Episode 1 Rip Off Britain: Holidays

We asked you who's left you feeling ripped off

when it comes to your holidays.

The amount of money that it's cost is just astronomical.

It wasn't just the money, it was their attitude.

Whether it's a deliberate rip-off,

a simple mistake or a catch in the small print,

we'll find out why you're out-of-pocket

and what you can do about it.

Your stories, your money,

this is...

Hello and a very warm welcome to Rip Off Britain,

battling on your behalf at home and indeed abroad,

which as you can see is exactly where we're today.

We're on the island of Tenerife, and lovely it is,

investigating problems to do with your holidays,

and serious ones at that.

Because, frankly, any holiday has the potential

for something to go wrong somewhere along the way,

even if it is only very minor.

But among the stories that we're going to be hearing about today

are some that are much more dramatic.

Either bringing the holiday to an abrupt end or, Gloria,

even worse than that, ending it altogether.

Now, when disaster strikes, sometimes it can be just bad luck.

And while of course you can't predict the unexpected,

there are ways you can prepare for it.

So as we hear what happened to the people sharing their stories with us,

we'll also have advice to stop you ending up

in exactly the same boat.

Coming up, the hotel that lost this couple's passports

but tried to blame THEM.

The amount of money that its cost is just astronomical.

I was gutted, absolutely gutted.

And a desperate battle for survival on a holiday without insurance.

To get home, I don't even think desperate came close.

I'd have literally got on my hands and knees

and begged the Queen, if I had to.

Next, a disastrous experience

which frankly could happen to any one of us

when we're checking in to a hotel abroad.

So let me just set the scene for you.

You're in a hotel, in a country that you've never visited before.

And maybe you've had a very long day's travel,

you're a little bit tired.

And as you're filling in the hotel's registration form,

they ask you to hand over your passport

and say that they are going to hold on to it

for the duration of your stay.

But is that the right thing to do?

Well, certainly for the couple but we're about to meet,

it was not.

Because that very simple request

ended up landing them in a whole heap of trouble and expense.

Alfie!

Pampering pooches can be hard work.

And it's kept Debbie Mortimer and Kevin Crosland so busy

that in all the time that they've run their dog grooming parlour in Grimsby,

they haven't been able to take a proper holiday.

So when they did get round to planning one,

they wanted it to be really special.

It was our first holiday in 12 years.

Kevin and I had always gone away for just weekends, long weekends.

But we decided this time, let's go for a week.

So I was looking forward to it.

They plumped for a week on Turkey's Turquoise Coast,

booking with Thomas Cook to stay at the Marcan Resort at Oludeniz.

And at first, all went well.

They arrived at the resort without a hitch.

When they checked in at the hotel,

they were asked to hand over their passports.

The receptionist told them they'd keep hold of them

for the duration of their stay.

And they didn't see any reason to question that,

or indeed to suspect that it might cause a problem.

The gentleman took them away

and really didn't think anything more of it

because that is the norm, really, when you go away abroad.

With that, the holiday proper began

and their week in the sun more than lived up to expectations.

It was the holiday of a lifetime.

We arrived - 40 degrees,

beautiful sunshine, beautiful hotel, beautiful pool -

everything was just superb.

But all too soon, it was time to get ready for the journey home,

which involved a very early departure.

We went down to hotel reception around about 1:45 in the morning.

Our transfer was 2:45.

We went to reception and asked for the passports

and the gentleman behind reception said,

"I'm sorry, we haven't got your passports."

I said to him, "Yes, you have.

"You took them off us when we arrived."

But the receptionist was having none of it.

He said, "No, we don't keep passports."

I said, "Well, please, can you look for them?

"Because we are due to get our flight home."

He did look in a drawer.

When he opened the drawer there were four passports.

I thought, "Oh, fantastic." You know, "They've got them!"

But when looking at the passports, they were not ours.

By this time,

I was just absolutely dumbstruck.

I didn't know what to do, I didn't know which way to turn.

No passports meant no prospect of getting on the plane back to Britain.

And they didn't feel that the hotel

was particularly interested in helping them.

The gentleman behind reception,

when we asked him if we could have a room

or was there anywhere we could stay,

he just pretended he couldn't speak English,

which he had been doing, obviously, the previous week.

Debbie and Kevin told us

that the hotel wouldn't even let them have their old room back.

And they say that as they had already checked out,

the passports were now their problem.

In despair, Debbie got straight on the phone

to the local Thomas Cook rep.

The person on the end of the phone said,

"Well, we will report this

"but obviously there's nothing we can do this time of the day.

"So you'll have to wait until your representative

"comes to the hotel in the morning."

So the couple were left to wait in the hotel reception,

while over at the airport

the plane they were booked on took off for Doncaster.

I was absolutely devastated,

thinking that I wasn't going to get home.

I didn't... I really didn't know how I felt.

I was just absolutely scared, to be perfectly honest.

They had no choice but to sit miserably

and wait for the cavalry to arrive,

in the form of that Thomas Cook rep.

The next morning, when the rep arrived, I sort of...

"Oh, thank God you're here!"

And she sort of said, "Why? What is the matter?"

And I said, "The hotel have lost our passports."

And she just said, "You are joking?!"

To get home, they first had to report the loss of their existing passports

to the local police.

Then they needed to visit the local British consulate

to obtain emergency travel documents

that would at least enable them to fly back.

It was a very long, tiring day.

Very stressful and very upsetting.

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't stop crying.

Around 80 emergency travel documents

are issued to British nationals around the world every single day,

and that's nearly 30,000 a year.

But these are only temporary and simply enable you to get home.

You still need to apply and pay for a new full passport

when back in the UK.

But while Debbie and Kevin did now have

the paperwork that they needed,

their troubles weren't quite over.

Thomas Cook had not been able

to book them on a flight back to Doncaster,

which is where their car was parked.

Instead, they'd be flying to Manchester,

once again in the middle of the night,

meaning a second night with no sleep.

We went back to the hotel

and basically we just had to stay there.

We weren't offered food, we weren't offered drink,

there was no rep that came to see us to see if we were all right.

Basically, we were just sat there with suitcases

in two chairs in reception

and no-one even spoke to us.

By the time they finally arrived back in Britain,

they were seriously out of pocket.

Add together the cost of the emergency passports,

the new ones they would need to apply for

AND getting back from Manchester to Doncaster,

Debbie and Kevin were now down by over £900.

The amount of money that it's cost is just astronomical.

I mean, I couldn't believe

that I'd already paid that to go to this resort

and then to actually pay near on exactly the same to get back home,

I was gutted, absolutely gutted.

Debbie asked Thomas Cook to help with that money

and initially the company only offered to pay

half of their extra costs -

£456.25.

But then, there was a final twist to the tale.

At the time Debbie and Kevin had checked out,

the hotel had denied having their passports.

But we know for sure that they did

because it turns out that they gave them to someone else.

We have tracked down a fellow British holiday-maker

who stayed at the Marcan Resort at the same time.

And by coincidence, even shared drinks with Debbie and Kevin.

He was handed their passports by reception

but only noticed he'd been given the wrong ones on the journey home.

He handed them in to the police as soon as he got back to Britain.

But by then, Debbie and Kevin had already cancelled them.

But it does prove that the hotel did have them all the time.

When we contacted Thomas Cook,

they told us that they would pay the full £900

that the couple had to fork out because of all of this.

Not only that, they've also refunded

the entire cost of the holiday itself.

They told us they would like to apologise to Debbie and Kevin

and said that although incidents of this kind are extremely rare,

they are working with the Marcan Resort

to ensure that their security processes and procedures

do meet with the company's stringent requirements.

Well, the refund is obviously really good news for Debbie and Kevin

but clearly, that's something that could happen to any one of us

when we're travelling abroad.

So if you're asked to hand over your passport

when you're checking into a hotel,

what should you actually do?

Well, the best advice is to let them take a copy

but not let them hold on to the passport itself.

And make sure that you have a photocopy of your own passport

and keep it safe in case the worst happens.

Well, Debbie certainly won't be

letting her passport out of her sight ever again.

I would advise anybody, if they ask for your passports,

by all means give them over

but wait for them to come back.

Do not wait a day, do not wait an hour,

make sure you get them back immediately.

Now, I'm prepared to bet that for quite a lot of us,

the idea of being able to tack a couple of extra days on the end of our holiday

is actually quite appealing and probably a lot of fun.

But if it's something that's forced on you at the very last minute

through no fault of your own,

well, obviously it's going to be a lot less enjoyable.

And that's exactly what happened to the couple that we're about to meet.

And frankly, it's a situation that could affect any one of us.

And you know what?

There's not an awful lot you can do about it.

The Man family live next to the UK's most famous surfing beach,

Fistral Beach in Newquay.

It's a magnet for those wanting to catch that perfect wave.

And Ashley, a keen surfer, is no exception.

Not so good today.

Sun's shining, wind's blowing hard and it's a bit onshore

but surf's surf.

But when even the thickest winter wet suit

starts to let in the cold,

Newquay residents, like the rest of us,

may start searching for sunnier shores.

I mean, we've got to be some of the luckiest people ever,

to have such a beautiful place on our doorstep.

But it gets to a stage at this time of the year

where the elements take hold. It gets cold.

So, back in November of 2011, with the weather getting chilly,

Ashley and his wife Lisa decided it was time

to swap the port of Newquay

for the taste of a very different kind of port -

the kind that comes in a glass.

I think the passion for port's really got to be mine.

Really growing into it over the past few years.

I'm a great port lover, as well.

So we've been really looking forward

to going and enjoying tasting different port.

Lisa and Ashley teamed up with two other couples

to head to the city which gave its name

to the drink that they love so much,

Porto in Portugal.

We were looking forward to it.

Usually we do big family holidays

so this was something that we thought,

"Three-day break without the children - a real treat."

Their flights would involve a short hop to London

before heading to Portugal the next day

with a different airline, easyJet.

All went smoothly and they arrived in Porto with no problems,

ready to immerse themselves in the local culture.

But just hours after touching down,

they got news that left a sour taste in their mouths.

There was a text message to say

that easyJet had cancelled our flight home on Thursday.

"Please get to your nearest internet

"to be able to rebook the next most convenient flight."

They returned to their hotel

to go online and see what was going on,

quickly discovering that they faced a major problem,

one that couldn't easily be resolved.

We realised it wasn't just an individual airline such as easyJet.

This was a, sort of, strike across-the-board

by taxi services, trains, flights...

We were due back on the Thursday.

They couldn't get us home until the Sunday.

That...our stomachs sank.

As it dawned on Lisa and Ashley

that there was a major strike on across Portugal

and that easyJet could only get them back

three full days after their original flight home,

panic set in.

I mean, we're down on the internet now

and we're frantically looking at our options available.

We've got the map out.

We're looking at the map, "Do we grab a car?

"Do we drive to Madrid? Do we get the flights from Madrid?"

We were just up for anything at that stage.

It was the call of children and work,

Lisa is a primary teacher and Ashley a paramedic,

that meant it would be a real problem

for them to stay away longer than planned.

There was no way they could stay for the extra days.

We had childcare. We had to get back for the kids.

We had jobs to get back to.

We had pre-booked flights even when we got back to London

to get back down into Cornwall.

So logistically, it was an impossible situation.

Ashley and Lisa felt they simply had no alternative

but to accept easyJet's offer of a refund on the cancelled flight

and find another way to get home.

But it was going to be an expensive business

and not only that,

it seemed the only way to get home before the strike began

was to book new flights that left early the very next day.

We bit the bullet, we paid the price

and we headed back to London just in the nick of time.

We've not even been there for 24 hours.

They'd had to buy new flights to London on a different airline,

at a cost of £350 each.

They then had to pay for two nights in a hotel in London

whilst they waited for their already booked and paid for flight

back to Cornwall.

After all that, each couple was nearly £1,000 out-of-pocket.

What was going to be a reasonably well-organised,

cheapish trip to Porto

has turned out to be one of the most expensive holidays.

Over the last couple of years, as austerity has taken hold,

Europe has seen a wave of strikes,

not least among air-traffic controllers.

Thousands of British holiday-makers have been hit

as airports at popular destinations in France, Spain, Portugal and Greece

have ground to a halt.

The frustration for travellers is that strike action

is often classed as an extraordinary circumstance,

meaning that as long as your airline

gets you on another flight at the earliest opportunity

and provides you with somewhere to stay while you wait

then they have fulfilled their obligation to you.

But as Lisa and Ashley had accepted a refund,

easyJet didn't need to offer them anything further.

EasyJet told us it wasn't their fault

because it was extraordinary circumstances beyond their control

and that the best they could offer

was the flight home at a later date.

So what about their travel insurance?

Would that help?

They basically said it was very interesting.

It was a pre-planned strike.

They wanted nothing to do with it

and this was to our real frustration.

In fact, most travel insurance policies

won't cover you for strike action

that's already been planned when you book your trip,

whether you knew about it or not.

But when she got back home,

Lisa started to wonder at what point easyJet had known about the strikes

and whether that information

could have been passed on to passengers sooner.

After a bit of online research,

she found that a full ten days before they had travelled,

the Portuguese national airline had issued a notice

alerting customers to the possibility of strike disruption,

which made her wonder

if easyJet could have let them know earlier, too.

Is easyJet had told us before we'd flown,

what we would have done is actually rescheduled our holiday.

It would have given us an opportunity

to decide what we needed to do.

And we could have then

organised our work and our children around that.

When we contacted easyJet,

the company told us that while the strike...

It was...

They insist that the next available flight was offered

and what's more, had Lisa and Ashley chosen to fly on it,

easyJet would have covered the extra costs

for their hotel, transfers and sustenance.

But as Lisa and Ashley decided to make their own arrangements,

the airline had instead refund the cost of the easyJet flights...

As for whether they could have given earlier warning,

easyJet says that even after they are notified

of probable strike action, it can be...

They're confident they gave notice as soon as possible

and stressed their aim is always to...

..and to abide by the EU regulations.

The airline did however offer a goodwill voucher of £150

split between all three couples who, it's true to say,

might have ended up in a similar position

whoever they'd flown with.

But after we'd contacted Ashley and Lisa's travel insurance company, HSBC,

there was good news.

They have now looked again at the couple's claim

and as a result, paid out just over £900 to them.

Still, Lisa and Ashley feel

that a lot of hassle could have been avoided if they'd been told

there was a risk of strike action affecting their trip

before they'd travelled, rather than after they'd arrived.

It's about the principle that you can arrive in a foreign country

and have a text to say your flight is cancelled.

It still feels a joke.

Still to come on Rip Off Britain,

the big-name holiday company that booked this family

into not one but two unfinished hotels.

When they change the holiday to the second destination,

they reassured us that it would definitely, definitely be ready.

For one weekend last summer, with the help of a team of experts,

we set up a free advice clinic in a busy shopping centre in Liverpool

to tackle as many of your problems as we could.

Our pop-up shop gives us the opportunity

to hear first-hand of the situations

where you think you've been ripped off

and here in Liverpool, you're really telling us.

After a problem at the airport,

Sarah and Phil's dream trip to India

almost never got off the ground.

And they're hoping travel expert Simon Calder

can help with their claim for compensation.

We applied for our visas for our trip to India,

turned up at the airport

and then were told that we couldn't board the flight

cos the visas were incorrect.

Right. What was wrong with them?

-Well, apparently they've got the word "Cochin" stamped here.

-Yeah.

-And our flights were due to land in Mumbai.

-Right.

So they basically said,

"You need to enter at the port stated on your visa

"so we can't let you fly into Mumbai.

"You can't board the plane and your options are

"you either don't go on your trip..."

or they suggested that we buy another airline ticket

that actually flew into Cochin.

And it was the airline that was making the objection, was it?

-Yeah.

-You, then, had really no choice.

No. Fortunately, we were in a position

where we could just put two flights on our credit card

and off we go. Cos we'd saved up our annual leave

and didn't want to miss out on our holiday, really.

So, you are now many hundreds of pounds out of pocket?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-You had a very stressful start your trip?

We had a night, then, in Cochin Airport and then

had to get an internal flight up to Mumbai the next morning.

And we lost a day of the holiday doing that.

I guess, if I took it up with the Visa providers, they would say,

"Ah, they put on their form that they were entering in Cochin."

Is that possible, do you think?

-No. We've got copies of our visa application forms.

-Have you?

-Yeah.

And they clearly say,

"Port of entry: Mumbai. Port of exit: Cochin."

-Right, OK.

-Yeah.

-So the next thing I'm saying if I'm the Visa company

is, "Ah, well, you should have told us that we'd made the mistake."

Yeah, well, I think that's fair enough

-but it doesn't say what that refers to at all.

-Yeah.

If it said that was our port of entry,

we would have been able to check

-but because there is no reference to what that relates to...

-Yeah.

..we just assumed that it was the port of exit.

We didn't know what it related to.

Right.

The airline, I can guarantee,

is going to say it is entirely down to the passenger

to make sure they have the right documentation.

You might want to take this up with Money Claims Online,

which is basically the Government...

the court service's reasonably low cost way of retrieving a debt.

It might be pouring good money after bad

but my view is that you have a very strong case

for actually going for more than just the money you're out-of-pocket.

Happy with that?

Yes, thank you very much. It was great.

Sarah and Phil took Simon's advice

and are now pursuing a claim to get their money back

through the Small Claims Court, which the airline is contesting.

Coming up, a story that dramatically highlights

just how vital travel insurance can be when you're heading abroad

and what can happen to you if you haven't got it.

As you'll see,

that can be especially the case for expectant mums.

But listen out for some very invaluable advice

for everybody else.

Because while you might think it's OK

to buy your insurance any time right up to when you leave,

believe me, there are very good reasons why you could need it

right from the moment you book.

When Zoe Lyons from Leeds started planning a holiday last January,

there were lots of reasons why it was special.

But the main one was that she was expecting her first baby.

So before the new arrival was due,

she was looking forward to five days in the Spanish sunshine,

visiting the parents of her partner, Sam, who have a villa in Alicante.

Having a baby is a big responsibility.

You don't get much time to yourself so I thought I'd just quickly go,

you know, while we're still young

to have a holiday, to see the beach.

The rules on when mums-to-be can fly are very clear.

In an uncomplicated pregnancy,

they can do it right up until their 36th week.

Zoe would only be 27 weeks pregnant on the day she was due to fly.

But even so, she sought advice on whether she would be OK to travel.

I asked every medical person, you know, "Am I safe to fly?"

They said, "Yeah, as long as you take your vitamins and your other medicine,

"you should be fine to fly."

The flight was fine.

But no sooner had they touched down in Spain than totally unexpectedly,

there began to be signs that the baby was on its way very early.

It was actually the Thursday night that we landed.

I was experiencing some slight pain

and then it was...the Friday was the worst day.

That was when the pains kept on coming and coming.

Well, I thought, "I need to go to hospital.

She was right. Because there was no doubt about it at all,

she was in labour a full 13 weeks early.

They said, "We need to take you to a different hospital

"for the emergency Caesarean."

And when you get told emergency Caesarean, you think,

"I'm 27 weeks, why now?

"The baby's not going to survive."

That kind of thing. You just think...

You think the worst.

The following morning,

Zoe give birth to a beautiful little daughter, Ellizeah,

but born so prematurely

that Ellizeah weighed just two pounds

and she urgently needed a life-saving operation.

Somebody came up to tell us that "She's in critical condition

"but she's alive."

I wasn't allowed to see her.

So I sent Sam down to go see her.

He brought up a picture of a tiny baby

with tubes everywhere,

wires everywhere. She...

It was just like a lifeless body.

She was transparent, her skin... tiny.

I cried that much that I don't think I could have cried any more.

Although the initial operation was a success,

Ellizeah was going to need a lot of additional treatment,

which meant 12 more weeks in Spain before they could all go home.

As well as being extremely traumatic,

that would prove hugely expensive for Zoe and Sam.

With each operation that she had,

she ended up being, like, set back a couple of weeks.

So it just prolonged her stay in hospital.

Fortunately, the cost of the emergency medical care Ellizeah needed

was covered by the EHIC arrangement shared between Spain and the UK.

But all the other extra costs of staying in Spain

would have to be paid for.

And disastrously, Zoe had not taken out travel insurance

for what she thought was going to be a straightforward trip.

We stupidly thought,

"Well, we're not going to a hotel,

"we're just going to his parents' house for five days.

"What could go wrong?"

But the financial implications of that got even worse

when the time came to think about taking Ellizeah home.

They basically said that

there's no way she'd be able to go on a normal flight.

She had to fly home in a medical air ambulance

and the cheapest that we was quoted was £12,000.

To get home, I don't even think desperate came close.

Erm...

I'd have literally got on my hands and knees

and begged the Queen, if I had to,

just to get her home.

Luckily for Zoe, local TV and radio back in the UK took an interest.

Her mum went on the regional news

and one local radio station launched an appeal with listeners,

donating the money needed to get the family back to Yorkshire.

With the donations,

a lot of them came from strangers and, you know,

we'll always be grateful to those people.

But Zoe is not the only one to realise too late

how essential travel insurance can be.

Elizabeth Philip also ran into bother

after deciding to book herself two last childfree breaks

before she would really have her hands full

when her twins were born.

It was my last chance to go out and have some fun

before the babies arrived.

So one holiday with a close friend of mine

and one holiday with my husband.

Elizabeth's final flight would be when she was 30 weeks pregnant.

Even with the shorter cut off date

of 32 weeks for anyone flying with multiple pregnancies,

she thought that allowed her plenty of time.

And she was also confident that there was plenty of time left

to update her travel insurance.

I always have an annual policy.

This time, my annual policy had lapsed

because we hadn't been away.

But I would never travel without travel insurance.

Rather than renew her travel insurance

at the same time as booking her flights,

Elizabeth intended to wait until nearer the time when she went away.

But events moved faster than expected.

Because unlike flights, as we know,

babies do not stick to a schedule.

The trouble I had this time was that within,

I think it was six days of me booking the flights,

I'd given birth.

Oh, sister's awake.

The twins had arrived 15 weeks early

so with a pair of premature babies to look after,

there was no way that Elizabeth

would be taking the flights she'd booked any time soon.

And of course,

because she had not gotten round to sorting out the insurance,

she didn't have any cover.

Stuck with the tickets, all she could do

was to see if easyJet would allow her to cancel.

We'd looked at their terms and conditions

and seen that in exceptional circumstances,

they will offer a refund.

The first response I got from easyJet stated

that my situation was not exceptional

but offered me the opportunity to change the flights,

either for a different date and time and flight

or a different passenger.

I couldn't anticipate myself flying, even in the next year,

and certainly the places I'd booked

wouldn't have been suitable to go to with children,

should they have been able to fly.

So the intensity of the situation just really led me

to not feel that was an appropriate response.

But easyJet were not budging.

And their terms and conditions are clear,

that a refund is only possible

in the most limited of exceptional circumstances,

for example serious illness or death.

And while Elizabeth was convinced that premature birth should count

as one such exceptional circumstance,

for easyJet, and indeed some other airlines, it doesn't.

The second response stated,

"Well, actually, the situation was a medical condition,"

therefore I didn't qualify for a refund.

However, on the easyJet terms and conditions,

it clearly states that pregnancy is not a medical condition

and that's what I went back and said to them.

So the third response from easyJet

stated that whilst my situation may have been exceptional,

in their definition, exceptional only covers

bereavement and terminal illness of a close family member.

When we contacted easyJet, they told us

that whilst they sympathise with Elizabeth's situation,

they...

And they reiterate that the only exception to that is when a...

They stressed that they did offer

to change the date of Elizabeth's flights to a later time.

but added that they...

And whilst the most important thing is that both mums

now have beautiful, healthy babies doing well at home,

in future, neither of them will risk booking a holiday

without sorting out proper insurance as well.

If you went on holiday then get insurance.

If it's extra, if it's an extra £200,

just don't risk it.

Paris is the most visited city in the world.

Each year, some 33 million tourists flock to Paris, the city of amour.

But you know, so many visitors provide ample opportunity

for some less than scrupulous locals to take advantage.

So our travel expert Simon Calder

has the lowdown on how to hold on to your cash.

2.5 million of us Brits cross the Channel to Paris every year.

But the world's most romantic city is also one of the most expensive.

And you could find yourself being scammed

as soon as you arrive.

If you're travelling by train,

you will arrive at Gare du Nord in Paris.

Do look at the beautiful station hall

and do be careful of people who are trying to scam you.

A stranger comes up to you with an official looking ID and says,

"Can I help you?"

You say, "Yes, I'm trying to buy an unlimited travel ticket

"worth several days of getting around Paris."

He says, "Let me help you" Does lots of tapping of the buttons.

Then he says, "Oh, your credit card won't work in this machine

"but I tell you what,

"I'll put it on my credit card and then you can pay me in cash,"

and comes out with this ticket

which he says is going to cost you maybe 50 euros.

So, you give him your cash, you try the ticket,

it is for one journey.

It is worth 1.70 and you have just lost an awful lot of money.

The tourist in Paris has to be very careful of le scammer.

Once you've outfoxed the fraudsters,

it is possible to do Paris on a budget

and there are ways you can soak up some culture

without spending any money at all.

What visit to Paris could be complete without a picture

of you posing next to the Venus de Milo

or maybe of the Mona Lisa.

The trouble is, just one museum, The Louvre,

is going to cost you 16 euros.

So what to do?

Well, you could either go to The Louvre

on the first Sunday of every month, when admission is free,

or simply choose another museum.

For example, The Maison de Victor Hugo,

Victor Hugo's house in the Place de Vosges,

is a delight and it won't cost you a single centime.

And after all, we all know what the Mona Lisa looks like, don't we?

Here's my effort.

And perhaps the best advice of all,

worth remembering wherever you are France,

is to do with that very British dilemma

of whether to pay a service charge if you're eating out.

Here's one tip, don't tip.

It's not necessary in France

because service is already included.

If you've had a really nice meal, costing maybe 50 euros,

well, you might want to add a couple of euros change

but don't feel obliged to do so.

After all, this is, according to a recent survey,

the fifth most expensive city in the world.

Save your money, you're going to need it.

Now, after a disaster trip away,

you'll very often hear people talk about having had

a holiday from hell.

And when you hear everything that went wrong for our next family,

you can well understand why those words

might be what they'd use to describe what does, I'm afraid,

seem to be quite a catalogue of problems.

And it was an experience that began to go wrong

before they even got on the plane.

With its white sand beaches, year-round sunshine

and a spicy mix of ancient history and bustling bazaars,

it's very easy to see why Tunisia

has become such a popular destination.

Sarah Pilcher and Colin Brewster

thought it was just the perfect choice for a holiday

for them and their four boys, aged from 18 months to 18 years.

Dream holiday is all the children being happy.

As long as they're happy, we're happy.

And the Thalassa Village Hotel seemed to have it all.

And best of all, it's own water park, called SplashWorld.

So in October 2012, the excitedly went ahead

and booked 11 days there,

with Thomson's all inclusive brand First Choice.

The only possible snag was

that the facilities they were most interested in

weren't yet finished.

But they were booking well in advance

and say that they were really assured

that there was nothing to worry about.

I talked to a representative and she guaranteed me 100%

that the hotel will be ready.

Unfortunately, the following February,

four months before they were due to leave,

the holiday company rang

to say that the resort would not be finished on time after all.

So Colin and Sarah went back to the Thomson shop

to see where they could go as an alternative.

And the hotel that Thomson offered them instead,

the Skanes Family Resort,

did sound like it had plenty going for it,

including three swimming pools, three restaurants

and a specially-built amphitheatre for entertainment.

But it did not have SplashWorld and without that,

the family's eldest son decided he would now be staying at home.

We knew that that would be the last family holiday

that he would come on with us.

I was really upset.

Although disappointed,

Colin and Sarah decided the rest of the family would still go.

The only niggle?

The fact that this hotel was being refurbished for summer 2013 as well.

But again, the couple say that they were told that

that would not be a problem.

When they changed the holiday to the second destination,

they reassured us that it would definitely, definitely be ready.

But when they finally arrived at the Skanes Family Resort,

it looked like the hotel was anything but ready.

The first thing we see was a JCB.

And Sarah looked at me and I tried to reassure her,

"No, that doesn't mean anything."

Things, I'm afraid, didn't get better once inside the hotel.

We walked into reception and we was just met with a wall of noise -

people shouting and screaming,

"Where's my room?

"My room's not ready. We never booked this room."

-And it was like...

-There were mums crying.

-There were children upset.

-It was chaos.

Thomson reps just running around

and the actual hotel staff that they was...

just in a blind panic.

And the room they were allocated wasn't exactly toddler-friendly.

The patio door, when you opened it,

straightaway you had a very small patio with a pool.

Which sounds nice, but we couldn't open the balcony door

because of the one and a half-year-old

would be straight into the pool and he can't swim.

And when you see all the coping stones round the pool

were not set in right...

It was all sticking up, jagged and that.

Like, to walk round the pool,

you needed a pair of flaming boots on. Very unsafe.

I think you'll agree, not a great start

and things only got worse.

We went out at night for a meal.

Come back, the door was wide open.

The boys had their two iPod Touches on charge -

Stolen. And the Blackberry phone.

And so the next day,

I spent half the day down the police station

making a police report.

Sarah and Colin's relaxing family holiday

was turning out to be anything but.

And it didn't look like Thomson could instantly put things right.

I think they were so overwhelmed that with other people complaining,

ours was just one complaint.

So not a lot was being done.

And the problems just kept coming.

Nobody's air-conditioning worked.

The electricity kept cutting off, in the evenings.

Because there wasn't any evening entertainment,

the amphitheatre hadn't been made,

so there was nothing to do in the evenings.

I went up and said, "Look, this isn't good enough.

"We want to change our room." And basically, the rep said,

"There's nowhere else for you to go."

They made the best of it for the rest of the trip

but as soon as the family arrived home,

they got in touch with Thomson headquarters.

A couple of weeks later, I had a telephone call.

And the lady on the phone went through each complaint,

each disaster,

said that she couldn't apologise enough

and offered us £270 in vouchers

towards booking another holiday with them.

And we won't be doing that.

We won't be using Thomson's ever again

cos it was just absolutely horrendous.

Well, just for the record,

we've heard from other families who stayed at the hotel

throughout the rest of the summer,

all of whom have similar complaints.

Of the half-dozen other people we've spoken to,

the only thing that really differs between their complaints

is the level of compensation each of them received.

So we asked Thomson how it decides in situations like these

how much compensation should be paid.

They told us that...

And as such...

Thomson also said

though sorry to hear of the issues encountered

at the Skanes Family Resort, the hotel...

But they didn't explain why,

after Colin and Sarah had first been booked into one hotel

that turned out not to be finished,

they were then booked into a second one

that wasn't complete either.

Meanwhile, the hotel itself has told us

they disagree with what they say is a small number of complaints,

insisting that the hotel was complete

and there was no building work after the opening.

But Colin and Sarah and the others we've heard from

are adamant about what they say.

-It was such a let down.

-It was the biggest let down I've had in years.

Because how can they promise you...

One hotel that's not going to be ready, that's fair enough.

But then the next hotel is not ready?

I think that's just incompetence. It's a disgrace.

Here at Rip Off Britain,

we're always ready to investigate more of your stories

and not just about holidays.

Confused over your bills

or just trying to wade through never-ending small print?

When they sit you down to sign up for things,

they don't really give you the chance or the time

to read through all of that small print.

These people have ripped me off...

well and truly.

You can write to us at...

Or send us an e-mail to...

Well, as I think we've seen very clearly on the programme today,

the unexpected can happen to absolutely any of us.

It really doesn't matter how well we've planned our holiday beforehand.

But when something goes wrong when you're abroad,

it really can be so much more complicated to put it right

than if the same thing had happened at home,

which really is why it's pretty much essential

to have some sort of travel insurance in place

when you're heading off on holiday.

Because, as I think we've seen today,

if you don't, then all sorts of things can happen.

Can't they, Gloria?

Of course.

That doesn't mean that you should get the very first policy you see.

Or that you should spend a fortune buying cover

that chances are you might not need.

Do shop around to get protection

that's right for the sort of holiday you're taking.

That's the really important thing.

The right insurance for the type of holiday you're taking.

That is absolutely the best advice.

Because as we know only too well on this programme,

travel insurance can come with its own issues.

Lord knows we've investigated enough stories

about policies that have not paid out.

But with the most basic cover these days available pretty cheaply,

well, then the pluses really do seem to outweigh the negatives.

And remember, if your insurance really does create problems for you,

let us know and see what we can do about sorting it out.

Yes, we're here at home or abroad

and we can look at any of your problems on a future programme.

But until then, thank you very much for joining us

and we'll see you again very soon.

And by the way, if you are going on holiday,

I hope it goes really smoothly.

-Have a good one. Goodbye.

-Bye-bye.