What a difference a year makes
Last year we did an amazing 17 day tour of India, booked through Flights and Packages, and had such an amazing experience (and fantastic customer service from Nick) that when a marketing email came through advertising a river cruise on the Douro we did not hesitate to book again.... such a mistake. From the minute we rang up to enquire Rose, who we dealt with throughout our booking process, did not seem to have a clue what she was doing. The only time she was "on the ball" was at payment time!! We booked the package deal for us and a relative, which included basic flights, overnight hotel, and the 7 night river cruise. We asked for hold luggage to be added, at an additional cost, and this was put through on Ryanair Plus (which includes seat allocation) but when we queried this we were told if we wanted to choose our seats we would have to pay another additional fee to the airline directly. We were told both bookings were under the same reference, they weren't. We were told the seat allocation was not included (on one couples booking it was on the other it wasn't! why / how?) We had to chase up confirmation for the additional luggage 3 times over a period of 5 days. We asked about cruise insurance, it took 3 emails and 5 days to get a response. But the worst was to come when our relatives had to cancel due to illness, Flights and Packages were absolutely useless. We rang to tell them about the probable cancellation and to ask what our options were and was told Rose would ring us back to discuss - she didn't. We had to follow this up with an email before we got any response. Their response was extremely vague as to what the refund policy was. We were told that both the flights and the hotel were non refundable and that the cruise was only 40% refundable. We asked for a breakdown of the costs (otherwise how else did they know how much of the refund was due) but was told that was not possible as it was a "package deal". We checked the website of the cruise company and their t & c's said 50% refund would be given at the 6 week before cruise marker but, even though we cut and paste these t&c's to Flights and Packages they insisted it was only 40% but refused to send any paperwork to back this up. After several more ignored emails we lost the will to live (clearly the way they deal with customers in the hope that they will just "go away") and asked for the refund they had stated to be sent - just over 20% of the total cost of the holiday!! Flights and Packages then took almost 2 weeks, and 5 follow up emails before they processed this refund. The whole situation has been a complete nightmare. A holiday is supposed to be a relaxing experience but when you get this level of customer service before you even start your holiday it clearly takes away that enjoyment. Flights and Packages is a company I will NEVER trust again for any future travels.