On the Beach

DO NOT BOOK WITH On The Beach Holidays the customer service is horrible me and my boyfriend are meant to be flying to turkey next week and they have just cancelled the holiday no reasons given us only £300 back all the customer service numbers are hanging up and blocking are numbers not helpful at all! Never booking again we just want our money back we booked this holiday back in January

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

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.

Hotel is closed due to Corona virus so they are unable to provide the holiday we paid for but refused to cancel holiday and have cancelled hotel and are still making us pay for flight's they also cancelled our atol protection we took out when we got the holiday. I've tried calling the premium rate number several times and automated calls just talk for ages then cut the call off.

I have emailed several times to resolve this and my emails have been ignored if they don't refund my money I will be taking this to the small claims court.

AVOID AVOID AVOID

This company needs to shut down

UPDATE 31/05/2020
My bank has since refunded me and now they are disputing it to try and keep my money when they haven't provided me with any service vile company DO NOT USE THEM

DO NOT BOOK!
Me and my soon to be wife booked a honeymoon through on the beach, we saw the right dates ect. BOOKED ref MYB*******B and they gave us totally different dates, not the ones that was shown on the webite, after calling them they said we will refund hotel in seven days but you need to talk ryanair and they will give you a refund... called ryanair and they dont give refunds, we call back on the beach... and what we got is... yes we said you could get a refund from them but if they dont its not our problem... at this point my misses is shouting at me and the lady on the phone was like if she carrys on i will terminate the call.
THIS IS NOT RIGHT!

I would never again use on the beach as they dont have any care for their customers and sold me a holiday which was a pack of lies, I paid for transfers with them and had to pay again on on holiday, the hotel I booked with said it was 5 star on the on the beach website and was from it with ignorant staff broken items in hotel rooms and again expecting me to pay for items they listed were included. The flight was horrible with me being shouted at by cabin crew for eating a sandwich I bought in the airport and the whole experience was a disaster! I wouldn't recommend my worst enemy booking eith them as they have no compassion for its paying customers and were rude when approached about this making it out to be my fault leaving me feeling uncomfortable in the own comfort of my home with there reply. DONT BOOK WITH ON THE BEACH

DO NOT BOOK WITH ON THE BEACH they are a Disgrace of a company, if you runn in to a problem you have no chance of contact them and you will only give yourself stress.we are still waiting since last November to get our problem solved so please book elsewhere.

I strongly advise nobody book a holiday with this thieving, lying company! I have spent almost a week and about 5 hours on the phone trying to get a deposit back for a holiday that was never available in the first place (after being assured that it was) As soon as I paid my deposit they told me it was never available. They have told me lie after lie, and to add insult to injury have still not refunded me the full amount I have paid them!

I strongly advise everyone to NOT USE THIS COMPANY

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.

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.