

For more information please refer to the information on the back of your voucher and in our FAQs (URL: https://www.tui.co.uk/destinations/faqCategories?catId=265&subcatId=270&docId=1255)  (The link is broken by the way)

Again Thank you for sharing your experience with us, I do hope that we can restore your faith in us once again and welcome you aboard a TUI or First Choice holiday in the near future. 
Kind Regards,

Hmmm.

It’s a little presumptuous of TUI to take it as a given that we will be setting foot back into their store “in the near future”.  Or distant future for that matter.  Which is a shame because we have been considering a Marella Cruise but that would involve being reliant on TUI ground staff to get us safely to the ship, and the TUI store staff to book it correctly, and that’s two big BUTs.

If TUI were REALLY looking to compensate their customers, they would send that £50 in a cheque, so they were truly out of pocket on the deal – which would be a fitting remedy for getting it so hopelessly and carelessly wrong.  But of course they have NO intention of losing out themselves.

So no TUI, you had your chance.  And you blew it.

T’s crossed and I’s dotted.

Rob and Sue’s World Traveller.