On the BeachReviews 268

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! Worst experience I have ever had with any company in my life. Falsely advertised the holiday, over charged, 0 customer service, impossible to contact, only have chat bots, waiting up to 4 hours online with no response, no email address, no customer service number. I am ASTONISHED this company are still trading. Do not put yourself through the traumatic ordeal I have been through book elsewhere.

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.

I urge everyone to be cautious with On The Beach.

I 'booked' a holiday with them last week, or so I thought, only for the experience to give me nothing but frustration and stress. I shall not be using them again.

Communication has been a shambles. The company took my money only to then tell me 5 days later that my booking would not be available, thus causing more expense as availability lessened and prices got higher. There was no advance warning when booking that there would be a wait for confirmation and prices would therefore not be guaranteed. This is a scamming practice. What kind of travel agent in this day and age doesn't have live up-to-date access to availability for bookings?

Communication given from the website or from staff via telephone was either misleading or false. Three times I called the company, each with a long wait between 45 - 75 minutes just on hold (and on one occasion suddenly getting cut off), and information given from staff just didn't add up or give me any confidence that they were in control. Once things started to look fishy there was no way for me to cancel my 'pending booking' online, nor an effective way to get in touch with them, but yet they still had taken my money.

Just looking at other recent reviews from customers with similar bad reports is alarming. Allowing customers to book a package holiday, where they select preferred flights, but then later informing them to book their own flights? With a prepaid credit card number given that often doesn't work, and having to use a weird unique gobbledegook
Email address that isn't the customer's own? It's all so dodgy.

Voicing my complaint and concerns on their Facebook page in a single post, in a constructive and mature manner, has had me blocked from the group. What does this tell you?

And the scammers that are targeting worried customers concerns with the fake whatsapp number thats all over their social media posts is still going unchallenged by On The Beach.

I am now left in a position of finding On The Beach untrustworthy, and anxious over if my holiday will have problems that will leave me unsecure or out of pocket at last minute whilst abroad.

Very shocking.

An operator to avoid.
This online travel agency is a big scam.

Firstly, when I booked the package (Flight + Hotel) on September 5,2023, the agreement was to pay the full amount over 4 months (October, November, December and January) but last December I realised that They planned two payments in the same month of December. I had to call to delay the second payment for December until early January. They agreed but of course they charged me £10 for it. Despite this agreement which cost me £10, on December 27 they made a second direct debit for the month of December. This direct debit was declined by my bank for insufficient balance and which cost me £10 in bank fees.

Secondly, after paying in full for my vacation booked on September 5,2023, they inform me at the last minute that the hotel will be closed and they force me to cancel my vacation instead of finding another hotel similar to my initial hotel. So I was forced to cancel my vacation booked 4 months ago and I have to wait another 7 days for them to refund me the full amount already paid. That means my January 2024 vacation is ruined. In addition, they made fun of me by asking me to cancel and rebook with another operator knowing that at the last minute it is too late and impossible to find a similar stay at the same price for September 2023.

They didn't even offer me any commercial gesture or compensation for all these costs and time wasted for nothing.

I strongly advise against this operator because they do not respect these commitments to customers and because of their unprofessional and poor customer service.

Better to pay a little more with another more serious and professional operator in order to avoid these last minute inconveniences and find yourself without a hotel or flight at the last minute and you will be forced to cancel your vacation. This was my case.

In order to obtain compensation for my damage, I decided to initiate the procedure with the ombudsman.

Below is a copy of one of these responses to my complaint:

We can offer full refund for your booking including your flights and you can look to rebook through another operator>

Kind Regards
On the Beach

I will never book with these again, the booking seemed so easy and then realised you get no extras included in the cost. They also allow you to pay for luggage that the third party airlines won't accept as it not booked through. Just returned after having to pay another £75 on top of the £100 bag (and ridiculous admin fee of £45) because the airline didn't accept the booking through on the beach. Currently reporting them to the ombudsmen for selling an item they legally couldn't.

Good evening

We were due to fly back to Gatwick from Lanzarote today at 19.35. Flight number BA2733. Unfortunately the flight has been cancelled.

I am writing to complain about the lack of contact from you about the cancellation and when the next available flight is. It is your responsibility to get us home. Trying to get through on your contact number is impossible, recorded message saying lines are closed at 5 but says 7 on our booking.
Appreciate it has been a difficult day but the lack of contact from you is worrying and unacceptable.

I'd booked and paid for my holiday but then I wanted to add on an extra passenger. I was helped by Vicki, Nicholas M and Barbara.
They made it so easy and stress free. I've booked a few times with On the beach and never had any issues. Would definitely recommend. Thank you

Worst booking operator ever. Mis-sells holiday packages as fully inclusive, where client is faced with a number of extra charges at destination.
In our example we booked a fully inclusive (expensive) package, only to be charged Eur 300 extra at the hotel - just to use the hotel. (This was not the standard tax which we also paid on arrival). Towels and daily rental of them were on top (irrespective of one using them or not) and water was the only 'included beverage'. Any other drink (inc soft drinks, teas and coffees) was extra. Their customer service did NOT answer the phone when we tried to reach them from abroad, and takes them weeks to respond to a complaint - saying sorry cannot help. Never ever again!

The onthebeach hoel reps(!) in Turkey are forcing Customers to buy excursions. They are not even hotel reps. They buy customers personal data from onthebeach hotel supplier for 3 pounds per person. Just ignore those hotel rep(Thieves) do not buy nothing

Ruined our holiday! Hotel had to be evacuated due to flooding. Lied to us regarding new accommodation and then fought us when we demanded a partial refund. Ended up just giving up. They are just so unethical. Book elsewhere!

MYB*******B I've booked this holiday for September2023. However, I need the room to be Twin only, as it's me and my friend, I can't do anything on my online account, I need someone to do this, please help. Sue

56 days. That's how long On the Beach will take to answer any questions you might have. No delay before your holiday when there's money to change hands,but 2 months after raising a query they've still not given a reasonable response. Jet2 are a much better holiday provider, don't use On the Beach, they couldn't care less.

Booked our Honeymoon with on the beach. Unfortunately my passport did not have the full 6 months required to travel when booking ( I was not aware I required 6 months as have not travelled for some time).
Our booking was accepted without any mention of the issue. We booked with less than 10 days to go before we were due to travel. I noticed the issue when I was checking all of our travel documents. I attempted to call the company- their offices were shut due to the hot weather. Then when I finally received contact from an on the beach employee. I was told that due to it being less 14 days until we travel there was nothing they could do and our £3,700 holiday was at full loss- I could maybe try insurance but no guarantee.

Essentially we were never going to be able to travel with them, as they had accepted the booking knowing full well that my passport was not valid. Their policies allegedly prevented them from making changes as we were so close to departure date.

I then received further contact the day before my wedding, from a different handler stating that they could contact the hotel for us to see if we could transfer the dates etc. We didn't reply as a) the wedding took priority and b) we were in full contact with the hotel and had emailed them directly to ask them this.

When we explained the issues we were having with OTB the hotel initially denied any knowledge of this and stated that OTB had not been in contact with them. I informed them of all that had been happening and requested that we arrange to change the date of the honeymoon- we have never had a reply.

We are now over £3700 out of pocket due to the poor practices of on the beach. I understand that my passport was not valid. HOWEVER before taking our booking we were asked for our passport details/ expiry dates prior to them accepting our booking. As a company do they not have a duty of care to their customers to advise?

I have since attempted since July unsuccessfully to contact on the beach. I will continue to try.

That company has only 1 function - taking the payment. Apart from that nothing works. Cancelled outbound flights were not replaced and not refunded. Now, I'm abroad, and our inbound tickets are nowhere to be found. Now, I have left only 17 hours to my flight, but I can't obtain boarding passes. Emergency " help line" doesn't work due to COVID (?!), my messages are ignored.

If I could give a zero I would. Absolutely shocking experience 4 days before we flew out. We booked a holiday for our family of 4 in April only to receive an email, not a call 4 days before we were due to fly stating our hotel was over booked. The same hotel that other family members looked at booking 2 weeks prior but didn't due to price more than doubling. We were offered a supposed like for like hotel that was 20km away that had poor reviews which we declined. 2 days later, now 48 hours before flying offered 2 more that were even worse. Now finally talking to someone our options were hotel refund but lose flights(package holiday so we thought) or except a below part hotel. In the end we excepted first alternative as best of bad bunch.

Lack of communication, lack of customer service, lack of customer respect and most of all a complete lack of care. We have emailed Customer care but advised this can take 56 days for response.

Separate hotel review will be listed also. Probably a 2 out of 5.

On the Leach!
Well where do I start? We recently got back from a lovely holiday in Majorca, that was completely spoilt by a lack of competency from On The Beach.

On our itinerary, it clearly shows we have paid for to hold luggage bags each way. When we arrived at Luton Airport, the very nice lady at the Wizz Air check-in desk, advised that we had only been scheduled one luggage hold bag between myself and my wife.

This meant we had to pay another £53 to put our hold luggage into the plane, even though we already paid for this with On The Beach, and it was shown on our itinerary breakdown. The lady on the check-in desk, said this was a very very common problem with On The Beach – she even made the comment that on the beach were just like a criminal organisation, as she sees this every day with hundreds and hundreds of people! When you try to complain to On The Beach, they give you a notification on their message system, which tells you you may wait up to 56 days for somebody to reply! On the leach are nothing short of criminal!

They should be renamed on the Leach, as clearly they do not respect the customers that are paying their profits, and are just mistreating us all in order to inflate these profits and maximise their income. I would never book with On The Beach ever again.

We are now out of pocket to the tune of £106, which may not sound like a lot of money to a lot of people, but given the amount of financial stress everyone is under, this money is very important to us. I know some others have been put out of pocket to the tune of thousands, And I cannot believe that on the Leach managed to get away with such activity! I will be pursuing this matter all the way to small claims court should it be needed. I am utterly appalled and disgusted at the sheer arrogance and disdain on the leach are showing to their customers. My advice to anyone thinking of using on the leach is to pay the extra and go with a reputable travel firm not run by a mickey mouse outfit that clearly does not care.

This company is a absolute JOKE! Booked my honeymoon with them which is probably my mistake but you live and learn, my flights got cancelled and it took them 3 weeks to get back to me only after I was on the phone for 2 hours to speak to someone who advised the changes we wanted to make are no longer available as the hotel is fully booked! Absolutely disgusting! Not even a apology! NEVER AGAIN.

Avoid, they turned their phone lines off and take weeks to reply to emails. The cheapest definitely isn't worth it.

Can never get hold of them my booking was cancelled and I tried to re book but can not get thorough ask for a call bk on my booking page and got given the number that don't get answered now I've lost 1500 and I'm so angry