Hays Travel

When we contacted Hays Travel for a quote on our trip to New York, we were met with a price higher than we could book it ourselves (Although we'd not be ATOL protected if we did that). After thinking about it for a week or so we called them back up and got a new quote - this time with a different agent.


Heres what happened:

Agent 1:
Price around £2100


Agent 2:
Then an extra £120 to pay by deposit.
Then more fees for prebooking seats (even including the AA flight when AA don't charge to prebook your seats!)

Price around £2500.


Back to Agent 1 the next day:

Same price as the first time she got us a quote, NO charge to prebook seats with AA, and NO charge to pay by deposit.



So I contacted Hays Travel Via Twitter, who insisted on discussing it in direct messages.

It took 10 days to get a reply after they said they would investigate, and the reply on the 10th day said "we'll investigate this today".

What had they been doing the previous 10 days? Do they not care since i've booked with them either way?


Here's the full chat minus my public tweets where I asked them what was going on because i'd waited so long for a reply:


Me
Hays Travel

Hi Rachel, I am investigating your query today, I will update you as soon as I have spoke to the travel consultants you dealt with.

Thanks - Natalie

Jul 3

Thank you, Jackie was great so please pass on how pleased we were with her

Jul 3

Hi Rachel, I have investigated your query and have spoken to Solara who dealt with Mrs Bell.

She said she spent a lot of time on the enquiry to get the best deal to which Mrs Bell seemed happy with.

We are pleased that you were happy with the service you received from Jackie and we will be sure to feed this back.

Jul 3

As you have managed to book your holiday, what would your ideal outcome of this be? Thanks - Natalie

Jul 3

I didn't have a complaint, I was just asking why one was charging us to pay by deposit and the other wasn't.

Jul 3

Can you tell me why one said you had to pay over £100 extra if we wanted to pay by deposit, and the other one didn't charge us extra?

Also why one was charging us more to prebook our seats on a flight than the other? For the exact same flights.

Jul 4

Hi Rachel, We have investigated this issue and can find no fault with the booking agents involved. We can only assume that there has...1/2

Jul 6

...been some crossed wires somewhere or that the price of the flights fluctuated as they often do. Can I help you with anything else? ~Helen

Jul 6

It wasn't the price of the flight - after getting a quote we instantly asked if we could pay by deposit - to be told the price would go up

The flights didn't go up £120 in the space of 5min, and then go down further than that the next day when we booked.

Jul 6



It is now July 7th at the time of writing this and they've still not answered my question.

I just want to know WHY an agent was trying to charge me to pay via deposit, and IF they do this in their branches and don't inform you of it as i've booked in branch twice in recent years (something has gone wrong every single time i've booked with Hays, i'm not entirely sure why I keep going back now).



*UPDATE*

Hays have now replied saying a deposit couldn't be offered on that deal as everything was booked separately rather than a package [even though another agent booked us the entire same thing - same flights, same hotel, EVERYTHING.] Its as if they don't train their agents the same.

That is of course, ignoring the fact that a deposit was offered, but for an additional charge.

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