“I do not recommend anyone to use their services. it was the first and last time we used onthebeach services. when booking the vacation, we chose a suitable flight, because we will be flying with children, so we did not want a night flight. we paid £40 for each person. 6 people will fly. after some time, it was changed to the same night flight for which we would not have to pay, because it was the cheapest flight. they wash their hands after contact with them. they said it's not their problem. I don't know why we were charged for a service we didn't receive.”
“AWFUL.... DO NOT BOTHER WITH THIS COMPANY.
I have spent a lot of money and time to get family holidays with this company. After our last experience I will NEVER go with this company ever again..... They didn't only put a LIE about a hotel "Bellagio Spa Beach and Resort" in Hurghada saying it's 4 star..... it's a hiddeous, disgusting place and RUDE Thieving staff members... do not visit this hotel.
They have hold of my mobile phone and are refusing to post it back to the UK I went to onthebeach for their help/ support and they did NOTHING but offer us a pathetic £75 voucher towards THEIR MESS.... Also clearly didn't care that much. I spent thousands on a holiday which was completely ruined and aftercare was not provided. They do not CARE and are obviously just money orientated. I have spent lots with onthebeach and never ever will I go with them again..... nor will my family and friends after my experience. My phone has been with the hotel after over a month and they are ignoring my emails my phone has pictures from our holiday in Egypt and personal photos of MY SON. MY advice is stay AWAY from on the beach and STAY AWAY from Bellagio in Hurghada.”
“When I booked with On the Beach as a package holiday, I expected it to be smooth sailing and it has been anything but! I have never been so stressed or spent so much time on the phone and on Live Chats trying to fix all the issues and errors your company had caused. I could have saved so much time and money booking everything myself.
When I first booked the holiday online, there was no mention of the fact we would then need to book our flights directly with Ryan Air. I went to do this, and the pre-paid card you sent would not work. I called On The Beach who put more money on the card (I would have thought you would have known to include any booking fees…) but the card still would not work. I called your team again and your staff member Paul said he would book it for me.
Fast forward to 2 weeks before the flight. Our party decided to pay for seats to sit together and thank goodness we did as we realized on the Boarding passes our flight had been booked wrong! We asked for the 6.30am flight and you had booked us on to the 9.30pm flight meaning we would lose a whole day of our holiday! All other paperwork, your website, the ATOL cert & the transfers were booked in line with the 6.30am flight. Had we not of made the decision to book our seats in advance, we would have arrived at the airport 15 hours early! And if this had of been the other way around, we would have missed the flight all together.
After countless more hours sat on hold trying to speak to someone, On the Beach admitted it was an error on your behalf. Luckily, there was still seats on the 6.30am flight but to my absolute disgust, I then had to fork out another £256.00 and book them myself!
I booked the new flights and was told I would get a refund. I then went to check the paperwork had been updated to show the new flight times and surprise, surprise.. it had not. Another 2 hours on hold, I spoke to someone else who said Paul had CANCELLED my refund! The lady I spoke to set up the refund again. Paul never asked which card the money should be refunded too so when I queried this with the lady, she said it couldn’t be refunded to my card it had to go to the last person from our party that logged in and made a payment towards the holiday, so my friend had to then transfer me the money back. Absolutely ridiculous.
I also spoke to Ryan Air who said I needed to Authorise my booking and should have been sent a link which I never received from you. I simply cannot believe how difficult you make this whole experience. Pre-paid cards, Unique email addresses, Videos I had to do of myself pulling different faces to prove who I am. I work on a computer for my job and found this all very difficult so goodness knows how anyone that isn’t tech savvy would cope!
I have had no real apology and when I asked for some kind of compensation, maybe the VIP lounge or something (which doesn’t cost much) I was told the online form is the only way to report my experience which isn’t very helpful considering I now depart in a week.. I hope something can be done as this holiday has gotten off to the start from hell & countless hours have been spent trying to do On the Beach’s job for them!”
“They keep increasing prices and they have a bad customer service. We confirmed a price they left me on hold and when she got back she told me the price increased by a £100 per person. They don't have fixed prices and lie about the airline changing its prices.”
“Very nice photos and description of a 4 star Greek hotel on the website. Turns out we have a cockroach infestation in our room. Contacted onthebeach after 2 nights and hotel refusing to move us immediately. No sleep as cockroachs were also in the bed. Onthebeach said they could not move us to a different hotel as it was up to the current hotel to sort out any problems. Onthebeach happy for their customers to sleep in cockroach infested rooms. It's best to avoid booking through onthebeach as they cannot or will not help.”
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On the Beach
Reviews 59,895 • Great
TrustScore 4 out of 5
4.2
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www.onthebea
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AVOID, TAKE YOUR MONEY AND LEAVE YOU STRANDED IN WRONG RESORT
Booked a 3 night stay in calella to attend the motogp. On arrival to the hotel were informed our private transfer had dropped us on the wrong hotel with the same name. Paid for a taxi to the correct hotel to discover it was in the wrong resort, the first hotel was the one we had actually requested. Out of hours team could not help late at night and so we paid for a taxi back to calella and paid for new accommodation for the night as well as food and drinks when we should have been all inclusive. First of 3 nights ruined. We have been refunded the cost of taxi's and the night one hotel although it takes up to a week to reach us and were offered £100 in vouchers towards a new holiday which we did not accept and instead asked for this as a refund. This was denied. We did not get the voucher either. After this ordeal we would not use this company again and so the offer would not benefit us. Asked to speak to a manager/decision maker and was denied stating we would need yo complete a form if we wished to complain. Disgraceful service, please be careful if using this company”
“If I could rate zero star I would. We travel in less than a month. Changes too flights which I found out accidentally and was not notified about for 1 week by on the beach and this was After 6 messages on there supposed live chat and a phone call to cancel the booking which was the only way I could speak to a human.. live chat Absolute lie. This is not a live chat, it is a bot and cuts you off. I have been messaging for 2 weeks now. Was on hold for 45 minutes and spoke with someone called Sarah who was lovely however since this 48 hours ago no phone call.. my sister was on hold for over 2 hours with no answer and had to end the call. Absolutely disgusted with this company. We have requested a telephone call on multiple occasions to just be ignored. Our messages are ignored. No actual direct number for customer service. They have taken 60% of our money and we require a full refund. This is our first family holiday since our mum died. The whole reason for booking was the good flight times, They have now been changed from 1.30pm to 1am the next day and travelling with 3 children under the age of 4 is just not doable. The dates that work for 6 adults having to all get the same time off work and the hotel we wanted to stay at. All this was why we booked with them. Never ever again. The stress and anxiety we are all currently going through regarding this issue is off the chart. I cannot write anything else as I am getting more and more frustrated. Paddy McGuinness Needs to have a word!!!!!”
“Can't speak to anyone. Lost over 2k. Hotel happy to move dates after my accident and other refused to try and help. Waste of time and money. Sent us to an absolute dump the holiday before. I should have cancelled the next one then and there.”
“It’s now over 28 days since I was promised a refund, told it would be processed in 5-7 working days again no correspondence or any sign of the refund I was promised I can provide your email supporting this.”
“Cancelled booking and some how a month later they obtained my new card details and still took over £400 out of my account even though they confirmed it had been cancelled a month before, I really would like to know how they got my new card details as I didn't even have the card delivered yet
Avoid at all costs and customer service is absolutely shocking”
“-Overcharged £100 when booking.
-Terrible phone queues to resolve above issue. Took days and hours of emails and calls.
-I questioned their free lounge as I read so many people got let down. Have at least 15 emails confirming I definitely have the lounge, only to be cancelled once I arrived at the airport! Was too late to get any other food before flight.
-Customer service representatives were awful when trying to discuss the lounge issue and refused to let me speak to a manager, and even threatened hanging up the phone if I asked one more time....I asked to speak to a manager again, and they hung up! Awful.
-Transfer information not available online, the local Spanish phoneline didn't have my information, and the emergency phone line for customers currently abroad.....well this was ironically closed!
Awful service from start to finish.
I fly 7 times per year, have never had such awful service, and will never use them again.”
“fter hours of phone calls on hold at the expense of 13p per min to myself, chat bot conversations and failed communications, being sent around the houses, I am still no further on.
The on the beach website misrepresented and miss sold a hotel room as part of our very expensive family holiday which we are yet to go on. They have given me something that was not described nor pictured and I have all the evidence in screen shots and correspondence to prove this.
I have the original screen shots of the website from when I booked and this Sunday. Funnily enough they have now rectified this error on the website and booking page and deny this error but clearly as Citizens advice said, this is an admission of their mistake????? However, they do not care, they do not respond when they say they will, they do not resolve the situation and basically tell you to its hard luck. This is their error and I am now in touch with both Trading Standards and the ombudsman.
(Which you cannot use ABTA as funnily enough they decided to with draw from them! Funny that!)
PLEASE PLEASE avoid at all costs. I have never had to write a complaint letter in my life and I cannot believe how they are treating people. I have been in touch with two others, one had theirs resolved (exactly the same error as mine). They want to charge me an extra £2K to upgrade to a room I have already been sold!!!
Update and response to On the beach - you have totally ignored the fact that your website showed the pictures of the wrong room as sent to you in screen shots in my complaint as explained before. So what you are saying on a public forum as an excuse is incorrect and another lie. I am now in the process of engaging a solicitor”
“The most hurrendous company to book with. They keep your money, tell lies, threaten you with legal action, make false allegations and refuse to ever speak to you over the phone. The worse holiday experience ever do not book with this company. They threaten to cancel your holiday and keep all of your money. You are paying them thousands for the stress.”
“Honestly shocking company, haven’t even been on the holiday yet and I’ve delt with more stress than ever. Can’t talk to anyone for help, they took £140 out of my account for a name change and didn’t actually end up changing the name till a few weeks ago when I paid way before December 2023. I was paying £181 a month for this holiday and just had an email saying they couldn’t take money out of my account even tho I knew I had £181 in there for it, went onto my booking payments to see they have randomly changed the price to £208 a month with no notice or explanation at all! Will never book with this company again, supposed to be exiting booking a holiday but I’d rather not go now!! Absolutely shameful of this company. Don’t book with this.”
“Just booked with this clown company and realised why I stopped using them years ago I will never use them ever again, I would rather never have a holiday in my lifetime.”
“Nightmare. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Booked a holiday- airline cancelled flights and cannot stop direct debit payments because will be charged additionally for that even though I'm entitled to a full refund, would still have to pay these charges- meaning will be paying for a holiday I'm not going on and operations team prioritise the cancellations within the next 14 days meaning could be waiting months until this issue is resolved- no telephone number provided to the operations team to sort an issue which should take 5 mins on the phone. VERY POOR.”
“I haven’t got ne yet and feel quite ill all day trying to talk to someone, because their tel nos that open at 8am are not taking calls! I think they check your booking no and block you! I got thro to while on holiday and she was lovely, but the booking is thro someone else. I booked 3 days ago and last 2 days been trying to get the balcony I requested. The final booking knocked it off ! I will be suing when home. It’s stressful and heartbreaking for them to do this, plus I booked a balcony room for £100 less with booking.com, but Otb blocked a refund after 3 days! So sadly I cancelled the booking.com. I live In Weymouth with a sea view balcony, why would I book a basement room! I have a screenshot of the room I was pressing on, you have a week to fix this, or off to court I go!”
