The Thomas Cook Thread
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Paul Wilson,
Good for you but not all 16 year olds are the same. Believe it or not, I still don't feel particularly confident transitting unfamiliar airports at the grand old age of 37 and I'm crew!
Better to be aware than seeing the whole world through rosy tinted spectacles. As she gets older, she will learn to differentiate between real and imagined danger.
You are right. It isn't the airlines responsibility but if I have read the post correctly, then that isn't the point that Egerton Flyer is making. It's the fact that the check in staff member told the family that escorting her through the airport would be no problem and then set a time for her to come back, presumably knowing that check in would be closed by then. In other words, he/she fobbed her off rather than having to explain that the airline did not offer such a service and possibly risk an unhappy family at the desk. He/she could have at least pointed the family in the direction of the Airport Info desk where she should have been able to get a map and detailed instructions on the airport procedures and where she needed to go. It may have helped to allay her fears somewhat.
Good for you but not all 16 year olds are the same. Believe it or not, I still don't feel particularly confident transitting unfamiliar airports at the grand old age of 37 and I'm crew!
If you (or the young lady concerned) have been conditioned to think that every stranger is a potential rapist/thief/con-artist that is all they are ever going to find!
At 16 she she should be well able to negotiate an airport - it is certainly not the airlines responsibility to sort her out (unless large fees have been paid for the privelege)
Confused - I thought Thomas Cook had dropped premium on all of its routes but having just checked the Canadian Affair website it is still on offer even as late as June next year. Anyone know what is happening please?
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Maybe Canadian Affair are willing to charge the pax the extra tax for the use of premium seats? Canadian Affair are chartering the aircraft and they say how they want the aircraft configured - as changed for this season (A330) back to the poor legroom which is a shame. The B757 legroom is fantastic however 
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Thomas Cook
Not bad service for a no frills airline. Very pleasant staff. Can't say the same for Air Transat, 'though, as we didn't get food or drink until half way to London.
May I suggest you pre-book your seat? I paid 6 months in advance for my flights this summer, but didn't prebook my seats as I travelled alone & thought I was doing them a favour by being flexible. This almost cost me my return flight as T. Cook was overbooked by 20 pax. Was the very last one onto the plane.
May I suggest you pre-book your seat? I paid 6 months in advance for my flights this summer, but didn't prebook my seats as I travelled alone & thought I was doing them a favour by being flexible. This almost cost me my return flight as T. Cook was overbooked by 20 pax. Was the very last one onto the plane.
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Going charter is not always the best option IMHO.
Regards
G-BPED
Went out in Feb Canadian Affair / Thomas Cook - premium; returned BA two weeks later in WT. After that experience, would have gladly paid double to CA/TC if there had been seats. (Olympic-time.)
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Thomas Cook to LAS
We're getting set for our trip to Sin City, and have heard a rumour that the airline have taken the IFE from the seat backs?
It's not the end of the world as i have a portable dvd, just don't want to lug it around if it's not actually needed as the IFE has been of a decent standard in the past!
Hopefully someone in cyber world will know the answer to this question?
Cheers
J6T
It's not the end of the world as i have a portable dvd, just don't want to lug it around if it's not actually needed as the IFE has been of a decent standard in the past!
Hopefully someone in cyber world will know the answer to this question?
Cheers
J6T
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Thomas Cook Questions
I am booked on Thomas Cook to go to the Dominican Republic to Punta Cana in March 2011 and have booked the premium seating! With hearing all these rumours, yes they are removing them, no they are not , yes they are, no they are not???!! What is going on? Are they going to be keeping them? As I am sure many other people have already booked on Premium for next year as well?
I contacted Canadian Affair about 3 weeks ago re the premium seats in TCX A332s and they assured me that on their summer 2011 Canadian flights, premium is available. Its a question of who you believe ( ?)
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In terms of actual seats they arent removing them, on TC long haul routes after May 2011 they wont be sold as Premium to avoid the tax problem, so will be extra leg room with no premium benefits, except candian affair which ends next year anyway
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I have just read that TCX are removing the Premium Seat option from outbound flights from May 2011, but will retain it on the inbound leg on which APD is not payable.
l have no idea how they are going to make it work, but a guess might be that you pay £XXX for the return leg and get a free Premium seat on the outbound leg.
l have no idea how they are going to make it work, but a guess might be that you pay £XXX for the return leg and get a free Premium seat on the outbound leg.
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Its £50 for the return journey with no benefits apart from wider seats and legroom. You have the option to sit anywhere on the outbound flights, the outbound premium cabin is to be sold as extra legroom.
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Thomas Cook, Avoid Like The Plague
Just had the awful experience of trying to book a simple return flight on Thomas Cook's "website". (there should be an "h" between the s and i...)
I asked for dates that correspond with their timetable. It acepted them and I booked the flight only to discover afterwards that their computer system had arbitarily changed the dates of the flight to the following week. Apparently it does this if the flight you asked for is not available but it does not actually tell you its done so. Ticket was expensive, baggage extra. As this is a non refund airline I begin to smell rotten fish...
After 15 minutes holding on a premium rate phone line a human being finally answers and changes the flight to what I'd booked in the first place and confirms it; new details will be e-mailed shortly. Cost £10 to change it. Total 25 mins on line.
Go to book hire car. Fill in all the boxes down to final confirmation, think let's check e-mail first. 2 new e-mails both giving identical details to the incorrectly booked flight that had been confirmed by 2 identical e-mails (why the duplication?) 45 minutes earlier. Oh dear!
Twenty minutes holdng now, during tis time a further e-mail arrives to say the flight booked "is not available" which is odd as their rep has confirmed it half an hour previously. Please call the premium rate line to change/refund. Ha ha.
Rep explains that "someone else must have booked the seat literally just before the previous agent booked it for you" and apparently expected me to swallow that bolleaux, and offers to find a flight from another airport. Comes back 10 mins later to say "although you said you couldn't travel before the 9th we've got a flight on the 8th"! Wow! That's impressive. If they have a social programme to employ morons they really shouldn't put tem on the telephone hotline? Seemed miffed when I pointed out that 8th is actually before 9th. Then said triumphantly there's a flight from Glasgow later in the week. Brilliant! Not really near London, is it? She goes away to check on something else. I look at the website. GLA flies to destination on Wednesdays not the Tuesday she'd mentioned. There is no GLA flight on Tuesdays. I take the booking process for the GLA Weds flight as far as I can and the system accepts it. Agent comes back and I query the Tues/Weds conundrum. No, I'm wrong, there is no flight on Weds. I tell her I'm looking at their website and am actually trying to book it so I'm not imagining it. No. Tuesday is the day she says. Not on your website it isn't! Well, we're updating the website she fibs hopefully, and there are two systems she explains helpfully, obviously (that word!) the Tues flight isn't one you can book on the internet. What about the Weds flight? It doesn't run on Wednesdays she tells me. It doesn't exist. (Except on the internet booking system)
45 minutes all that bs took, and I still can't get to where I need to go.
Clearly TC haven't a fugging clue what they're doing, their computer booking system seems to be deliberately designed to book you incorrectly so they grab a change fee, their timetable doesn't correspond to the one in front of their telephone agents, or when aeroplanes actually fly, they apparently have two different booking systems, one invisible to the agent and the other to the public which contain different flight details, they are capable of booking and confirming you on a flight that turns out later to be "unavailable", and to add insult to injury charge you to hang on for hours on their undermanned telephone system listening to numpties full of the most unimaginative wet excuses ever.
Disgraceful, shoddy and dishonest beyond belief. I shall be using Onur Air/Ryanair in future in preference to this bunch of idiots.
Please, be warned.
I asked for dates that correspond with their timetable. It acepted them and I booked the flight only to discover afterwards that their computer system had arbitarily changed the dates of the flight to the following week. Apparently it does this if the flight you asked for is not available but it does not actually tell you its done so. Ticket was expensive, baggage extra. As this is a non refund airline I begin to smell rotten fish...
After 15 minutes holding on a premium rate phone line a human being finally answers and changes the flight to what I'd booked in the first place and confirms it; new details will be e-mailed shortly. Cost £10 to change it. Total 25 mins on line.
Go to book hire car. Fill in all the boxes down to final confirmation, think let's check e-mail first. 2 new e-mails both giving identical details to the incorrectly booked flight that had been confirmed by 2 identical e-mails (why the duplication?) 45 minutes earlier. Oh dear!
Twenty minutes holdng now, during tis time a further e-mail arrives to say the flight booked "is not available" which is odd as their rep has confirmed it half an hour previously. Please call the premium rate line to change/refund. Ha ha.
Rep explains that "someone else must have booked the seat literally just before the previous agent booked it for you" and apparently expected me to swallow that bolleaux, and offers to find a flight from another airport. Comes back 10 mins later to say "although you said you couldn't travel before the 9th we've got a flight on the 8th"! Wow! That's impressive. If they have a social programme to employ morons they really shouldn't put tem on the telephone hotline? Seemed miffed when I pointed out that 8th is actually before 9th. Then said triumphantly there's a flight from Glasgow later in the week. Brilliant! Not really near London, is it? She goes away to check on something else. I look at the website. GLA flies to destination on Wednesdays not the Tuesday she'd mentioned. There is no GLA flight on Tuesdays. I take the booking process for the GLA Weds flight as far as I can and the system accepts it. Agent comes back and I query the Tues/Weds conundrum. No, I'm wrong, there is no flight on Weds. I tell her I'm looking at their website and am actually trying to book it so I'm not imagining it. No. Tuesday is the day she says. Not on your website it isn't! Well, we're updating the website she fibs hopefully, and there are two systems she explains helpfully, obviously (that word!) the Tues flight isn't one you can book on the internet. What about the Weds flight? It doesn't run on Wednesdays she tells me. It doesn't exist. (Except on the internet booking system)
45 minutes all that bs took, and I still can't get to where I need to go.
Clearly TC haven't a fugging clue what they're doing, their computer booking system seems to be deliberately designed to book you incorrectly so they grab a change fee, their timetable doesn't correspond to the one in front of their telephone agents, or when aeroplanes actually fly, they apparently have two different booking systems, one invisible to the agent and the other to the public which contain different flight details, they are capable of booking and confirming you on a flight that turns out later to be "unavailable", and to add insult to injury charge you to hang on for hours on their undermanned telephone system listening to numpties full of the most unimaginative wet excuses ever.
Disgraceful, shoddy and dishonest beyond belief. I shall be using Onur Air/Ryanair in future in preference to this bunch of idiots.
Please, be warned.