JohnOBrien.com

On Saturday 26th January at around lunchtime I tried to book a 4 nights break from Birmingham to Ibiza for this summer from the Thomson.co.uk website, everything was going fine, I had picked the holiday package that suited me best and went through the various stages until getting to the payment page where I filled in my visa debit bank details as requested.

But rather than the expected congratulations you’ve booked a holiday message with a nice confirmation booking reference number, I received an error message stating there was a problem with the online booking and to telephone Thomson and not to try to book again online as the payment might be taken twice, ok I thought. So I logged onto the online banking website associated with the visa debit card used and confirmed the transaction amount had been deducted from my available funds so I rang their 0870 number to try and rectify the situation.

After waiting to get through to speak to someone on the phone for around 15 minutes a Thomson employee eventually tried to search for the booking against my name, hotel, flights etc, but could not find me on their system at all, he said it might take up to 24 hours to appear and to try again the next day.

So on the Sunday afternoon I rang their 0870 number again and after waiting for about 10 minutes this time I was told the holiday definitely wasn’t booked and that the money would have been automatically returned to the card used so I would have to wait 3 – 5 days for it to reappear in my account.

I then left it until Thursday 31st and when seeing the money hadn’t been refunded to my account, rang my bank who stated there was still an authority in the system for the funds and that Thomson would have to contact their merchant bank to cancel the transaction.

I rang Thomson again then Thursday morning and explained the situation to a girl in the web support department, who said she would pass this information on to her supervisor. I then got a message on my mobile answer phone in the afternoon by a Mr Joe Diskin that they had now contacted their merchant bank Barclays and a cancellation fax was going to be sent to my bank.

Friday morning early around 6.30 I checked my online bank account and the funds available were back to the right amount, great I thought, this was all just a bit a bad luck and ill try again, so over I went to the Thomson.co.uk site to book the same holiday package as I had done nearly a week before but to my horror the same error warning came up as before, I then checked my online bank account again and yes the funds had disappeared, so I rang the Thomson helpline to try and get the supervisor Joe Diskin on the line, he wasn’t in their call centre yet so I left the new transaction details with one of his staff, the payment still hadn’t been reversed by 4.00 pm so I rang again for the 1000th time and managed to get hold of the supervisor who said “yes I’ve had your details on my desk all day” so even though I was the bottom of this to do list I asked if he could contact their merchant bank again to cancel this second transaction.

I thought because of the weekend this might not get sorted out now until the bank reopens Monday on the 4th February, but yes you guessed it I logged on to the online banking Monday morning and the second transaction cancellation had still not gone through, I rang Thomson again at about 11a.m. and was put through to Joe Diskin quite quickly this time (could he sense a formal complaint coming?) he said he would contact their merchant bank again straight away, or maybe he had just been to busy on Friday afternoon to do it.

4 hours later the elusive funds then magically appeared in my account.

I decided not to try third time lucky on the Thomson.co.uk payment gateway but to use the telephone booking service instead, a nice sounding sales girl tried to find the exact holiday I had tried to book on two unsuccessful occasions and had reloaded from the Thomson site while I was talking to her but she said there was no 4 night holidays on those dates to that hotel even though I was looking at the details on the computer screen.

I said no thanks and goodbye and went straight over an alternative travel site travelrepublic.co.uk to book the hotel I wanted all along, 5 minutes later I was all booked up for my summer sun in Ibiza at last!

So be warned if you are sending any web traffic to the Thomson.co.uk affiliate program on the commission junction network as there are certainly gremlins in their online booking system and maybe showing holiday package deals that don’t even exist.

Oh and by the way Thomson you owe me about £30 in phone call charges for having to ring you more times than I do my mum.