Episode 8 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.

I was absolutely mortified. I'm upset, angry and I'm frustrated.

It's the inconvenience.

It's the stress. It's upsetting.

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're out of pocket

and what you can do about it.

Your stories. Your money.

This is Rip Off Britain.

Hello and welcome to Rip Off Britain

where this week we're bringing a taste of summer into your homes

because we've come to the island of Lanzarote in the Canaries,

and it's from here that we'll be investigating

some of the stories you've sent us to do with holidays

which in some cases have gone quite spectacularly wrong.

Isn't that the truth? And when that's happened,

in each of the situations we'll be hearing about today,

the blame has fallen squarely

at the door of the company you booked with -

and not always, by the way, just any old company!

At the heart of these experiences are some of the best-known

and most reputable names in the business.

So, could they have done more to keep things on track?

Well, these days, of course, when we have so much choice

as to how we book our holidays,

if we do buy everything as a package,

or use a traditional tour operator,

the very least we expect is to get what we paid for.

But in some of the cases we're looking at today,

it seems there were mistakes made

in the absolute fundamentals of what had been booked.

Coming up - would you still leave your home for a holiday

if your address and the exact dates you'd be away

had been given to hundreds of total strangers?

We didn't know it until we got this e-mail

that all our details was out there for the world and his dog to see.

And a holiday to Malta that went wrong from the off

when no-one official could find the details of what had been booked.

It was a nightmare. That particular day was a nightmare.

Now, I don't suppose many of us actually enjoy complaining

while we're on holiday, but sometimes the service,

or the accommodation, leave you feeling you've no choice.

So you might take your problem up with the hotel staff,

hoping they'll rectify things and perhaps even offer you

a goodwill gesture to make up for it all.

But what if that goodwill gesture comes with a catch?

The condition that you can't make any further complaint whatsoever

or raise it with the tour operator when you get home.

Well, that's exactly what happened to the person in our next film -

but she had no idea of what she'd unwittingly agreed to.

There was a lot riding on this particular holiday.

And her week on the island of Majorca in May 2014

meant a lot more to Amanda Stratton than your typical sunshine break.

She hadn't been away for quite some time,

and this much-anticipated trip

was a chance to catch up with friends on the island as well.

It was an absolute dream for me,

because having suffered various illnesses,

hospital treatments, accidents, surgery,

I hadn't had...I'd had no holiday for approximately six years.

Amanda finds it hard to walk long distances unaided,

so she's booked a week with easyJet Holidays

in a hotel and resort she knew was easy to get around.

The 3-Star whala!balmes hotel in C'an Pastilla

was also just a few miles from where her friends lived.

But when the taxi dropped her off,

there was a notice telling guests that it was closed.

My heart sank, because that was where I was supposed to be staying.

The place was covered in dust,

and obviously they were doing renovations.

The note asked all guests to take a taxi, at the hotel's expense,

to a sister hotel, the whala!beach, just over four miles away.

But Amanda wasn't happy.

The new hotel was further from the friends she'd come to visit,

and what's more, she felt she should have been warned in advance

that the hotel she'd booked with wasn't ready.

I was annoyed at the fact that I hadn't been contacted

to tell me of any of the changes.

I was tired by that point, I'd been on the go for about seven hours.

Amanda called the office of easyJet Holidays

at Palma Airport to complain.

But after being told she'd need to speak to someone in the UK,

she reluctantly checked in, hoping to pursue her complaint later.

By that point I'd just about had enough,

I just wanted to go and get to my room and actually make a cup of tea.

The hotel saw that Amanda was distressed,

and offered to give her free use of the safe in her room

as a small upgrade.

I assumed this was done as a goodwill gesture,

so, thank you, she signs the piece of paper over to me, I sign it

and she takes it away. I didn't think any more of it.

But what Amanda didn't realise at the time was that the slip of paper

was an agreement to accept free access to the safe

as final settlement for having been moved to a different hotel.

She hadn't spotted that it stated she was agreeing NOT to try and get

any further compensation from her holiday supplier in the future.

They just wanted to sort of get rid of me -

"Sign this, off you go, there's your room key, bye-bye."

But that wasn't the end of my bye-bye, I was back pretty soon

with complaints about the room.

As her holiday unfolded, Amanda didn't think that the new hotel

met the standards she'd expected from the one she'd booked.

But, as she was spending most of the time with her friends,

she decided to make the best of it,

rather than waste her precious week away complaining.

When she got home, however,

still unaware of the significance of what she'd signed,

she took all her complaints to easyJet Holidays.

Top of her list was the fact that, as far as she was concerned,

she hadn't been told in advance

that the hotel she'd booked had been closed.

Although the company insisted it HAD tried to get in touch.

According to them, they'd tried to communicate with me.

I'd had no e-mail letting me know

prior to the holiday that this was happening,

that the change of hotel was going to take place.

EasyJet Holidays did apologise for the fact that the new hotel

wasn't up to the standards Amanda had expected,

but it pointed out that she had signed a form agreeing to accept

the offer of a free safe in her room as compensation.

The company included a copy of that in their reply,

and it was only now that Amanda realised

the significance of what the hotel had asked her to sign.

I was absolutely fuming.

As far as I was concerned, it was done as a gratuity,

it was just a nice gesture,

I wasn't aware that I was sort of signing away my rights.

It wasn't explained, no way was it pointed out to me

prior to me signing my life away, shall we say.

What they're doing is wrong.

Solicitor Nick Harris says he's seeing an increasing number

of forms such as the one Amanda signed,

intended to stop disgruntled holiday-makers

making formal complaints to their tour operators when they get home.

Hoteliers are very, very keen to preserve their reputation.

So they do this by offering deals to keep you quiet.

Now, that's very good for the hotel,

who then appears to be performing very well.

But in reality, that's very, very bad for the consumer.

So what should you do if you find yourself in Amanda's situation,

asked to sign something that seems to take away your right

to take your complaint any further?

Nine out of ten of these types of agreements, in my experience,

will be in favour of the person that's offering the agreement,

so be very aware, don't be forced into signing anything.

If in doubt, don't sign it, go to your holiday company

and say to your representative, "I need your help."

If the worst comes to the worst, you might want to sign it

but you also might want to put

"under duress" next to your signature,

and by putting that, it does keep the channel open

that when you come back,

you've signed it because you're on the spot,

but your compensation, you want more.

Where the holiday is a regulated package holiday,

then your contract is still with your holiday company,

it's not with the hotel.

You can still take up your complaint at any time

with the holiday company.

When we asked easyJet Holidays,

which is run as a partnership between Low Cost Beds and easyJet,

about Amanda's case,

it told us it was sorry to hear of her experience,

but reiterated that it HAD tried to contact her

to say the hotel she'd booked was closed for essential maintenance

and she was being moved to one it considered

a four-star, like-for-like property.

The company suggested that the contact details

provided at the time of booking may have been incorrect,

as no response was received from Amanda.

But, in any case, easyJet Holidays went on to say

that it appreciated the frustration Amanda must have felt

when the second hotel didn't meet her expectations.

And while again it pointed out that she had accepted and signed

for the free use of a safety deposit box as compensation,

the company said that, as a gesture of goodwill,

it will be refunding 15% of the cost of her holiday.

We also contacted the Spanish company which runs the hotel,

but it didn't respond.

But, after discovering how she'd agreed to sign something

without even realising it, Amanda is unlikely to sign anything again

without checking it extra carefully.

This has made me very aware

of reading every last little detail on anything.

I now sit there and when I read a document or a letter,

I am now aware of what these issues are.

They say a man's home is his castle.

So when it comes to going away on holiday,

no man wants to leave their castle vulnerable to attack.

And Ed and Rita McGrath are hot on their security measures.

Before we go away on holiday, I put my timer lights on,

make sure my alarm's on,

do all the security locks on the windows.

Our neighbours are quite good -

if they were to see any post they'd push it through, anyway.

Having got their pre-holiday security checks down to a T,

Ed and Rita can jet away and fully relax

without worrying about what's going on back at home.

And that's exactly what they'd hoped to do on the trip they'd booked

with their son and daughter to mark their golden wedding anniversary.

With our wedding anniversary being in November,

we wanted to go somewhere warm, obviously.

The family decided on Cape Verde, dubbed the "African Caribbean".

It sits 500km off the coast of West Africa.

And they booked their dream trip with First Choice.

It was the culmination of months of planning.

We'd been preparing for this nearly all year,

because the children bought myself things for Mother's Day,

to take on holiday, and for my birthday.

We've centred round it all year.

But, once the holiday was booked,

they began to experience technical issues

managing their booking online.

For instance, they couldn't reserve their seats, which,

when they queried it with the company,

they were told was because there were teething problems

with a new IT system

which weren't, it seemed, being very quickly resolved.

Because then they got an e-mail suggesting

that the balance for the trip should all have been paid.

So I rang them, and they said, "Oh ignore it,

"this new IT system is causing us problems."

I said OK. A few days after, we got another e-mail,

so I rang them again,

so they said, "I'm awful sorry, it's the same IT problem."

Rita paid the balance of her £4,227 holiday

and didn't give the IT issues another thought.

But a week later, they heard from First Choice again.

We got an e-mail saying, "Your holiday's been cancelled,"

and that we hadn't paid anything. I was like...ooh!

So I just rang them right away,

and they said, "Oh, no, ignore it, it's an error."

At first, Rita assumed this was simply just another IT hiccup,

but as the conversation with First Choice continued,

there appeared to be more to it than just a minor mix-up.

The advisor said it's a bit of a small data protection breach

that has now been rectified.

And I said, "There's no such thing as a SMALL data protection breach."

And she said, "Oh, yeah, it's just minor,

"we've made this new booking to protect yourselves."

Rita and Ed learnt that Thomson, a sister company of First Choice,

had accidentally sent an e-mail to 458 customers of both companies,

attaching to it a document containing all the flight details,

departure dates and, crucially,

the home address of each of the recipients.

But it wasn't First Choice or Thomson who alerted them to the problem.

Instead, they were contacted by one of the other customers

whose details were on the leaked e-mail.

He said, "I don't know if you're all aware..."

We didn't know until we got this e-mail that all of our details

was out there for the world and his dog to see.

And it was only when Rita and Ed came across a report

in the news that the scale of the data leak became apparent.

It was on the news that Thomson had broken data protection

on a large scale, and it wasn't just us that were involved.

There was several hundred people that was involved.

For Rita and Ed, the worst of it was that the e-mail revealed exactly

when everyone whose details were on it would be away, meaning

complete strangers would know when their homes would be empty.

I felt absolutely sick,

cos I realised then that there was something really, really wrong

and it was going to affect us, our holiday.

And word amongst affected customers was spreading fast,

as others on the list

started contacting the strangers whose details they'd been sent.

Steve Merrifield and David and Suzanne Dawes were also on the list.

-Hello, I'm Steve.

-Hi, Steve. Dave.

-Pleased to meet you, Dave.

And they, too, were concerned

the information about when their houses would be empty

was now floating around,

just waiting to fall into the wrong hands.

They've got a good idea, probably,

-how long you're going to be away for.

-Yes.

And if the information did get into the wrong hands,

which it could well do,

it's out there and then it could be disastrous.

It's a golden opportunity.

You don't even have to be an opportunist, in this instance.

It is handed to them on a plate.

As well as burglary, identity theft was a concern for many,

although First Choice

and Thomson insisted that the data that had been leaked was quickly

retrieved and that all affected customers had been contacted.

Although, of course, in Ed and Rita's case, that happened

only after they'd heard what had happened from someone else.

And whilst David, Suzanne and Steve were happy to go ahead

and take their holiday, Rita and Ed didn't feel quite so confident.

They decided that even the possibility

that the fact that their house would be empty might have spread

made going away too much of a risk.

I couldn't have lain down on a beach, knowing all my details -

departure dates, arrival dates, God knows what... No, I couldn't.

I couldn't have enjoyed my holiday.

The couple felt they had no choice but to cancel their dream holiday.

And though Thomson and First Choice

have since admitted their mistake and given Rita and Ed a full refund,

for them, that's not the point,

because, as far as they're concerned,

it was entirely because of the data breach

that they'd be spending their special day not in Cape Verde

but at home in the UK.

I don't think this can be rectified. How can this be fixed?

It's our golden wedding.

Our technology expert, David McClelland,

says it's understandable that the couple had concerns,

because if your data falls into the wrong hands,

it can have worrying consequences.

It's not the most extensive leak that we've seen

but that's scant consolation for those that were affected.

Now, how those people might be impacted by this -

they could get phishing e-mails,

they could get phone calls from people

pretending to be related to the trip that they were taking,

trying to defraud them of cash, perhaps.

Or, in a worse case, with knowledge of the itinerary,

there could be physical burglaries at their address

while they're away from home.

Mistakes happen.

Data breaches, unfortunately, happen as well,

and it becomes a case of how the company deals with that,

how it manages that situation.

The Information Commissioner's Office,

which monitors companies and their data protection policies,

takes a dim view of anyone who is seen to be mishandling

customers' personal information.

It's been working with Thomson and its parent group, TUI, to establish

what went wrong on this occasion and to prevent it happening again.

And while the company told us it couldn't comment on specific cases,

it confirmed that an e-mail sharing a small number of customers'

information had been sent in error but that it had been recalled

successfully in a significant number of cases.

It apologised to the customers involved,

stressing that instances where data security has been compromised

are extremely rare, and adding that it's taken steps

to reduce the risk of such incidents happening again.

But that's no consolation to Rita and Ed

who, because of the fear of being burgled,

feel they have been robbed of their special celebration.

We can't get another golden wedding anniversary.

You're only married 50 years once

and that's why it was such a big thing for us.

Still to come on rip-off Britain...

The changing shape of family holidays.

How the big names haven't always kept up.

I booked a family holiday, a fun time,

and everything was just ruined.

-For two days only...

-A one-stop shop packed with advice.

It's our very famous Rip Off Britain pop-up shop.

This year, we brought our top team of consumer experts

to the Victoria Centre in Nottingham...

..and they were keen to help as many of you with

advice as they possibly could.

Never, never, never use your credit card to take money out abroad.

They owe you the money and it's yours to claim.

Ann and Jan came to see travel journalist Lisa Francesca Nand.

They'd booked a luxury four-star hotel in the Italian Lakes

but were in for a shock when they arrived.

Instead of having the four-star hotel by the lakeside,

we were told that we're booked into a three-star hotel

with a 5-10 minute walk from the lake.

What did the tour operator say? Have they admitted making the mistake?

This booking was made through the agent to the operator over the phone

and they don't record their calls,

and so our agent is saying that

they were quoted a four-star hotel

and the operator is saying there's no proof of that.

So were they saying that you actually booked this three-star

hotel and not the four-star that you did originally book?

In so many words, that's what they're saying.

Now, as you booked your hotel through a UK-based tour operator,

I think you might have good cause for compensation there.

You should be able to claim something that's called

compensation for loss of enjoyment

-because your whole holiday hasn't been what you expected it to be.

-No.

So of course you haven't enjoyed it,

you haven't had the same level of hotel,

so I really would approach the tour operator again

and see what they say about the loss of enjoyment.

We didn't know about the loss of enjoyment.

No, not heard of that before.

It's a phrase we didn't know, so that's very helpful. Thank you.

Thanks to Lisa's advice, Ann and Jan

have since had compensation from their travel agent.

But you weren't just sharing your problems at our pop-up shop.

Plenty of you were keen to get things off your chest

in our special gripe area.

Holiday insurance - I think it is a total rip-off.

Once you get to the age of 70,

you have worked 45-50 years,

hoping you can have wonderful trips abroad to America, anywhere,

but once you get to 70, bang!

Your insurance goes up, all your premiums go up.

-We're students, so we travel a lot.

-And train tickets are so expensive.

It just makes things really difficult.

I think holidays are a rip-off

because they cost too much in the school holidays.

Families come in all shapes and sizes but, as you've been telling us,

holiday packages and hotels don't - at least,

they don't necessarily, in the eyes of the tour operators.

So, for instance, if you're a single-parent family

or a family that has more than a couple of kids,

when the children outnumber the adults in a group,

then planning ahead to make sure that everything runs smoothly

is absolutely crucial.

But even when you have done all of your plans

and ensured that you've allocated and consigned the rooms

appropriately, things can still go wrong.

And as one young mother told us,

that is when the holiday that you've saved long and hard for

can be ruined.

Harley, catch! One, two, three, go!

The Gordons from Neath in South Wales had a particular reason

to look forward to the trip that they'd booked to Spain

in February of 2015.

It would be the first time they'd gone away as a family.

Single mum Becky juggles the demands of her three kids,

Alicia, Ella and Harley, with her job as a care worker,

looking after people with dementia.

So quality time with the kids is at a premium.

I'd booked a holiday for me and the children.

It was our first holiday abroad, us all together.

It was Harley's first time on a plane.

Becky had booked a week in Catalonia,

staying at the Royal Sun Suites in Santa Susanna,

classed as four-star superior with the travel company On The Beach.

She deliberately booked a larger family room

so that they could all stay together,

and had also gone for pre-booked transfers

between the airport and the hotel

to make the journey and the stay as straightforward as possible.

Altogether, it cost her £766.

I paid instalments on the holiday.

I'd done a lot of overtime in work. Um...

Luckily, I'd just got paid just before I went on holiday,

so that was my spending money.

When the departure date arrived, Becky's excitement was tempered

with some concern about being able to keep an eye on everyone.

This is the first time I took Harley abroad, and I really was scared

because I'm just one person, eyes everywhere with these children,

and I was really nervous, just in case something happened.

The flight didn't land until almost midnight,

so all Becky wanted to do was check into the hotel

and put the kids to bed.

But when the transfer bus dropped them off, she was in for a shock.

When I went around the corner with the kids, the hotel was shut down,

so I started running round the building to find another door.

There was no door, so then we were just standing outside the hotel.

It was now two o'clock in the morning.

The transfer bus had left and Becky and her three children

were standing on a foreign roadside with no idea of what to do.

About ten minutes later, a car went past and a man told me

that the hotel was closed and we had to go to the other hotel.

With the Royal Sun Suites closed, it turned out that Becky

and her family's booking had been transferred to another hotel,

run by the same company, called the Royal Sun Hotel,

-though no-one had bothered to tell her.

-I couldn't believe it.

If that man didn't show up when he did

to tell me that I had to go to a different hotel,

I wouldn't have known what to do.

The family started following the stranger's directions

to the new hotel.

Harley was just crying the whole time in his pram

and I was pulling the hand luggage on the handles of the pram.

So I had them on the pram.

I was, like, pushing him with one hand,

pulling a suitcase with the other.

Alicia had another suitcase and hand luggage

and Ella then pulling her hand luggage.

It was horrendous.

After a 20-minute walk in a strange place in the middle of the night,

they arrived at the Royal Sun Hotel.

Tired and stressed, Becky couldn't wait to get everyone to sleep

in the family room that she'd booked.

But the check-in staff told her that wouldn't be possible

because there were no family rooms available.

Instead, they could only check in to two separate rooms.

My 13-year-old daughter and my seven-year-old daughter

had one room, and me and my three-year-old son had another.

I couldn't believe it.

My two daughters shouldn't have been in a room by themselves.

Though uncomfortable with the arrangement,

Becky had little choice but to agree,

hoping she could sort everything out after a much-needed night's sleep.

The next morning,

it transpired there were no family rooms in the hotel at all,

which meant that 13-year-old Alicia had to be responsible

for her seven-year-old sister, Ella, at night

when her mum and brother were in the room next door.

Anything could have happened to them in the middle of the night,

and a mother's instinct is to wake up if anything went wrong.

It wasn't my 13-year-old daughter's responsibility.

Alicia also found the situation quite stressful.

I had to be careful when she went out on the balcony and stuff,

so it was quite difficult.

You don't know if anyone's going to come in

if you don't lock the door and stuff.

Becky says she did try complaining at the time to the website

with whom she'd booked, On The Beach,

but the company is adamant it has no record of that,

saying if it had known of the problem, it would have resolved it.

As it was, the family had no choice but to make the best of it.

But once back home in the UK, Becky contacted On The Beach again,

and though she was offered some compensation,

she didn't think it reflected such a major change to her booking.

They've offered me £85.17.

That's nowhere near what I deserve.

I deserve what we paid for originally.

If I was on holiday with somebody else and they split us up,

it wouldn't have been so bad, but instead, I'm a single mother

and they've actually separated me and my three children.

So we asked On The Beach to take another look at Becky's case.

And when it did,

the company explained that its hotel supplier,

a business called Hotelbeds,

had failed to pass on that the hotel she'd booked was closed.

If it had done so,

On The Beach says it would immediately have contacted Becky

to find a suitable alternative

and made sure that she did get a family room.

But since this didn't happen,

the company has apologised for the breakdown in communication

and Becky has now received a full refund.

We also contacted On The Beach's supplier, Hotelbeds,

as well as the company that owns both the hotel Becky originally

booked and the one she was moved into, but neither replied.

So, while it's good news that Becky's had her refund,

she certainly isn't alone in

thinking that holidays aren't always geared up towards families

that don't come in the traditional size.

Our inbox has plenty of complaints from other families

who feel aggrieved at the way that some hotels and tour operators seem

to only offer their best rates and deals if you're a family of four.

Helen Dutton contacted us to say that when she searches for a holiday

for one adult and one child, there's hardly any results.

But make that two adults and the choices leap up.

And Jane Hunter wanted three rooms to accommodate her family of six

on a skiing trip and requested that they were interconnected.

However,

she ended up being charged nearly £1,000 extra for the privilege.

Travel journalist Lisa Francesca Nand says,

when it comes to families,

many holiday companies may be missing a trick.

I think what tour operators have to remember

is that family-friendly travel is really, really, really big business.

After all, families spend a lot of money when they go on holiday.

And there are actually a couple of tour operators you can use -

websites such as TotsToTravel, TotsToo.

If you look up anything like that,

they're always going to be very, very child-friendly

and they will help you find the best child-friendly place.

Another thing I'd like to suggest is booking something

called an aparthotel, which has the same benefits of being in a hotel

but it's actually an apartment,

so you get your own space and your own rooms

but you also get all the nice things that go along with a hotel.

As for Becky, well,

while she did everything she could

to ensure that her children still enjoyed their holiday,

the stress of being in separate rooms was an experience

she'd never want to repeat.

I booked a family holiday, a fun time,

and everything was just ruined.

Our travel expert, Simon Calder, has flown, sailed, driven

and, indeed, cycled to thousands of destinations across the globe.

This time, it's Berlin.

25 years since Berlin became capital of a unified Germany,

and now more British tourists visit the German capital

than any other nationality.

And where old meets new at the Berlin Wall,

there's one spot that Simon highly recommends.

The East Side Gallery is almost a mile long,

making it probably the largest open-air gallery in the world.

There's works by 105 artists,

and it's entirely free.

It's not the only must-see in Berlin that's on the house.

Architecture in this city at the heart of Europe is not to be missed

and with a bit of planning, you can see the best for no cost at all.

The Reichstag is one of the most popular attractions in Germany,

and quite right, too. It's full of history.

There's a spectacular glass dome with amazing views

across the capital.

Best of all, it's completely free.

Just make sure that you book ahead online

or you could miss out.

Finally, if all that sightseeing is proving a bit tiring,

why not try another mode of transport instead?

Cycling and Berlin are made for each other.

There's no great hills, plenty of cycle paths

and a rent-it-here-leave-it-there scheme,

like all the best capitals.

But the traffic laws are very strictly enforced.

Run a red light - that's a 60 euro fine -

and you could even end up with some points on your driving licence.

So, read up on the rules before you get into gear.

The important things that we all need for our holidays,

like tickets, passports and wallets,

invariably seem to go walkabout the day before you're due to fly abroad.

Let's face it, we've all done it, been there, got the T-shirt.

But no-one expects to lose the holiday itself.

Roy Wilkinson and his wife Michelle don't get to spend as much

time together as they'd like.

My wife works permanent nights.

She comes in at eight o'clock in the morning,

gets up at five, I usually get home from work by five,

and then she's off to work again by seven-thirty, quarter to eight.

So, we don't see a lot of each other.

Therefore, their fortnight in the sun every year

is a rare opportunity to put that right.

Just to get away for two weeks, in the sun,

to somewhere, perhaps, where we've never been before,

is really important to us.

In 2015, the couple chose Malta for their much-anticipated break,

and all of Roy's research pointed to a company

that deals in holidays to the Maltese islands and nowhere else.

It's called Malta Direct.

We were really excited about going,

because we'd never been there before,

and it was a new adventure for us.

Roy and Michelle's new adventure was soon upon them,

so, armed with their passports

and all the paperwork for the flight and the hotel,

the couple headed off to the airport,

where they were in for a shock at the check-in desk.

She couldn't find our booking.

They tried for about 90 minutes to try and find our booking.

I showed them the booking form that we had,

and they had no record of the number that was on the form that we had,

but the more it went on, from the first minute up to the 90th minute,

I was getting annoyed. Really annoyed.

Because it was a Sunday,

no-one could reach Malta Direct on the normal contact numbers,

and although there WAS an emergency number on the paperwork,

Roy and Michelle were so flustered they didn't even think to call it.

Instead, they were presented with a stark choice.

Option one was to go home and sort the matter out the next day,

which was a Monday,

with Malta Direct,

or two, to purchase two tickets to go to Malta

on that day, on the Sunday,

so we went, and I paid £690 out of our spending money

to get to Malta.

That was almost all of their spending money

that they'd set aside for their holiday,

money that they'd hoped but weren't sure that they'd get back

when Malta Direct offices opened again.

We'd budgeted for meals, drinks,

trips whilst in Malta,

and here we are, £690 light.

But I'm afraid that wasn't the end of their troubles.

When Roy and Michelle arrived in Malta,

they couldn't find the taxi that had been arranged for them,

although Malta Direct is adamant that it was there, waiting.

Then when they tried to check in at their hotel,

they discovered - and, yes, you've guessed it -

the hotel couldn't find their booking either.

I said, "We weren't booked on the flight in the first place,

"so why should I be surprised that we're not booked into the hotel?"

It was a nightmare. That particular day was a nightmare.

Fortunately, the hotel did eventually locate their booking,

after realising that it did exist but had been made in the wrong name.

And the next day, Malta Direct also found all their details,

thus reassuring them that nothing else would go wrong.

So, all that was left to sort out now was the £690

that they'd forked out for new flights.

They arranged a meeting with their rep,

who, it seemed, would be able to get them that money back.

I must say I did feel a bit better,

because I trusted the rep and I believed what he said he would do.

And that was get our money back.

PHONE RINGS

But when the rep got back in touch,

he told them that he would need the credit card receipt

to refund the cash on the spot.

Trouble was, in all the confusion, Roy had mislaid it,

and without that receipt, the refund would have to wait

until the couple got home.

I said, "You're totally ruining our holiday.

"When you said that you were going to get me

"my £690 back within a couple of days,

"I trusted you.

"And you haven't done it."

So, the couple had to continue tightening their belts,

something they didn't really want to do

when they were supposed to be enjoying themselves.

We spend the whole year being careful with money.

On holiday, you like to have a nice time

and not worry too much about money, but there we were again,

really worried.

It was totally stressful.

Once they were back in the UK,

Roy spoke to a man in Malta Direct's customer services

to finally sort out his refund.

He told me that £690 would be in my account by Monday.

It wasn't.

And it actually arrived in my account

a month all bar a day from when I paid out the money.

Along with the refund of the £690 they paid for extra flights,

Malta Direct also offered to reimburse

the couple for the taxis that they'd had to take to and from the airport,

and pay £100 compensation.

But Roy doesn't think that makes up for the stress

that was caused by the mix-up of the holiday.

I don't see why we shouldn't get all our money back for the holiday.

We often hear from aggrieved holiday-makers who feel that,

when a trip has gone wrong, they should get all their money back

from their package holiday provider.

But while you can ask for compensation if you're unhappy,

full refunds only happen in a minority of cases.

Now, there are three main ways of seeking compensation.

You can reach an agreement with the holiday company directly,

or if the firm is a member of the travel association ABTA,

you can use its arbitration system,

or you can start proceedings at the small claims court,

and this last option is exactly what Roy decided to do

when he was unhappy with the compensation

offered by Malta Direct.

We asked Malta Direct about the Wilkinsons' story.

It said that it can't comment on Roy's case

because the court claim is not yet settled,

but the company did tell us

that the reason Roy's refund for the replacement flights

wasn't paid during the holiday

was because there was a discrepancy between the amount charged

to Roy's credit card and the amount the airline said the ticket cost.

Malta Direct stressed that once Roy and Michelle were back in the UK,

the full amount was paid back in full, and compensation offered.

But in an age where everything is automated and electronic,

Roy and Michelle still can't understand how all the mix-ups

at the start of their holiday could ever even have happened,

and it's an experience that they certainly won't forget.

We loved Malta.

It was a smashing place to visit,

but it was severely dampened by the aggravation that we had

while we were there.

It was playing on my mind

that, "Have I got to contact someone to give us some money

"to get us home?" It was totally stressful.

If you've got a story you'd like us to investigate,

then get in touch with us via our Facebook page -

BBC Rip Off Britain -

or our website - bbc.co.uk/ripoffbritain -

or e-mail us at...

Or if you want to send us a letter, then our new address is...

So, as we've been hearing,

just because you decided not to book your holiday yourself

and instead turned to an agent or tour operator,

it really doesn't mean that your holiday is going to be

going to plan or, indeed, turn out to be hassle free, sadly.

However, it should mean that at least it's easier to make a fuss

and hopefully get things resolved -

although even then, isn't it amazing

how many of these types of situations

only really get sorted out once Rip Off Britain gets involved?

But that's where we have to leave it for today.

We've run out of time,

but if you're booking any kind of holiday this year,

I do hope at least we've given you some kind of pointers

as to what to bear in mind.

But for now, from all of us here in sunny Lanzarote...

ALL: Bye-bye.