Saga Holidays
Saga Holidays
User Reviews
Saga Negligence Cruise From Hell
89year old hospitalised with pneumonia, sent home by taxi no representative no money for taxi, no ID to get onboard.
Then Saga lied about how they handled it, never again.
Just the worst cruise we have ever had.
Costing over £11,000
Spent fortnight in cabin nursing my husband, then Saga came back with why. I have letter first saying investigated. With no my husband discharged himself, now a letter saying sorry got it wrong.
Worst company ever.
Never Again Saga
Never again with Saga
I booked a 28 day holiday with Saga at hotel Port Denia requesting a balcony room. On arrival I was given the key card to room 536, on entering I realised it wasn't a balcony room but a room overlooking dustbins. I went down to reception and explained that I had requested a balcony room, the receptionist showed me the booking form from Titan travel and said no request was made for a balcony room. He said I could have one next day if I paid him €270 which I agreed to. The next day I went to reception and paid €270 for the room upgrade to room 624. I also mentioned to the Saga on-site representative about this and he explained that it was only a request not a definite booking, I wasn't told this when I booked the holiday. 8 weeks before departure I received a email from Saga saying that some restoration work was been carried out on some of the balconies at the hotel but this would have no visual impact and assurance that we wouldn't have any disruption. On Thursday morning 29th February workmen started erecting scaffolding on the adjoining balcony and then with mechanical hammers they were removing concrete and bricks, the dust and noise were horrendous. I went to reception and asked to be given another room and was told no rooms were available. I then contacted the Saga rep who was most apologetic and went to see the hotel management. He told me that they said the work would stop the next day at 12 noon and they would give me €70 back for the upset. No work would be carried out over the weekend. On the Friday the work didn't stop at noon it went on until 4pm. On Saturday night at 9pm workmen were hammering and moving scaffolding around in the room next door so I rang reception and asked them to tell them to stop it didn't so I went and knocked on the door and a workman came and I asked him to stop the noise and they did. The next day I mentioned it to them who apologised and they said it would reported to head office. They did everything possible to sort out the problem but the hotel management didn't seem to bother. Since returning home 3 weeks ago I have emailed Saga customer services 3 times about the problem and had a automated reply saying I would be contacted within 48hrs to discuss the complaint. Nobody has contacted me, they obviously have had the £3509.16 that I paid them for the holiday and are not interested.
Avoid!
This is an appalling company especially considering their USP is that they are aimed at the older portion of the population.
My mother booked a river cruise with friends for her 83nd birthday through them and the process was a nightmare from the beginning.
Error after error at booking stage, they also refused to insure her or her husband because they lived outside the U.K. Despite this, they sent all the booking information to the London address of someone else on the trip.
Shortly before the cruise my mother was taken ill and cancelled her cabin which was promptly resold.
My mother subsequently died and SAGA sent a cancellation invoice that included for 90% of the holiday’s cost as administration charges!
When I spoke to a manager there and questioned this I was told it was in their (6 page) terms and conditions. I pointed out that these were never sent to my mother or her husband due to another of their administration mess ups and as they had sold the same cabin twice, might they like to do the right thing as my mother’s husband is now in financial difficulties.
Their response was to send me another 11 pages of blurb along with their condolences and statement they would make an internal review. They then stopped responding to my mails.
They seemed very happy to bank the extra £4300 on top of their profit on the resold cabin as it was in the terms and conditions - not so happy to do what is right!
In short - read ALL their small print and don’t expect them to be any more than a typical money grabbing corporation. Just one that’s particularly inefficient.
On the other hand, EasyJet’s bereavement department were fantastic. Full refund for the cancelled flights into my father in law’s bank account within a week!
SAGA could learn a lot from them.
Avoid Avoid Avoid
29 of us have just came back from a saga holiday in Canada appalling no help from saga and no replies from staff to any problems on the trip. Several people had problems with upgrades on ship which were never answered drinks packages they had paid for never existed and no coaches at the cruise terminal to travel to the airport. Titan reps that are part of the same company didn't want to know saga customers. Our pick up from home to the airport arrived 2 hours early at 4 am got us off to a bad start it didn't improve the rest of the holiday
Stay Clear Of This Lot
Their customer services is dreadful, awful, they clearly don't value their paying customers. They never reply to numerous emails either from the customer or their own sales staff. Their 7 day holiday to Italy was absolutely all about how much money they can get out of you. The hotel we stayed in was no better than a 2 star dump never what they classified 4 star. Dining area takes you back to school dinning rooms. Sagas safety while travelling by coach none exsist. Meet and great at airports a joke. We could go on but you get the drift. As for Saga always saying please contact their customer services their a complete joke, usless not worth their salary.
Worst Customer Service Ever
I have been going on holiday with Saga for many many years now. Up to two years ago there were very few problems contacting them to ask various questions. Since then it's an absolute nightmare. The problem is they allow their staff to work from home. The trouble is they don't. Answering the phone is alien to them. No matter how much you complain, Saga seem to ignore it. The CEO just seems content to pick up his salary and say what wonderful things they are going to do. Never mind about sorting out the problems they already have. I and many of my friends, many of whom we have met on Saga holidays are seriously thinking of going with other holiday companies. They do not deserve our custom anymore.
Working from home for Saga and all other companies who allow hybrid and remote working, involves sitting at your workspace computer with a headset on, answering call after call. If a call comes in at 4.59 and you finish at 5, that call could be a hour long and you have to take it! You don’t get to pick and choose the calls you take - they just arrive in your ear! Calls normally take between 5 minutes to an hour and when the phone has been put down, another call is upon you straight away. No wandering off to make a cup of tea or scroll on your phone. No popping to the shop or catching up on tv - it’s actually more stressful and productive than being in situ at the office! I think people are thinking exactly the opposite from comments I’m reading.
No time to write notes after calls that need resolutions, no time to send emails to the correct parties, no time to chase issues. This is where the problems lie. The people working from home are working hard, believe you me, if you aren’t answering calls your managers message you asking why. They can see and watch everything. You have meetings and emails often charting your progress, calls are listened to and scored constantly. It isn’t an easy job at all.
The problems lie within the organisation and volume of calls. If the website doesn’t work correctly, people cannot self serve, which results in more phone calls and the backlog people are experiencing. I hope this helps people not blame the home workers, whom people seem to think sit around all day, but who actually deal with around 25-50 calls a day, some very difficult, and the backlog just gets longer!
I am due to go to Puglia and on to Sicily early October, do not even have an airline we are going with as BA are not operating to there, had to find this out for myself. After 3 x 1.5 hour phone calls, facebook messages they cannot tell me what airline and airport now. I will never book with saga again. How are we supposed to sort out parking etc. We should be travelling in 2 weeks.
Worst Ever Holiday
hotel in sicily dire. why anyone at saga would think run down, dirty hotel in 3rd world shanty town type area would be suitable for saga clients, is a mystery. noisy, unkempt, not suitable for those with mobility problems. food awful. inadequate air conditioning on excursion buses. client with dietary limitations not catered for. hotel not bothered.
rep and hotel informed before we travelled. saga had no right to take my booking and money. never travelled with saga before and never again. no choice of when we could eat in evenings. ate out several times because food so awful. chef never appeared. cig. butts and trash everywhere. full length smashed mirror in one lift, unfitted carpet in another. hand sanitizers in public areas and men’s loo all empty. dirty outside tables, overflowing ashtrays, food spilt on ground, remained for days. other[ italian ] guests visiting for 1-2 days noisy and
constantly smoking, no consideration and given preference over sun beds usage. pool area shower broken/missing tiles. never saw sun beds hosed down. difficult to get from pool area into hotel bedrooms areas. 2 kids play grounds and main road opposite hotel. traffic noise [unmuffled motor bikes exhausts] constant.
uneven pavements/broken paving stones/unkempt/litter. fireworks frequently in early hours of morning. bed uncomfortable. duvets had no covers.
saga contacted and not replied. truly lacking customer service. whole experience awful, waste of time and money and effort. how dare saga treat clients with such contempt?
Customer Service - That's A Joke !!!!!
Booked a holiday with Saga and paid deposit. Unfortunately my husband has recently had a medical problem and has been advised not to go away . Trying to get through to Saga is a joke. Phones are not answered e- mails ignored. Fortunately have only paid deposit but full amount due soon. When eventually managed to speak to a "customer service agent" after many hours waiting on the phone and explained situation was told we would lose deposit and when asked if we could carry over deposit to a holiday next year was told NO. After having many previous Saga Holidays would doubt in we would ever book with them again as customer service and care seems almost non existent .
Very Poor Customer Service
We booked a holiday with Saga and paid the advance. So far we have not received any confirmation mail even after 10 days. Trying to reach them over the phone is a total nightmare. Everyday day I was on the phone for an hour and forty-five minutes with out any success. On one Occassion I was on hold for nearly 4 !/2 hours. They told they will get back to me ASAP. No one has called me even after 36 hrs. We don't know how to proceed. It's supposed to be the holiday of a life time for us. WHAT A NIGHTMARE. I WON'T RECOMMEND SAGA TO ANY ONE.
Never, Ever, Ever!
I am shocked my the discrimination from this company. Totally ILLEGAL discrimination. They discriminate against me today, will it be you tomorrow?
How can your review be taken seriously, if you do not enlarge upon your review.
Q&A
Do Saga often change hotels after booking? I have booked 2 holidays, I was notified of a change of hotel on the first one, but as it was located in the same city and appeared a similar standard I accepted it.
The second just notifies is a tour of Sicily and 2 hotels have been changed. The first is about 12km away from the original and instead of being a flat walk to the beach is on a cliff. The second for 3 nights is over 60km away in a backstreet of Catania in the centre of the city with only an internal courtyard for outside space, instead of in Syracuse set in gardens fairly near the shore with a decent sized pool.(the new hotel has no pool at all) I don't see how this can be similar accommodation.