halalholidays.co.uk Avis 2

I have been using Halal Holidays for years! I have always had a smooth experience with a knowledgeable team providing advice on the best hotels and activities for our needs. I have visited Saudi, Turkey and Maldives through Halal Holidays and am looking to book my Umrah package through them this year - I couldn't recommend them enough. Thank you!

I have used this travel agent twice now. The first time the process was simple enough, the only hiccup was the airport transfer arrangement upon our arrival to the country.

The second time it was such a headache. Yet I wasn't planning on posting a review.
I already knew what hotel and airline I wanted to take, I even selected the time slots. So really not sure what the point it was to use their service since the quotes they gathered for me weren't that great. The travel agent would get back to me swiftly when prompting me to buy the package but would take a huge amount of time, frequently until the end of the day to get back to me about anything else.
And I would also sometimes recieve a reply at 5/5:30pm which said "I am logging off now will have to get to this tomorrow".
And then I would recieve no updates the entire next day.

I had also requested things like early check in, and information from the hotel. I could wait hours or days and recieve no response. Yet if I took it into my own hands and contacted the hotel, I was able to arrange these things in 5-10minutes.

When I wanted to amend my booking. The amendment was made and I was later told I was not charged anything as a courtesy, yet I wasnt even made aware of the fee beforehand. I then was asked if I wanted to include a special dinner package from the hotel that was not mentioned in my original booking. When I asked about this 3x or more I suddenly recieved no clarity or response about it.
I complained to the manager and some of this stuff was resolved. They put the early check in and check out requests in but surprise, I didn't hear anything from them. Yet directly contacting the hotel I had it solved in a few seconds.

After my trip they asked me for feedback, and I decided to be polite. I just mentioned in my next visit I would probably choose a different hotel. I would imagine this would be useful for the travel agent to know for future clients. However the response I recieved was like a child "you picked it"
....
The taxi service they also hired for airport transfers were visibly less quality than the car service provided by the tour company I used whilst in the country.
And the customer service and smooth management of everything by the tour company in contract to this travel agent was stark. The tour company was booked after but they also offered hotel selection and airport transfers within their package. I should have gone with that and booked the flights myself. As any hotel information or amendments to bookings was a huge obstacle with this this travel agent. And my tour company was a huge delight and probably would have handled it all better.

Its only after the response I got to my polite feedback did I decide to make this review!

I will try somewhere else next time