Episode 7 Rip Off Britain

We asked you - who's left you feeling ripped off

when it comes to your holidays?

And you came back with a catalogue of travel disasters.

We save hard all year, we look forward to a holiday with our

family... We felt absolutely desperate.

This was never a three-star hotel. I wouldn't give it two.

So whether it's a deliberate rip-off, a simple mistake,

or indeed a catch in the small print,

we'll find out why you are out of pocket and what you can do about it.

Your stories. Your money.

This is Rip Off Britain.

Hello and welcome once again to Rip Off Britain, where we're

bringing you a taste of summer from the sunshine of Gran Canaria,

and we've come here so that we can look into a lot more of those

holiday and travel stories that you've asked us

to investigate on your behalf.

And amongst the unmissable advice that we've got for you today,

we're going to have some tips to help you through a situation

that I think anyone who's ever stayed in a hotel has

probably wrestled with at some time, I know I certainly have.

And that is, what you do with your luggage when it's time

to check out, but you aren't actually going home right away.

Why does that sound all too familiar?

Well now, chances are, the decision you made wasn't the right one

and we'll have more on that later on the programme.

But you may well be starting to plan your own trip away,

whether it's to somewhere like this, albeit marvellous, or indeed

to one of the many fantastic places to visit around the UK.

And while the anticipation, wherever you're headed, can be a key part

of all the excitement of going away,

I'm afraid it's too easy for those great expectations

that you had for your holiday to very quickly be dashed.

Well, it may be because you hadn't fully understood what you'd signed

up to or perhaps you'd made assumptions about what

you were entitled to that didn't work out.

Either way, we'll be getting to the bottom of some of the most

common holiday scenarios that you've written to us about

and, with a bit of luck, it'll stop you ending up

in the same situations as the people we're about to meet.

Coming up, after a holiday this family says didn't meet the grade...

That is disgusting!

..who works out how many stars a hotel deserves?

That was never a three-star hotel. I wouldn't give it two.

And a family desperate to get rid of their timeshare in the UK.

Why they can't even give it away.

It's just a lot of worry and stress,

and I just wish we could find a way out of it.

Now, if you're anything like me, and I'm going to be really honest

here, you'll probably try and stuff more into your case than you

really need wherever you go and whenever you go away.

But even when you're not trying to take the kitchen sink with you,

your luggage is always going to contain plenty of things that,

one way or another, have a real value and importance to you,

which is why this next story will strike a chord with so many of you.

Now, it involves a situation probably most of us have

been in at one point or another. You're checking out of a hotel, but

there's a bit of a wait before you actually start your journey home.

So, rather than lug all those bags and suitcases around with you

as you enjoy that last morning in your resort or by the pool,

you leave them under the watchful eye of the hotel staff.

But if that's something you've done, and I know I have many times,

then after watching this you'll probably think twice

before you ever do it again.

Come see. Come see, come see.

Anne and Paul Arrowsmith live in Cannock Chase in Staffordshire,

with their ten-year-old son Tyler and their pooch Millie.

But once a year, they go in search of something this picturesque place

can't always guarantee - sunshine!

We obviously like it somewhere warm, we like a nice pool, near a beach.

In September 2013, they set off on a particularly luxurious treat,

an all-inclusive week at the five-star Liberty Hotels Lara Beach

in Antalya, Turkey, with the tour operator Thomson.

The holiday went by in a flash and they were having such a good time

that the Arrowsmiths wanted to make the most of every minute,

even on the day they were set to fly home.

I said to Anne, "We'll check out first thing, get the cases packed,

"go down to the reception for nine and then that leaves us

"a full morning down on the slides and the beach and pool."

Checking out at 9am, Anne asked the hotel

if there was anywhere to safely store their luggage

until the bus to the airport was due to depart at 2:15pm.

And they said, "Yeah, it'd be absolutely fine to just leave them

"to the left of the reception."

I did query it, I said, "Is that OK to leave them there?"

And they said, "Yeah, that'll be fine.

"We have a bell boy that organises the cases

"and makes sure they go on the right coach."

Reassured that their luggage would be looked after by the bell boy,

the family headed for a final few hours around the pool,

returning to reception two hours before their bus was due to arrive.

To our amazement, there was maybe 50 or 60 sets

of luggage there, but my wife's bright pink case,

which would stand out in the fog, was not to be seen.

We spoke to reception and they said they'll be in the lock up room

and we went in that room, which wasn't actually locked,

we searched through there

and there was a lot of cases in there but ours weren't there.

The family's three bags were all missing.

Beginning to panic, the Arrowsmiths sought help from the hotel's

Thomson rep, who did her best to help.

She actually spoke to the reception manager

and she asked him would he ring the various tour operators

that had had coach transfers that morning...

and he did that to no avail.

Nobody had found any cases.

There was nothing they could do

but go to the airport in the hope their cases might turn up.

I was wearing a bikini, which was wet,

and I had a sarong dress over the top, which was very flimsy

and see through, and both my son and husband were in their

wet shorts and T-shirts, and we all had flip flops on,

that's all we'd got, what we were stood up in,

and our holdalls with passports in.

The family got to the airport

and immediately tracked down a Thomson's rep to see if,

for any reason, their cases had arrived ahead of them.

I actually asked the question,

"If our cases have come here on another coach, where would they be?

"What would have happened to them?" She said, "Well, the coach driver

"takes them off the coach and leaves them on the side of the road,

"and then he drives off."

So I said, "OK, if that's happened, where would they be?"

"Well, airport security would

"have blown them up because they would think there was

"a bomb in them if they'd been left by the side of the road."

So I said, "Have any bombs gone off this morning?" She said, "No."

With no sign of their luggage, the family had little choice

but to board their flight home, devastated, damp and half-dressed.

We did get some funny looks. We had upgraded to premier class

and we did feel like we stuck out like a sore thumb.

It was a miserable end to a great holiday.

But although it was clear their luggage was lost for good,

the family was confident they shouldn't be left out of pocket.

I was upset but I thought we've got to be

positive about this. We are insured.

We're insured with our travel insurance and we're insured

with our home insurance.

So Anne and Paul turned to their insurance company Nationwide

to try and recoup their losses.

As requested, they totted up their missing items, which stacked

up to £3,000 worth of clothes, gadgets and jewellery.

And they phoned me back and said, "We can't cover you."

And I said, "Why not?" And she said, "I've spoken to

"someone and they said that you've left your luggage unattended."

Anne and Paul were confused.

As far as they were concerned, they had left their luggage attended.

After all, the hotel had said it would be looked after along with

all the other cases holiday-makers had left with the bell boy.

You may well have done something similar and thought the same,

but the underwriters pointed them

to an exclusion, which said lost luggage isn't covered when in

transit, or when it's not looked after by an authorised person.

And it was clear they didn't consider an authorised person

to be a bell boy, who might be distracted by other duties -

a decision Anne and Paul had not expected.

As long as somebody's looking after your case, then it's not

unattended, so I don't know how they could come up with that statement.

Anne and Paul then tried their home insurance, with Aviva,

which had cover for personal possessions when away from home,

but that policy wouldn't pay out either because the hotel

couldn't confirm that the bags were looked after all the time.

And although the family appealed their travel insurer's decision

with the Financial Ombudsman Service,

their complaint was rejected on the basis that the policy's terms

and conditions are clear.

But Paul is shocked that something so many of us

might do can have such disastrous consequences.

I asked where to leave the luggage

and I left it where I was asked to leave it.

To me, I've done absolutely nothing wrong,

yet I'm the one without my luggage.

We contacted the tour operator, Thomson,

who told us that they're...

But pointed out that...

..and in this particular hotel...

They believe they have done everything possible to help,

including an immediate investigation and reviewing CCTV footage.

They say incidents like this...

..but they have offered the family a £50 gesture of goodwill

for the disappointment they felt over the handling of the situation.

We also spoke to the insurance companies who

turned down the family's claims.

Both reiterated that their terms

and conditions clearly state that unattended luggage is not covered.

However, travel insurers Nationwide did say that

if the hotel or tour operator could...

..it would reconsider the decision.

So that prompted us to ask what other insurers

might do in a similar situation.

When we checked the terms of 17 common travel insurance policies,

we found that only a handful, in fact, just three of them, would

even have considered covering the Arrowsmiths' lost luggage.

And when it came to it, even these may well have decided that the

bag simply wasn't left anywhere sufficiently secure.

So here's our advice. The next time you've got a few hours

between checking out of your hotel and flying home,

it really is worth taking a few minutes to check out

and think of your own policy before letting your bag out of your sight.

Because unless it's actually locked away,

it's more than likely that you wouldn't be covered.

Caroline Wayman from the Financial Ombudsman Service

says that, before leaving a bag with anyone,

you need to know if you'll be covered if it goes astray.

If perhaps you've left it on its own in the middle of nowhere

with no-one else with it,

then quite clearly that's going to be unattended and it would be very

unusual for an insurance policy to pay out in those circumstances.

It's important to look, actually, at your own policy

and see what it says. Wherever possible,

if you can get your luggage to be left somewhere where

it's a locked room, and ideally you're given a ticket,

and you know someone's going to be there, keeping an eye on it,

then obviously that's much better.

The Arrowsmiths have learned the hard way

that simply having confidence the hotel is keeping your bags safe

isn't something you can rely on

and certainly won't be any help if things go wrong.

I've never heard of a situation like this before and everybody

I know leaves their cases with the hotel to look after.

We're just going to have to hold on to our cases.

Now, here's a situation.

If I was to offer you the chance to stay in a four,

five or even, these days, a six or seven-star hotel,

I bet you'd bite my arm off for it.

But what exactly would you expect for all those stars

and who, indeed, decided it deserved that rating in the first place?

Well, the star system has been around for more than a century,

but even so, one person's idea of a four-star hotel

can be very different to someone else's.

So the next time you're looking for hotels online,

how do you know that the standard you think you've been sold

is actually what you're going to get when you check in?

Here it is, look, our wonderful hotel.

It says, "Attractive apartments, surrounded by lovely gardens,

"accompanied by delicious food..."

Sounds good, it should be. It's three-star!

The number of stars a hotel has can be a useful guide to find

the holiday that's absolutely right for you.

Two stars might be fine for a short stay,

but if you want to push the boat out,

some hotels now boast six or even seven stars!

But you'd still expect a hotel with a more modest star rating

to deliver the goods, and certainly that's what Linda

and Tony believed when they started researching a special break

for three generations of their family.

They plumped for a destination that they'd all enjoyed before.

We enjoy Turkey, it's nice and cheap,

and we know we're going to be looked after.

They searched online for the right hotel and Tony eventually found

one that looked ideal on the website of a company called Travel Soon.

It was called the Club Secret Garden Apartments and two weeks there

cost a total of £1,669 for the five of them.

The pictures looked really, really good.

Full-size swimming pool, palm trees all around it.

I thought, "It looks nice, we'll go for it."

And the fact that it was rated as three stars meant that

Tony and Linda expected a certain standard of accommodation

but, right from the off, they didn't think that's what they got.

Everything was quite tatty.

The bottom of doors were all bashed up and smashed.

At the back of the steps, all the rubbish was thrown over

to one side, right underneath one of the balconies.

It was left there all day, just to rot in the heat.

The smells, the flies,

it was horrendous, weren't it?

They didn't think things were much better around the pool.

First of all, we noticed that the pool was going quite cloudy.

We were told that the pump had broken and it breaks on a regular basis.

I didn't feel safe in it,

so I certainly wouldn't want a child to go in it.

Tony and Linda are adamant that they weren't just being too fussy.

As far as they were concerned,

these apartments simply didn't merit their three-star rating.

This was never a three-star hotel. I wouldn't give it two.

So when it comes to star gazing,

could you accurately gauge how many stars a hotel has?

We did a quick test, showing descriptions

and photographs of various hotels to Leicester shoppers

and asking them to guess the official rating.

Pool's OK, it's not too far from the seafront or the beach.

I'd say a three-star.

Oh, wow, that's a surprise. We'd consider that to be three-star.

-Not like the two stars we've been in.

-No.

-What do you think?

-I would think that would be a...

-A four?

-A four-star, probably.

-Yeah.

Because they've got an internet cafe and...

Oh! I got it right.

I would say four.

Two! Oh, well, I would be really happy with that.

-Outdoor pool, waterside sports, three-star.

-Yeah.

Four!

Doesn't look four to me!

Perhaps it's no wonder we can all be so baffled by what a star rating

genuinely means because there are no set rules to ensure consistent

standards across the industry. And adding to the confusion,

stars aren't the only symbols that you need to understand.

What the major tour operators have done is brought in their own system,

so Thomson Holidays, for example,

offer a T rating

and Thomas Cook have hearts.

What's more, all these symbols can mean different things,

so a hotel that is judged to have one rating with one tour operator

might get a totally different rating from another.

Well, interestingly, there is no global system around the world.

There's not even a common standard in Europe.

So why doesn't every hotel say that they're five-star?

Because the watch word of any wise accommodation provider

is under-promise and over-deliver.

So how exactly do the big companies decide how to rate hotels?

Well, Thomas Cook told Rip Off Britain that they use

a strict number of criteria, including standard of decor,

facilities, location, food and service.

They also review the ratings regularly,

based on customer feedback.

Meanwhile, Thomson say they use a mix of official stars

and their own T rating.

Two Ts means...

..to five Ts for...

But back in Turkey, Tony and Linda felt their apparently three-star

holiday was deteriorating into a five-star mess.

On going into the bathroom,

I discovered a plastic covering that was actually catching water

from the shower room above us

and it had actually started to leak.

'That is disgusting.'

All their dirty shower water

was coming through the middle of our shower.

That was the final straw for Tony.

He called Travel Soon back in England,

who said they could move them to another hotel, but at a price.

I would have to pay £80 per room to move us

and I point blankly refused

to be out of pocket any more on this holiday.

I've never got upset on a holiday.

I've taken everything, whether, you know, the good with the bad,

but I actually broke down towards the end.

I couldn't stand it there and Tony, you know,

could see what it was doing to all of us.

I wouldn't even give it a rating,

not even one star. One star would be too good for them.

TravelSoon.com told us that, while it's genuinely sorry

that these apartments known as the Club Caprice

were not to the family's liking...

It added that...

And, in this case, the hotel worked out at £10 per night, per person.

But it said the number of stars it uses...

Travel Soon's supplier, a company called Beds with Ease, also

told us that the low room rate meant the apartments would be basic,

but went on to say, as indeed the hotel itself has,

that other guests had...

..and that the problems Linda and Tony highlighted were quickly fixed.

Even so, they have refunded the family a total of £135.88.

But despite all of that, Tony and Linda still

say that their confidence in hotel star ratings

has been severely knocked.

As star ratings go, I would be very sceptical of them.

I would need a lot of time to look over everything

about hotel reviews from now on.

Still to come on Rip Off Britain -

the couple whose wedding in paradise

cost them a lot more than they'd bargained for.

We can say we've done it and we're happily married,

but never again, not like that.

And top tips for making your money go further in Las Vegas.

For one weekend in summer 2014, we turned this West Midlands shop

into a free consumer advice clinic,

where our experts tackled your problems,

and plenty of you came in to sound off in our gripe corner.

I'm a teacher in a local secondary school and it's just infuriating

that, when I get to go on holiday, we have to pay a lot more money

than if we went during term time

and obviously I've got no opportunity to go during term time.

I feel really ripped off

because of travel agents taking advantage of people booking early.

We book early for our convenience, for work, and then, a few weeks

before we're going, we get phone call or a letter to say they've changed

the time of departure, the time of return and even the time and place.

Seasoned traveller Marilyn Poulton loves her holidays,

but the problem she's brought to Simon Calder is one we hear a lot.

Marilyn, I've been reading through your notes.

You are a well-travelled lady, aren't you?

You seem to go all over the world.

-Yes, I have.

-There's a downside to it for you, isn't there?

Tell me what it is and why you've come to see Simon.

-The single supplement!

-Right.

Some companies only have a small charge,

but by far the worst offenders are cruises.

The last cruise I did, I went to speak to the lady and she said,

"Well, if you go in as two of you, it will be this much.

"If you're going on your own, it's half of that plus 70%."

70%?!

70%. And I said, "Well, why do you do that?"

And she said, "Everybody does it,"

and I really think it's time everybody stopped doing it.

I agree, as somebody who travels on her own.

Simon, what are we going to do about it?

Well, don't blame me. It's the travel industry.

Let me tell you exactly how the cruise business works, OK?

Almost all the cabins are, as you know, for two people.

If there's only one person in it, the cruise company will say the ship

is going from A to B to C, you've got to sail it anyway

and, if you're having a whole cabin to yourself,

we have to charge a premium on that.

How do you feel about that, Marilyn, as an explanation?

Well, I still think the whole idea stinks.

Of course! I do, too.

I don't know how you feel, Marilyn.

Would you mind paying just a little bit of extra money?

I wouldn't mind paying 15%, even 20%.

Are we ever going to see it being reduced, do you think, Simon?

I've been covering this for 20 years and it's exactly the same.

You get exactly the same answers when you ask the companies.

Just small things you can do. For instance, France,

beautiful country, of course, you will agree.

If you go to the big hotels,

they'll say, "Right, you have to pay for a double room."

If you go to lovely small family-run hotels,

two-star places, then they've always got great single rooms,

and they'll charge maybe 30 euros instead of 40 euros,

so it's a 50% surcharge but it's still not nearly as bad.

Also, small family-run hotels are by far the best option

when you're staying somewhere like that.

Choose your location, choose your country

-and choose your type of holiday.

-Or find a friend.

What are you doing next week?

Five or ten years ago, if you'd been strolling along a busy street

or a promenade like this in a resort somewhere,

the chances are you would have been approached by someone trying

to sell you your very own slice of sunshine.

A timeshare - a seemingly very cost-effective way

of having a holiday, year after year.

But of course timeshares aren't restricted to just sunny locations,

they're all over the world,

and many of them a lot closer to home in the UK.

But the problems that some of you have with timeshares

are pretty universal, especially if you're one of

the thousands of people who've quite simply changed their minds

and would like to sell up.

Or like the people that we're about to meet, who are not just

having a problem selling - they can't even give it away.

Across Europe, it's estimated that over one million people

own timeshares and a whopping 40% of them are Brits.

And while most of them like to take their week or two every year

in their own favourite corner of the Med,

some prefer timeshares closer to home

and, in John and Shirley Turnbull's case, much closer.

We like the area.

It's where we were brought up.

Um, the various villages, we have a castle in every town.

Just a nice area to spend a week.

In 2005, John and Shirley spent £9,000 to buy one week every January

in a chalet here, in the grounds of Slaley Hall in Northumberland,

just under an hour from their home in Gateshead.

As well as that one-off lump sum, they agreed to pay

around £300 a year in management and maintenance fees, with bills on top.

An English timeshare, I'm on English ground,

I've got no foreign laws, so on and so forth, no-brainer.

It's what we wanted, location, cost and time of year.

The chalet is part of a luxury resort,

which, until recently, was owned by hotel giant De Vere,

but the timeshares are separately owned

and run by the Slaley Hall Owners' Club.

Each came with free use of hotel facilities, like the spa,

and, for John and Shirley, it was a place the whole family could use.

We thought it was an investment, it came with a 60-year deal.

Obviously I'm not going to be around for the 60 years

and we were told that the family could take it on.

Over the next few years, John and Shirley's family

enjoyed their week-long escape to the chalet, which,

even with the management fees and bills, seemed an absolute bargain.

We thought the initial fees were fine, £200-£300 for that week.

We couldn't get a holiday for £400 for the whole family per year.

Then, in 2009, the Owner's Club announced the site's management fees

were set to rise by more than £95

to fund a refurbishment of the lodges.

John and Shirley were happy to pay a little bit more,

until that is, they saw that their lodge wasn't actually

one of the ones to be refurbished.

We were a bit disappointed in that, especially with the fees,

the maintenance fees we were paying,

we expected some sort of refurbishment to our lodge.

When John looked into the new fees, it quickly became obvious

this wasn't just a one-off increase.

The management charges could rise year after year.

I started to worry and started to keep a check

on a spreadsheet on maintenance fees and I was really concerned.

Fearing his timeshare was becoming too expensive to own,

John decided to sell up.

So he contacted De Vere, who handled sales on behalf of the Owner's Club,

and who agreed to put it on the market on his behalf,

but weeks and then months went by with no sale.

And when John looked online at what timeshares were currently available,

it was clear his week wasn't the only timeshare

De Vere was trying to sell.

Sure enough my lodge was there, weeks before and after mine.

I started to really get worried.

They're not selling the timeshares.

And all the while, the maintenance fees were still increasing,

most recently to more than £800 a year.

Add to that the utility bills they pay for the time they stay there

and their next week away could cost over £1,000,

more than double what their first week, nine years earlier,

had originally cost.

It is becoming a money pit.

Shirley and I are really struggling with the costs

and we really need an exit strategy from this.

We now feel we are paying for something we don't want.

Truth be told, we can't really afford it in the future.

My family don't really want it.

They see the stress that we are going through

and I don't want to give them the stress

of something that I thought was going to be an investment for them,

something I was going to leave them.

Out of desperation, John even jokingly suggested to De Vere

that he was willing to pay them £2,000 to take the timeshare

off his hands, but they declined.

To date, we've paid over £14,000 for the privilege of having this week

and we just feel that, by the end of the term,

we could have bought Slaley Hall outright.

When we spoke to De Vere about John and Shirley's situation.

They told us that they don't comment on individual cases,

but that it's the Slaley Hall Owners' Club,

of which the Turnbulls are members,

that set the management fees at Slaley Hall and not them.

So we contacted the Owners' Club, who told us that it would be

"inappropriate to comment" because John and Shirley have

"chosen not to communicate with the club" to discuss their concerns.

John and Shirley may be in the minority of timeshare owners,

in that they bought so close to home, but they're certainly not

in the minority when it comes to the number of people

now trying to sell one.

It's even been estimated by some industry experts

that, for every one person looking to buy a timeshare,

there are 400 people with one to sell.

What you have to understand when you sign up to a timeshare

is that you're signing a legally binding agreement.

You're promising to pay the initial premium,

but also pay the ongoing maintenance and service charges.

But maintenance fees can often go up more than the cost of living

and, if you are in a timeshare contract,

you often have very little control over that expenditure.

In many ways, it's like signing a blank cheque.

John and Shirley say that's exactly how it feels for them

and they can't see any easy solution.

I don't want it to be a chain around my family's neck either.

It's just a lot of worry and stress,

and I just wish we could find a way out of it.

Our travel expert Simon Calder has flown, sailed, driven

and indeed cycled to thousands of destinations all over the world,

so we asked him to let us in on some of his top secrets,

this time, Las Vegas.

It's all about the dollar in Vegas, with shows, bars,

restaurants and casinos all vying for your money.

It starts the moment you touch down

after that 11-hour flight.

The famous strip, Las Vegas Boulevard,

where you'll probably be staying, is only a few miles from the airport,

yet a taxi is going to cost you anything from 15 to 25.

So instead take the public bus,

which serves most of the main hotels

and costs only 2.

But if you do prefer to take a taxi,

then watch out for long hauling.

It's something of a Las Vegas speciality and it means taking

new visitors for a longer ride than necessary

in order to boost the fare.

Handily, the Nevada Taxicab Authority provides this

useful leaflet showing the approximate fares to all

the main hotels, so do your research in advance.

So, you've finally arrived and hit that famous strip,

but don't be dazzled by all that neon.

Las Vegas is famous for its scams as well as its casinos.

On Las Vegas Strip, you'll constantly be approached

by friendly individuals offering all manner of freebies.

But beware, these are not good Samaritans.

There's almost always a catch involved.

VIP entry and a free drink at the best nightclub in town?

Well, that's probably to do with getting bodies in the door early

when the place is empty.

And free show tickets could simply be the bait

for a hard timeshare sell

that ends up costing you time and possibly money.

And it's not just out on the strip that you need to be on guard.

You've had a great Las Vegas day.

Now you're back in your hotel room, the phone rings.

It's the front desk. They've had a computer crash

and they need your credit card details again.

Being a helpful soul, you provide them,

including those three digits on the back.

Trouble is, they weren't the front desk at all -

they're a bunch of scammers and they're already spending your cash.

There are several ways they can get your room phone number,

including simply loitering near the lifts and eyeing unsuspecting guests

as they hold their key cards for everyone to see.

So, if you get such a call, be very suspicious!

Do you know, it's estimated that the average UK wedding

will cost around £21,000?

And that's not including the honeymoon or the rings.

So it's easy to understand why some couples might decide

they can save money, and certainly cut back on all the hassle

and planning, by jetting off to get married in the sun.

You can do it with most of the big holiday companies,

who might have special brochures showing off their expertise.

But no matter how love struck and starry-eyed you might be,

you can't assume the arrangements

will be quite as simple as you think

and it can pay to make sure you've taken a long, hard look

at the small print before saying "I do" to a wedding in paradise.

For many couples dreaming of a wedding,

it's not just the dress that has to be white - it's the sand too.

But for Tim and Charlotte Hencher-Cross,

getting married abroad ended up costing a lot more time

and money than they bargained for.

It was stressful, it cost us lots of money,

and it's resulted in lots of hardship now down the road.

-Yeah, I don't think we've really recovered from it, have we?

-No.

Tim and Charlotte are from Worcester.

He's a driving instructor

and Charlotte runs her own clothing company.

And with baby son Logan too, they knew they had to keep

the purse strings tight when they decided to tie the knot.

I think the idea for getting married abroad was mainly

to keep the costs down.

We wanted to have a life after the wedding, which is expensive.

I was too busy to plan a wedding,

and thought it'd be romantic and sunny and nice.

-All done for us as well.

-Yes.

Hoping the whole process would be simple and straightforward,

Tim and Charlotte decided to organise their big day

through the specialist wedding arm

of one of the country's biggest names in travel, Thomson.

The couple paid £2,400 for two weeks in the Dominican Republic.

Then, on top of that, there was an extra charge of £1,155

for the wedding package, including the venue,

reception, cake and decorations,

plus a marriage licence

and registrar to officiate at the ceremony.

12 guests were also travelling for the special day,

each paying around £1,200.

It was everything that we needed

for the simple beach wedding that we wanted.

At the right price as well, I think,

that was the big point there as well. It was right at the top.

All the couple needed to do themselves was organise

the legal paperwork,

without which they wouldn't be able to get married.

BABY AND TIM LAUGH

But Tim and Charlotte say that they weren't given much guidance

about how to do that.

They got the impression it would be a relatively simple process,

but it was only after they'd booked the holiday and paid the deposit

that they realised there'd be rather more paperwork than expected

and it all had to be in Spanish.

It was all completely new to me.

I don't understand legal mumbo jumbo at all.

At the time, I was probably doing 14/15-hour days.

I didn't have time to plan a wedding at the same time -

that's why we went down this route.

I mean, I struggle to do my tax return, let alone plan a wedding.

On top of all the paperwork, further complicated by the fact

that Charlotte had been married before,

all this admin incurred extra costs,

which the couple say they just hadn't seen coming.

Things that weren't included were all the translations

for the documents, the legalisation of documents,

all the...expenses to actually have all this shifted in the post.

There was no talk anywhere just how much it was going to cost.

Feeling overwhelmed by what was required,

Tim and Charlotte turned to Thomson for help.

After all, the company had promised, as they put it,

to "be on hand to assist every step of the way."

There was a day that we went into Thomson, wasn't there?

And I think it was one of our better days because we thought

we were up to speed with what we'd got,

and it actually turned out that, in their eyes,

some of the documents weren't legal documents at all.

At this point, I just thought,

"We're not going to have any time left.

"We're not going to be able to get married.

"We'll end up just going over there for a holiday with everybody

"and waste everyone's money."

It was the last straw then and I just started crying.

But if the wedding was to go ahead,

there was no way of avoiding the rapidly mounting legal fees.

We were frantically getting paperwork sorted.

I think the translations had come back by that point,

but they still had to go down to the Dominican consulate

to get legalised.

-Literally, all they had to do was put a stamp on it...

-Read it.

..sign and have read through, and it was nearly £800.

The contract Tim and Charlotte had signed with Thomson

did state that the couple were responsible for supplying

and translating legal documents,

but the couple insist they were never given a proper indication

of just how much all that would eventually cost.

In the end, it came to over £2,000.

All in all, it was more expensive for the paperwork

and all the documents to be done

than it was for one person and the wedding.

All was finally completed and Tim and Charlotte's Caribbean wedding

was everything they'd hoped for.

There was that bit of relief when I heard the music come on,

and I was stood there with my best man, and I turned around

and I saw you and your dad, and I got a tear in my eye.

It was just that moment then,

I realised that this was actually going to happen.

-It was perfect.

-Yeah, it was.

But when the honeymoon was over,

all those costs Tim and Charlotte were not expecting

still had to be paid.

Expert wedding coordinator George Watts,

who styles himself "the Wedding Fairy"

has seen it all before.

A lot of couples often take for granted that their tour operator

is going to plan everything, which is actually completely wrong.

It's your responsibility to legalise the wedding,

so the best port of call for this is the Gov UK website.

You can select the country you want to get married in

and find out exactly what you need to do and how you need to go

about doing it. If you are worried about the legalities abroad,

do bear in mind there are other options.

You could maybe go for a wedding blessing, a commitment ceremony,

spiritual celebrations are hugely popular,

and then you get rid of all that tier

of worrying about the legal process of your wedding.

You can sit back, relax and enjoy, and it's often a lot cheaper.

When Rip Off Britain contacted Thomson, it told us

it has over "two decades' experience in organising weddings"

and "customer satisfaction is very high."

It went on to say that it provided the couple

with "an estimate of the legal costs",

though the couple dispute this.

And the company reiterated that "responsibility for completing

"the paperwork and all associated costs lies with the customer."

So the advice for anybody wanting to plan a wedding abroad

is to check exactly what documentation is required

and how much it's likely to cost before you go ahead and book.

I think, realistically, we can say we've done it

and we're happily married, which is brilliant,

but never again.

Not like that.

Here at Rip Off Britain, we're always ready to investigate

more of your stories and not just about holidays.

You can write to us at...

Or send us an e-mail to...

The Rip Off team is ready and waiting to investigate your stories.

Well, as I think we've all learnt from today's stories,

you can't always assume that what you believe is the case

with certain aspects of your holiday

actually turns out to be the way things are going to pan out.

So here comes that familiar advice again -

just make sure that you check all of the details before making

a decision that you just might later regret.

Oh, totally. Do you know what though?

I'm still thinking about the number of times that I've left luggage

in a hotel reception. I'll tell you something, I won't be doing it again.

Now you'll find a lot more travel advice of course on our website:

And from there you can send us, I hope, some of your own stories

on any topic whatsoever,

which perhaps we'll look into on a future programme.

But that's all we've got time for for today.

We'll be back to investigate more of your stories very soon.

But until then, if you are planning a holiday,

we hope that obviously everything goes completely smoothly

but, if it doesn't, do please write and let us know.

In the meantime, thanks for joining us

-and, from all the team, goodbye.

-Happy holidays!