ABTA Avis 745

Trying to raise a dispute with ABTA going round in circles as ABTA cannot take calls from customers unless a dispute has been raised, very frustrating as there is no other way of getting in touch with ABTA

I can't even register a complaint about…
I can't even register a complaint about Easy Jet. I keep getting a 422 error. The boxes are definitely completed correctly. Someone complained about this in September and they said the error had been resolved. Not correct . this is very frustrating

UPDATE - Now able to press the Register button, but on the next page, I have not received a text message or email to allow me to progress further.

Also the downtime of the ABTA website was more than a few minutes. I was trying to access it from Monday evening and all day Tuesday and Wednesday.

Having tried unsuccessfully to seek compensation from our villa company, I've been trying to register the complaint with ABTA for two days but keep getting the Error 422. However, I'm positive there is nothing incorrect about the first two pages of my dispute form that I've filled in. ABTA customer service won't help me unless I've registered!! So I'm going round in circles.

However I enter information their system keeps reporting an error code 422 and it is impossible to contact them to change this

ABTA successfully gained a positive response and refund from Rail Discoveries after my failed attempts, and a somewhat degrading response from Rail Discoveries, to my request for a refund in rail travel, booked after a misleading document in flight change times and airports was sent out to me.

Pointless existence with no power
Don’t bother with abta ….they have no interest in the customer ….waste of time they can’t do a thing

Very worried I’ve wasted my money now.
Disgusting cabins on Britannia. Two months wait until p&o offered a hamper although my photos show how bad the cabins were.
Hoped ABTA would be able to help but P&O refuse to change their offer. Today I filled in arbitration form at cost of £150.
Reviews for the arbitration look as bad as ABTA.
Just not right that companies can treat people like this.
ABTA did respond quickly but just seems pointless after filling in the forms and attaching photos nothing can be done to make a company belonging to ABTA to even investigate a complaint

ABTA completely ignored the details of my complaint against Paramount Cruises. They tried to fob me off with a completely deflected response, blaming the airline rather than Paramount (who booked an international connecting flight in the full knowledge that the time allowed for that connection was highly unlikely to be sufficient). Other travel agents mitigate against short connection times, but not Paramount.
Sharp practice, fully endorsed by ABTA.

Like the majority of other reviewers, yet another 1-star review and like them we too are puzzled as to exact purpose of ABTA.
Not one of our complaints was acknowledged or addressed including evidence submitted that, in our opinion the travel company had breached several of the ABTA guidelines. The only response we received was that the travel company had replied to ABTA saying
“(we) will not be changing our position"; no commentary, explanation or justification, just one short sentence. We were offered the option of going to arbitration but again, looking at others’ experience this just seems to be a way of throwing more good money after bad.
Should we be in a similar situation in the future we would not waste time with ABTA but issue a Section 75 claim or go straight to the small claims court.

I wish I had never taken ABTA’s advice to go with Hunt Travel Arbitrators , one of the worst experiences of dealing with incompetent and unprofessional individuals. If they recommend Hunt DO NOT DO IT. Waste of time and waste of money. ABTA needs to evaluate these companies before they recommend them and people lose money.

I can't even register a complaint about TUI as I keep getting a 422 error. The boxes are definitely completed correctly. It's frustrating as there's no email address or telephone number to call. I did notice that there's no issue with the members number however.

Reading feedback on here, it looks like I might be wasting my time anyway 😔

It's pretty poor that's the system is so rigid and shows that it needs improving.

The rating is for my experience so far and will be revisited once I've had ABTA actually look at my complaint.

UPDATE
ABTA responded quite quickly and I now have access. I'll revise the score once I've been through the process.

UPDATE 10th October
ABTA aren't an ombudsman and have no power to issue compensation, this is done via an independent arbitrator when disputes aren't resolved at stage 1 of the complaints process.

ABTA prvides a code of conduct for its members, but don't appear to police it, they do appear to facilitate a portal to start the complaints off and a structured complaints system.

I'm upping my score to 3 as the process to contact them when the portal wasn't available, was via Trustpilot as they have no alternative contact methods.

About as useless as BA
Not much point as the review has been removed 🤷‍♂️

Following a really unpleasant experience with TUI, I contacted ABTA to lodge a complaint. Complete waste of time. ABTA simply forwarded TUI’s feeble, dishonest response to me and did nothing else. Fairly depressing realisation that travel agents like TUI have carte blanche to rob consumers blind and there is no ombudsman or organisation to hold them to account.

Made my complaint to ABTA after being offered £350 compensation (which I found insulting) for a disastrous cruise costing £2,500 with TUI and they said there was nothing they could do except recommend using Hunt-travel arbitrator at a cost of £108.
The arbitrator highlighted that points of my complaint and TUI answered with lies. I challenged TUI with my final comments and TUI did not respond. They did not respond with their final comments as they did not want to produce evidence in my favour. The arbitrator ignored this point and awarded me a minimal amount. Then they said I can appeal if I give them £350. This is a money making scheme for Hunt and it’s sad that ABTA recommends them to people with genuine complaints. ABTA complaint reference: 290955. Still waiting for ABTA to get back to me 5 days after they asked for my ref??
2.10.24 still waiting
So got a response from ABTA instead of telling me the findings of their review of my case with HUNT the told me to remove the amount of my award as it wasn’t in line with HUNT’s terms. They obviously don’t want to put HUNT’s future clients off by finding out how little they really award. This should tell everyone what they need to know about ABTA!!!! It should not be ABTA’s place to police reviews for HUNT and I now have to question why ?
££££££££

Another 1 star only because there is no stars available from us. :-) As another reviewer stated what an absolute sham. :-(

Our complaint was our first and a simple one, or so we thought.

Upgraded to Half Board - buffet style & show cooking at an additional cost of £482. Got to the resort and it wasn't offered and in it's place was a 3 choice restrictive bland menu plated up in the kitchen. We didn't eat in the restaurant which cost us additional. Wanted our money back or a resonable proportion of it, which seemed reasonable to us.

Complaints process Quick Summary.
You have to pay to complain £108 and if you loose you pay an additional £108 respondents fee. If you win you get your fee back. So they are making additional money.
Complicated online interface to navigate hard work.
Hunt ADR do not honour their own 28 day rule for a decision, 56 days for us only after complaining.
Hunt ADR do not answer the telephone.
The decision eventually found in our favour then compensated us on Jet2's cost of 10 euros a night completely which left us significantly out of pocket. The arbitrators narrative rambled and seemed to lack understanding and clarity throughout. Plenty of copy and paste.

To cap it all the Arbitrator despite their proclamation of giving you a decision within 28 days eventually when they felt like it :-) issued a 'legally binding' decision barely in our favour and Jet 2 had 21 days to settle 33 days in and no contact at this time of writing. Jet2 complaints are also uncontactable and despite my attempts to contact them by telephone and their web based email [no evidence] to sort this mess out reasonably Jet 2 have ignored this decision completely so far. I have attempted to prompt them via ABTA speaking to a very sympathetic lady last week who said she would speak to Jet2 'remind them' but no joy so far.

Should you wish to appeal or have any further comment it will cost an additional £350.

It appears holiday organisations can simply blatantly rip people off/ mis sell with impunity and they know it. This complaint cost us more money!

Small Claims court or leave it.

It is noteworthy that Google reviews of Arbitrator [Hunt ADR] are all similarly poor from all who have used their service.

I was very surprised how easy it was to go down the ABTA route. I had hit a brick wall with the company I had booked with and I was half expecting to have a similar experience. However it was sorted quite quickly and I got the result I had been after all along.

Quick and efficient complaint resolved.
Was trying to find out why holiday company increased the price of my holiday after booking but nobody was able to tell me why,they just wanted me to pay almost £400 more for my holiday which costed around £2500 !!!
After contacting the ABTA they refunded the money saying that was a mistake but when I was calling them they couldn't tell me why as nothing in booking changed apart from price.
Very happy with the resolution.
Thank you ABTA !!!

I made a complaint to a holiday company and after the initial acknowledgment email, I heard nothing more despite the fact that they said they would investigate the matter and reply within 28 days. The ABTA form was really easy to complete and they informed me that they would chase the company. The company immediately responded with a decent offer which I accepted. I don't think I would have got very far at all without the support and help from ABTA.

I am extremely disappointed with ABTA, I am now not really sure what they actually do. I was expecting more of an 'ombudsman' approach but all ABTA did was to tell TUI to call me. There was no checking that TUI's facts where correct, ABTA just accepted TUI's position no questions asked. I see some positive reviews on here but I suspect it is more to do with whether the travel agent/company you are actually complaining about is 'scared' of ABTA. In my case TUI was refusing to refund the cost of a cruise despite the fact that it was their own boat that broke down so we had to be sent home, how can that not be TUI's responsibility. ABTA failed to check TUI's facts. I cannot understand how ABTA doesn't have more teeth but looking at how ABTA is set up I suspect the tail is wagging the dog!

Was getting nowhere with a travel agent until ABTA stepped in. Only way I was getting the money owed.
5 stars.