Hayes

Awful company steer clear at all costs !!!

Useless customer service! Refused to give our deposit back.

Rude staff ! Unhelpful! Would never use them again and warn everyone to avoid at all cost !!!

Hayes and Jarvis, the service was appalling, they ruined our 3 city stay across America for my daughters 21st, cost £9000 plus. Made a complaint and barely even got a sorry. Loads of broken promises 5 flights to various locations messed up one hotel gave us wrong name spent ages in taxi trying to find it and was told it changed name two years ago.

We booked our holiday via love holidays to Hurghada in Egypt, they semt to be ok, nice and friendly staff *when booking and taking money" ... The problem arose when we got back and put in a complaint, we we're told that we needed to complain to Hayes Travel (about our hotel and transer), which we did ... This was THREE month ago, and .... We're still awaiting a reply.

Customer service is non existant, I rang up and was just passed from person to person who all just blamed the previous person ...

We're going to look into taking our complaint to a higher level.

My advice? Do NOT USE THIS COMPANY TO BOOK A HOLIDAY WITH OR VIA !!!

We had booked our honeymoon to Kenya, however in light of foreign office advice we are no longer to travel there. We had already paid £300 to Hayes and Jarvis which they had kindly said we could transfer to another holiday. However once we had found an alternative holiday on 'Thomson tailormade', (part of the same company) we were told that the price they can do is £300 more! And no they cannot match it as it is an amendment to a booking rather than a 'new booking'. Therefore whichever way we look we are losing £300!

The manager was completely un-thoughtful, rude, a really bad listener and even said that they 'cannot have me on this line anymore as they need to take other calls'.

I will NEVER EVER book with Hayes and Jarvis ever again, they have made £300 out of me and also almost ruined the fun of booking our Honeymoon!

Please take note of this review before you book anything with Hayes and Jarvis or with Thomson. Hayes and Jarvis will charge you much more than you need to pay and then will not let you cancel or change anything. Their customer service is non existent. We were pressurised into making a booking by Hayes and Jarvis and the rep in Thomson Reading. It is for our 10th wedding anniversary. We have ended up with a hotel that we did not want and we have paid at least £500 more than we needed to. I have read awful reviews nine today for both companies and wish I had read them before. I have spent the last 3 days trying to get somewhere with both companies and they will not help. They are as bad as each other. Please please do not let these companies have your custom. I wish I knew before giving them any money and making the purchase.

Hayes and Jarvis were responsible for organising our (very expensive) honeymoon to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and it only went well because of Aitken Spence, the company they outsource their guide and hotels to in Sri Lanka) not Hayes and Jarvis. Everything Hayes and Jarvis did involved false promises and ineptitude, from failing to book the plane seats they promised, and issuing our confirmed itinerary just 3 days before we were due to leave. The said itinerary deviated from the "quotation", which we believed to be our confirmed schedule since we had paid the deposit for the holiday at the point of receiving this document. Essentially we were mis-sold, and although we still had a good time, this was due to their suppliers being 1000 times more efficient than them. Probably the the worst travel agent in the World that continues to exist in spite of themselves.

In a nutshell i paid out £3500 for a two week holiday to Thailand, more than I have ever paid; thinking it would be amazing and trusted Hayes and Jarvis. It started as I went to check in online and could not access any information because all my flights had been booked in the wrong name. Price instead of Prince.

After five phone-calls and numerous emails. This was sorted. OK these things happen. Cant believe no-one picked it up!!!!

First hotel and transfers were great.

Second hotel was appalling. The service was shocking. I immediately got onto Hayes and Jarvis and was bumped around without a care. Having spent goodness knows how much on phone-calls and internet charges, plus asking my friend in the UK to ring 8 times. The rep finally got in touch with me from Bangkok (I was in Phuket). Only to keep repeating herself saying i had booked a standard room (so that justifies it being poor, dark and smelly???) and talking to me like a complete idiot. Then she kept telling me it was after 7pm so nothing could be done. I was upset because i had been contacting them for over 12 hours, I told them i felt unsafe as a female solo traveler and they couldn't care less, saying 'oh Thailand is very safe'.

What took twelve hours to come back to me? Over and over they kept saying we are looking into it, and yet nothing happened. NOTHING!

The hotel has rats running across its pool, Tropical Bungalows in Patong Beach, Phuket. The hygiene of the restaurant is to be desired and food quality to describe as poor is too generous a grading.

To cut this very long story short i changed hotels at additional cost to me, no reps contacted me despite my repeated follow up!

Lastly transfers were not arranged when paid for, i was told to call them myself which I did only to be told no booking can be found. Again I paid twice as I booked a taxi myself as it was consuming too much of my holiday chasing them. On my return I emailed stating I wish to make a complaint and you wont believe it. yes I WAS COMPLETELY IGNORED! BOOK ELSEWHERE IS MY ADVICE!

We booked a honeymoon to america last year. hayes and jarvis said our hotel had a bar, restaurant and pool. it had nothing. instead we had to get a taxi 20 minutes away to a sister hotel which had just a pool. we complained, they sent us a voucher, £250 off your next holiday, but as our holiday cost over £3000 it isnt something we could use straight away. they give us a 6 month time limit. we asked for an extension, they said yes, told us send the cheque back, and they would post one with a better time frame. they didnt. AVOID. also thomas cook didnt help

Hi,

Just thought id post this here as I needed to vent and warn people who are potentially going to use Hayes & Jarvis to book a special occasion or honeymoon or anything really. We booked a trip to Hawaii and New York for our honeymoon and spent a fair amount of money to achieve this. We went on the honeymoon in september and to this day Hayes & Jarvis have chosen to ignore our complaints regarding the problems we encountered on our honeymoon that completely ruined everything. So much so that I am trying to work out a way to redo the honeymoon holiday but book with a company that actually cares about its customers, rather than just take their money... I would welcome any advice on companies that people have had positive experiences with that arent part of the TUI group so that I can hopefully make our honeymoon experience something positive to remember for my wife and myself.

Just a small note of what happened in my experiences with Hayes & Jarvis - Please note my wife is a nervous flier - we had a bad experience with AA in the past so I had to get the most direct flights to our destinations and avoid AA for the transatlantic journeys to reduce flight stress levels!

We had direct flights from Hawaii to New York Booked with H&J - they phoned up 2 weeks before we were due to fly to inform us that we couldnt go on the flights any more and we had to go on an alternative with 2 stopovers. This would also mean we lost a day of our honeymoon from New York. Had to argue with a lady for a couple of days to find out the cause of this and it turns out they didnt book us onto the flight (they messed it up) yet I was being talked to like it was our fault and we just had to deal with it. They begrudgingly decided to get us a different flight with 1 stopover in Seattle but it meant we had to lose a day from Hawaii and stay in two different hotels in New York which isnt the most ideal of solutions so not a great start having to lose a day in paradise when you spent 16+ hours flying to experience it in the first place. No apology from H&J - they even tried to charge me for the hotel in New York even though they created the problem.

So, thats done and we are due to leave in a day - I go online to check in to my flights and realise that my return trip from New York - they have booked a return flight with AA - not what we discussed or requested. Phoned up H&J to bring it to their attention and once again they tried to charge me to change the flight and I had to argue with them that it was made clear on the booking call that we would not fly with AA, they agreed to listen to the call and if this was mentioned then they would not charge me, ten mins later they phoned back to say everything had been changed. Not a great start and we havnt left UK yet!

We arrived at our hotel in Hawaii - we stayed at the Royal Lahaina Resort and when we arrived we were greated by hotel refurbishment works (oh joy! - cant believe Hayes and Jarvis wouldnt tell you about this going on would you) well they didnt so we had to grin and bear it whilst they drilled and hammered throughout the hotel for the length of our stay, to top this off the following day we noticed that the main swimming pool was shut because they were doing works to it - it would not be open for the length of our stay either so we were left with one pool to use which was the size of a jacuzzi and not something you could call a pool. Hayes and Jarvis, as a prestige holiday operator, should have notified us of this and given us the opportunity to change as the whole experience in Hawaii was thwarted by this going on. I sent pictures and an email to complain on the 11th September to Hayes & Jarvis and they said they would respond in 28 days - I have followed this up twice and they still have not been in touch 77 days down the line - they literally dont care after taking your money.

So thats everything you're thinking.... not quite!

We arrived in New York and had to stay in one hotel for one day and move to another the following day - not very relaxing but it was all they could offer. When we got to our main hotel we were given a dirty room at the back of the hotel directly near the kitchen vents so you could smell everything. Hayes & jarvis told me about the special rooms honeymooners would be given so they could enjoy views of nearby Madison square gardens etc but this definately wasnt it. I went to reception and asked them about it - saying we were on our honeymoon and they said had they been told by H&J that is was our honeymoon we definately would not have been put in that room, she arranged for us to be moved to a new room. H&J never tell anyone its your honeymoon, they literally dont care and promise you everything before hand and try to make you grin and bear it afterwards!

Then comes the piece d'resistance... I logged in to check in to our flights exactly 24 hours before we were due to fly to ensure I could check into seats that we next to each other so my wife would relax on the flight home - its normally a simple process. However, I could not do this as there were 'problems' online... I phoned BA and they told me that I was not booked on the flights and my travel operator had cancelled them. In short we had no way home at that point in time. I phoned H&J and it was 1am UK time so got through to the out of hours service to find out what was going on. The lady that answered said that she didnt have access to any systems and would try to help but I would probably have to wait until people got back into the office at 9am (4am New York time) If I can speak to the airline at 1am - why cant they sort it too? Well, this well and truly ruined our last night in New York as we were stressing out because we had no flight home and no hotel to stay in if they left us in the lurch. I received no phone call back and couldnt sleep all night so phoned them back at 4am New York time (9am UK to get it sorted asap).

I was told that the after hours service is a call answering service so please note this if you need any help out of hours as they cannot do anything to help you out at all - you have to wait until the offices open which therefore makes it a totally pointless service to have in operation.

I then found out through their poor administration they had not booked us on the flight home either so we were flightless and they had to try to sort things out. when they did get us a flight we lost more time in our last day in New York and we could not sit together as the flight was full, which was a terrible resolution for a nervous flier. I had to then argue my case with an obnoxious lady on the phone, who's job it seems is to just tell customers, "tough, its not our problem, deal with it" for a couple of hours before finally getting to speak with her manager to sort a resolution with a different flight home that had more availability.

All in all the experience with this company has been dreadful and I would hate to hear that anyone else has had their hard earned money wasted and what should be a brilliant and memorable experience tarnished by the incompetence that this company displays.

On a side note - I have complained twice to their CEO and their customer services team upon arriving back from honeymoon and they have yet to respond to these matters.

If you think you are getting a prestige service and will be looked after by this company you are likely to be disappointed. Please do not trust or spend money with them they should not be allowed to wreck anyone elses experiences. I dont think I am alone in my views on this so please share any for the world to see how poor a company this really is!

If anyone can let me know of a good company to book with that would be most appreciated.

Thanks for reading

During the booking period Thomson staff lacked knowledge and were to say the least incompetent - They gave me misinformation on how to access my holiday online which took hours to sort and I had to guide one of the staff through the web site on the telephone instead of the other way around! Then our luggage did not arrive in New York - Panic set in - we did not receive them until early the following day. On the second day we tried to access cash from a money card we had purchased from Thomson - they had given us the wrong pin number! We had to ring London which was not an easy task! Then to top it all - on our outward and return journey to the airport - Hayes & Jarvis had given us AA flight numbers - this caused us to be dropped off at the wrong terminals on both legs of our journey - we should of had BA flight numbers!

After complaining we were eventually (with a lot of argument along the way) give a PALTRY £25 CHEQUE after spending nearly £3000 on the holiday. We will never book with HAYES AND JARVIS again!!!