“This is an awful system. I wished I had just booked the flights with easyjet myself. It would have taken 10 minutes whereas I've been trying to download all the apps involved for best part of 2 hours. Not good if yr an android user and live chat is closed. Awful system. Never ever again!”
“Booked and paid for a holiday for a friend's 50th birthday. Received an email to say 'hotel is unavailable', please choose another? Why would you want to go to a completely different hotel when it's a group holiday for a 50th birthday party? Emailed twice to ask to cancel the holiday & ignored. However, surprisingly enough when I went onto online chat, same advisor 'Sarah' answers immediately?? The only response I recieved was that they have, 'no control over availability'. Wow, so what is the point of booking a holiday if you aren't guaranteed said holiday?? Talk about taking no responsibility or account as a company. This is the first time I have booked with this company and what a poor, shambolic disappointing experience it's been! Thanks for ruining my holiday!!!”
“Hotel was charged at 1300 more than the website, wouldn’t honour price promise as a group booking. Spent over 2 hours trying to sort through chat, can’t speak on phone as digital company. Customer service is non existent, do not book maybe cheaper but they do not rectify problems and you cannot speak to a human ,”
“Booked to go to Skiathos package, called me the hotel was unavailable gave me 3 alternative hotels all within the same vicinity, booked a suitable one only to discover it was in Crete on a different Island. The customer Service was dreadful, they admitted to their mistakes but blamed me for not checking. I have had to pay a cancelation fee, I would not recommend this company..”
“Shocking bad customer service. They canceled my holiday a few weeks before departure. Still waiting for a refund. I would hate to experience what it would be like if i needed their assistance while on holiday. Best avoid.”
“Very poor customer service, no responsibility for bookings made through them. No clarity for exactly what you have booked online. No willingness to put any problems right.”
“I booked a holiday online and used the smart booking system to book the flights. I no thought this would be easy , it wasn’t. I found this really challenging as I had only booked three 23kg bags for four passengers and it wouldn’t let me progress to next step unless I booked four bags . I used the live chat which wasn’t a great experience but eventually flights and bags were booked
Seats weren’t included which I thought they were so booked these direct through the airline .
I was then contacted by on the beach through text message to say the wrong bags were booked and I had booked seats through smart book they wanted another £299. I explained I had confirmation of booking , screen shots of booking and seats were booked direct with the airline definitely not through smart book . I was then told the wrong bags were booked and no further reference made to the seats .
I requested four times someone call me as in their website I could only book the one size bag which I had done so couldn’t understand where things had gone wrong . My requests for someone to call me were not even acknowledged completely ignored . This issue still isn’t sorted out , currently I am on hold to the airline I hope they are more helpful.
Extremely poor customer service and experience. On the beach if you are reading this please call me !! Reference MYB13704243B”
“Stay away from On The Beach, they are a scam company and ignore your consumer rights.
The customer service is s non existent, the apps don't work, the holiday booking is very difficult to navigate. Complaint made and they take forever to respond.
Recommend to all customers to stay away from this dangerous, scam company”
“I recently booked a family holiday through this company, and while waiting for confirmation, I received an email thanking me for my booking. However, it also stated that the hotel had sold out for the dates I had selected. Upon further inspection, I discovered the same hotel and dates were still available on the website, but at three times the price I was initially quoted.
The live chat team was helpful, but unfortunately, they were unable to resolve the issue, attributing it to a third-party issue. If that’s the case, I understand, but I found the website to be misleading and unreasonable, particularly for those on a tight budget or with limited flexibility due to childcare.
I hope the company can review and address this issue to prevent similar situations for future customers. Overall, this experience has been extremely disappointing.”
“Scammers that hit you with booking flight fee after 1 hr , although it is stated 24 hrs (in the tine where you can book for flights yourself).
0 trading standards”
“So I've booked a weekend to benidorm for the 11th January as a surprise for my partners birthday on the 12th January, was meant to be all inclusive, my search was spefic to what I wanted, so went ahead and booked this hotel, to then look at the atol certificate and it been only just bed and breakfast, so I did a little research to find that the hotel booked does not even do all inclusive, so it's been put up as false advertisement, now there is nothing that can be done because it's less than 21 days, I was told I would receive a call yesterday at 6pm and never did, so today is the 7th still nothing has been done to resolve this situation, I just keep getting fobbed off, and refused a call back from anyone because it's gone to complaints, it is illegal to false advertise, I would never use on the beach again, such a horrible customer service system when you can not speak to anyone”
“Carnival of Fraud - Rip off Tip Off
This is how on the beach trade.
9 months after paying in full for a package holiday booked with On the Beach. I knew something was wrong when they got me to book my flights myself and added £800 by manipulating me. Trading standards advised me they had booked my flights illegally as I was not on the phone to them at the time the flights were booked and the operator deliberately did not include baggage as it was cheaper with this added and then charged extra £800 to add later. Price with baggage was £80 less than price quoted without baggage because of the offers Ryan air was offering. They lied and manipulated to rip me off for bigger commissions. But by pretending to be me this is illegal so I advised them of this as their illegal trading meant an extra £800 was added to my flight price. This is when their true colors shone through. So when I advised them that it was illegal to book my flights the way they did they tried to cover up their fraud by canceling the illegal flight booking and still kept my money. Discovered they cancelled my flights 10 days before departure and they had received a full refund (in my name) a month before departure by pretending to be me and requesting refund as me and breaking GDPR law? No notification, no contact at all. I sent 25 emails to every department including the CEO asking what to do - not one was responded to. Treacherous. I also logged several complaints and received the following ticket numbers 64332, 210943, 109372, 69502 all should have been responded to within 30 days, 9 months later still no reply. I had to rebook and pay for my flights again. They broke their own terms and conditions by not adding baggage as requested at time of booking. They still owe me £1600 for my flights and compensation and I have taken legal advice and now know I am entitled to a full refund of the package holiday of over £4,000 for destroying my holiday package and the stress and anxiety and financial difficulty caused by them had a catastrophic effect on my health.
DO NOT TRUST ON THE BEACH WITH YOUR FAMILY AND TRAVEL SAFETY.
NICOLE SHOULD BE MADE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE FRAUD SHE COMMITTED SHE IS A TREACHEROUS PERSON WHO HAPPILY RIPPED ME OFF OF £800 INSTEAD OF SAVING ME £80.”
“Communication process is extremely poor
A refund of a £100 voucher was offered to me when on the beach failed to inform me of a cancelled flight when they were notified by British airways on 30th September and I was due to fly to NYC for my mums 60th on 21st Oct! The communication has been awful. I have an email from BA confirming this and OTB acknowledged that the app wasn’t updated until the day I was due to fly they are telling me all is well and counting down the days until my holiday. Telling me to look forward to the beach and get the suncream ready! I was going to NYC in October! No personal service just awful!
Sue to panic trying to get flights for that same day it ended up costing me £5,000 because they didn’t tell me of this cancelled flight in September had I had know new flights would have been a fraction of the cost.
When I first booked the holiday they told me I was flying with virgin but was in-fact delta but they used the virgin Atlantic logo again we only found out about this when they called to say flight time had changed ( this was several
Months ago) to which we didn’t want to fly with Delta and had to pay additional £200 to fly with BA.
I have sent in a-lot of documents to prove all the above that they are at fault!
I am expecting a refund of a sufficient amount to rectify your costly error to myself but they offered me a voucher to re book with them for £100!
They are quick to respond to reviews on here but not to emails or phone calls
Very unsatisfied customer awful service avoid at all costs! Do not take the risk this will happen to you”
“It’s a dodge company really!
Extremely poorly customer service!
My holiday was more a frustration and stressful than enjoyable.
Untrustworthy and very unprofessional. They lying about everything and you will be disappointed with everything.
It’s A dodge company really”
“Prior to booking our holiday with On the Beach (OTB), I contacted the hotel that we were interested in directly to find out if the hotel could meet my sons’ needs (he is a wheelchair user and cannot walk). I enquired as to whether the hotel had accessible accommodation and if so was there availability on the dates we wanted to travel. The hotel Voyage Sorgun Turkey were really helpful they gave me the information on their accessible rooms and they confirmed that there was availability on the dates we required. However, I was told that the booking needed to come through the travel agent as they could only reserve the accessible room with a booking reference number. I immediately contacted OTB and explained the situation and my sons’ needs, I also responded to the email from OTB after my conservation with their operative. As instructed I made the booking with OTB and was told that it could take several days to confirm our booking as they would need to contact the hotel directly to confirm the accessible room and dates. Several days later I received confirmation.
Things started to go horribly wrong as soon as we tried to check in with Jet2, they informed us that they hadn’t been made aware that our son was a wheelchair user, no assisted travel had been booked and the seats allocated to us were in the middle of the plane and not together. Jet2 said that there was nothing they could do as the plane was full. The situation deteriorated further at the boarding gate when I pointed out again to Jet2 staff that my son would require assistance and aisle chair to get him to his seat which was in the middle of the plane and passengers had already started boarding. Staff then took the next 40 minutes trying to rearrange the seating. They eventually got us seats at the rear of the plane. This situation was extremely stressful and distressing for our family, particularly so our son who doesn’t deserve to be treated in such an undignified manor.
Arriving at the hotel in the early hours of the morning we soon discovered that there was no accessible room available as this hadn’t been booked either by our travel agent OTB. The situation became very tense, we had been travelling all day, we’d had a negative experience with the flight and now the same thing was happening trying to check into the hotel. I explained that I had made our needs clear when booking and had contacted the hotel directly to see if they had accessible rooms. They found my email but after several searches confirmed that they’d had nothing from OTB. I was given a pack whilst checking in which had a number for the holiday rep. We rang the number given and was swiftly told that he wasn’t a rep as OTB didn’t have reps in Turkey and the hotel would need to sort something and I should contact OTB directly myself and to boot did I know what time it was! As we had no alternative we finally had to accept the room allocated, this did not meet our sons needs in any way; there were steps up to the room, the toilet was very small, no grab rails, no way to transfer as his wheelchair and carer couldn’t fit in the space together. The shower was the same, the bed was a rock hard couch not at all suitable for someone with cerebral palsy.
I sent several emails to OTB and failed to get any response, I later discovered that the customer care email was no longer in use, what a surprise! I then contacted OTB using the online chat, this turned out to be a total waste of time and the responses I was getting I found very annoying and upsetting. I requested a copy of the online chat and was given a link. As soon as I clicked on the link the chat was gone and I couldn’t retrieve it. Whilst on the chat I requested that I be provided with the voice recordings of my conversations/transcripts with OTB prior to and during the booking process.. I was also told that OTB would phone me direct, I received a text to say that they had tried to contact me several times. I had kept my phone with me awaiting there call, nothing came through (that probably had something to do with using the free data Hubby sim that came free with the OTB booking, that was also a waste of time and clearly didn’t work).
I am absolutely livid that OTB said that I didn’t tell them about my sons’ needs. I have since found out that ours is not an isolated incident and OTB have a bad reputation when it comes especially to disabled traveller’s needs, a common complaint seems to be OTB’s failure to communicate with airlines and hotels. What OTB totally fail to understand are that our requests weren’t likes; we’d like a toilet with rails, we’d like a shower that he can get in and actually shower. THEY ARE NEEDS!!!
We have now been home 6 weeks and our complaint hasn’t been taken seriously, OTB have the audacity to try and blame me for their incompetence. In one of the emails OTB thanked me for my feedback, I had to remind them that I wasn’t giving feedback I was making a complaint!
When we arrived at the hotel I requested the correspondence that OTB had with the hotel requesting an accessible room, in order that I could show this to the hotel management. OTB did not provide this information to me. Now 8 weeks on OTB are using a reference number against a request made to the hotel. I believe this to be completely fictitious, otherwise why wasn’t this provide as soon as it was requested. My request for copies/transcripts of my telephone calls and online chats have only partially been meet by OTB. The most important call where my sons’ needs were discussed have not been provided despite giving the date and the exact time of the call. No surprise there and no surprise that the spreadsheet detailing my contact with OTB has been edited. On the Beach are completely unscrupulous they failed us miserably and failed to provide us with what we booked, they caused us undue stress and failed to treat my son in particular with dignity and respect.
My warning to you is to avoid On the Beach at all costs!”
“I couldn’t give zero stars so the 1 star is probs for the people taking the booking / money as the customer service responses are the same copied and pasted patronising messages “sorry it’s taken me 28 days to respond however computer says nooooo”
Flights were fine nothing to complain about so well done airlines.
Get to the hotel in Marrakesh about 12pm midnight tired, ready for bed, expecting this wonderfull 4* colourful amazing hotel to be greeted by a man bare foot with toe nails longer than a ruler. Get to the room opened the door smells like my fellas farts after an all you can eat Chinese, walk in the room to cats yep that’s right CATS on the beds! I mean I’ve stayed In some places but the Prosecco on the plane by this point had wore off so we walked out.
Tried to call on the beach could not get through 1am now where do we go? Luckily we find a stunning hotel not so far which we had an amazing holiday in thinking right! let’s not set the tone we will log the complaint with the hotel manager and contact on the beach when we return for a refund ohhhh was we wrong!
“Computer says noooooooo” we are very sorry but as you did not stay on hold for 15 hours at 1am in the morning after being greeting by cats on the bed we can not do anything about this here’s a we have pulled your pants down pity offer for £50 of your next holiday with on the beach!
Please note I apologise for my grammar I am typing that fast like a Karen because this deserves to be out there.”
“We booked a holiday to Sharm el Sheikh with On The Beach. After entering that our party consisted of 2 adults and 2 children, we were offered several room types. A family room was not offered, and although competitors were offering a family room for a similar price, we opted to book with On The Beach as the return flight was at a more preferable time for our young children. I wanted to contact On The Beach in advance to confirm that the Deluxe Sea View Room we had booked would be suitable for our family. This is not an easy thing to do. I eventually had to use their Live Chat function, and after several hopeless responses from their travel bot finally spoke to someone who informed me that I wasn't able to change my booking, but that the room type would be suitable. Upon arrival, it was clear that the room was not suitable for a family, in fact the hotel expressed their surprise that we had been able to book the room for a family of 4. I spent almost an hour trying to contact the in-resort team, to be told that the room type was described during the booking process, so that the error was in fact mine. I took it upon myself to book an additional room with the hotel, which then gave us 2 connected double rooms at a cost of £571.50. I raised a complaint with the in-resort team, along with a photo of the cramped conditions of our original room, and once again received no apology and was very quickly told that nothing could be done. My family and I had a great holiday, the hotel was very comfortable, and the staff couldn't do enough for us. However, the booking process and after-sales customer service from On The Beach was among the worst I have ever experienced. I would strongly recommend that customers do not book with this Company, and chose more reputable competitors who have dedicated customer service teams for all aspects of their bookings.”
“Booked an holiday via on the beach , recieved an email that my flight had been changed to an earlier tike, informed on the beach I could not make the earlier flight time , was offered no alternatives, Wanting to charge me £1200 cancellation fee , Took over 6 weeks of repeated emails and Live chats for someone to actually reply to me and then all they had to say to me is that they can change your flights and anything under 12 hours does not entitle you to a refund , Awaiting an email back now to see how they justify the extortionate cancellation fee”
