“I have cancelled part of my trip, having paid a deposit to cover flights. Giving me a different email address for flights has left me uneasy about how this company is operating. I have done the 'web chat' all morning, trying to adjust costs to show £0 further payments due (after being misquoted). So far, it's not been rectified - many documents later (trying to charge me all sorts of different amounts), I'm still waiting for a correct document showing correct £0 payment due amount; someone was to contact me within the hour - it didn't happen.
I'm just not able to trust that this shall be corrected and some unknown amount not taken off my bank account in a few weeks.”
“You couldn’t make it up. You really couldn’t. Scammers of the first degree. If someone doesn’t get a grip of on the beach I will call the police in. Dedicated Customer Care team?? It’s fair to say that wouldn’t hold up in court!! Seriously though how are these A grade swindlers able to operate. Have we no regulators or are they just guard dogs without teeth??
Previously we had traded 10 emails back and forward these last couple of weeks trying to negotiate what is owed and what they are prepared to pay without any real appetite from them to settle this reasonably.
My summing up of them as a company? Not only are they disingenuous and economical with the truth. I would suggest they are also down right liars and worse still, thieves.
Con men and women masquerading as travel agents would be an apt description.
I’ve now emailed ATOL and the CAA
With all the above in mind, avoid, avoid, avoid is my advice”
“Booked hotel only with On the Beach in Thailand and it showed free cancellation before December 2023 in big print. Now we've changed our mind and cancelled the booking, On the Beach charged me £150. Due to current financial crisis in UK and personal circumstances we've decided not to go this year. On the Beach failed to look after their customers.”
“Paid for an upgrade with onthebeach and I basically found out that it had been double booked so I was automatically downgraded. The rep had also confirmed at the hotel that onthebeach were aware of the double booking of the upgrade yet proceeded to downgrade me without notifying me or reimbursing. I paid 1500 for the holiday and was reimbursed 80 quid for a ruined accomodation for 14 days. Avoid. !!”
“On the Beach customer service is just a disappointment. Our holiday was ruined! We were forced to leave our hotel due to flooding. We were told we would get a room at sister property next door and there were no rooms on arrival. Slept in lobby and dormitory before being sent to horrible room. Asked for reasonable compensation and finally offered us 1/2 the amount. Disputed charge with Amex and On the Beach successfully manipulated the dispute. After provisional credit was issued by Amex, On the Beach charged our card for that amount without authorization. Do not book with this company as they do not behave with an ounce of decency. The response they give is that "we are looking into your complaint" Do not believe it!”
“Holiday from August 2022... Complained regarding the hotel which wasn't the stars that I paid for.. spent 1st week on the phone to them to be offered a move if I could find one... I have officially complained on my return and still no reply except that they will get back to me.. Hoping an ombudsman of some form can be found to get them to stick to their own SLA for customer service....Disgraceful”
“Worst customer service and after sales care I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Be aware that OTB are only ATOL registered which will protect you if they go bust but they opted out of being ABTA registered as this gives their a back up for when they let their customers down and do not see when they are in the wrong! I had a perfect experience with this company until things went wrong (they booked the wrong time transfer so I would have missed my flight - left me to sort it and no compensation for the hour and a half phone call, nor the two days of my holiday that were ruined as they left me to it!). Be warned!!”
“The worse travel company ever ,I booked a 5*family holiday in June 22 , they abandoned me and my family in Turkey when the airline cancelled our flight no alternative arrangements wer in place it cost me an additional £1500 pounds to get my family home from Turkey they have not refunded me any of the cost they have not refunded me for the flight I payed for ,they have problem taking your money they said my hoilday was atol protected wot aload of bulls--t ,,,,all abandoned passengers who travelled with tui wer taken to hotel and cared for but not on the beach passengers they were abandoned and ripped off do not book with these cowboys”
“They are not recognised by Ryan Air and give an email so you can contact Ryanair but no password so they are the only ones who control your flight ,they won't give the password they are rude ,hang up on you and fob you off ,just ca nacelle holiday with lost deposit and flight price ,rubbish never ever use them.”
“Avoid this company!!
I have just found the same holiday for over £150 cheaper, it was only booked this morning (I used the wrong link as thought it was loveholidays). I rang On The Beach and they didn’t care, they stayed if I wished to cancel my holiday I would still need to pay for the flights, no goodwill gesture just much repeated hollow apology followed by some T&C’s”
“Would never use this company again, sold us a so called five star all inclusive holiday at the Diamond of Bodrum in Turkey and would of rated it a two star, was that bad we cut short our two week stay and left a week early which cost us an extra flight to get back to the UK. I find it so frustrating the fact this company is still sending and selling this awful hotel with a five star rating ! We were both at this hotel in April 2022 and to date we have never had a email or telephone call from this company after numerous emails we sent regarding our nightmare experience! We booked with Tui to go to Spain this month and all so far our service we received is absolutely amazing & professional, they even checked us in with the flights to our destination!”
“On the Beach say they will reply to emails within 56 days. Thant's right, it will take them 56 days to answer any questions you might have. Very friendly when taking your money, then customers services couldn't care less.
There's plenty holiday providers, use any of the others...”
“Having issues with the private transfer booked trough them. They never collected us from the airport neither from hotel. Was impossible to get on touch with them to sort the issue.”
“Went on holiday to Athens, hoel Myrto, outside of Athens. The hotel and the staff were very friendly. Nowhere on On the Beach website does it say that if you book economy then your room looks onto the dual carriageway and the 24 hour noise. The website also said there was tranfers from airport which I paid for. But there was no transfers, when I phoned the transfer company on arriving. They told me they had notified on the beach months before hand, that they don't do transfer to my hotel. On the beach have still NOT returned my transfer charges, never mind the cost of taxies to and from to the airport. They are now ignoring my emails. I do NOT RECOMMED THIS COMPANY”
“This company used to be decent but in recent times it has went downhill rapidly, customer care is zero. I had a simple claim for a £56 taxi fare that I had to claim back because our airport transfers failed to pick us up. I was instructed by OTB to get a taxi to airport as they couldn't locate the driver that was supposed to pick us up. They told me to get a receipt from taxi driver and claim it back when I got home. No problem I thought until I got an email this morning telling me a blatant lie that our transfer bus came to our hotel but we weren't there and they wouldn't be issuing a refund.
We never moved from the front of hotel at our pick up point from 1600-1700 but this company have the audacity to blatantly lie to me saying the driver was there at 16.33 . Unfortunately I have another holiday booked with this corrupt company which I cannot cancel without being heavily penalised, but this will be the last time I use them and urge anyone else to stay away from them, there are plenty alternatives out there with far better customer care.”
“This company is an absolute joke! Their team are incompetent and have no idea what they are doing! A holiday that was meant to be stress free was basically the holiday from hell.
We booked a shared premium shuttle from the airport to hotel (return) max 4 stops with on the beach. We waited a total of 2 hours to get our transfer and then took us 3 hours to get to our hotel with 6 stops and the driver taking a 20 minute break along the way. It should only have been around 1h15mins as said by on the beach when I booked. After a full day of travelling and landing at 7pm we didn’t get to our hotel until midnight! Furthermore, we confirmed our transfer as on the beach said via holiday taxi online to be given the pick up time of 4:15 only to be messaged by the taxi company the afternoon before travelling staying pick up would be 3:10am our flight was at 9am and we could only check in 2h30mins before our flight! We waited at the airport for over an hour and a half before we could check in!
Our hotel rep appointed by on the beach was difficult. We booked a few activities with him and the first one we booked we were unable to attend as messed up our transport to the destination and then tried to blame us! We waited 40 minutes for our coach to this activity. At 7pm we contacted Cengo to find out where the coach was to which he stated it was 5-10 minutes late and we should continue to wait. After 20 minutes had passed he said it was still on its way and we should wait. After waiting 10 more minutes he called the hotel to tell them the bus was not coming. Upon calling him he stated firstly the coach was no longer coming when asked why he could not give a reason and then he changed his story and said it was our fault as we had missed the coach! He said the next day he would give us a refund however we are still waiting!
The hotel food was appalling. To say the least it was the same food every night, cold, undercooked and caused some stomach upset. As a result, we ended up eating outside of the hotel at restaurant’s not using the “all-inclusive” aspect of our booking that we had paid for and spending more money than necessary. This is not okay and a waste of our money and time especially whilst on holiday.
A of total 3 members of hotel staff that we interacted with had a base level understanding of English and we’re able to communicate with us on our trip. The rest of the staff were un-accommodating and did not understand any English. They would nod and say yes when asked a question and say they understood you when I’m reality they have no clue what you’re talking about or do the total opposite of what was asked or ignore us completely. They were extremely biased towards us and would noticeably go out of there way to avoid us when asking for help or assistance and help Turkish residence instead. Due to the hotels poor wifi we were unable to use a translator app to help communicate with staff making it even harder.
The man we spoke with at the guest relations desk to try and book reservations for the hotel restaurants was rude and to put it nicely a piece of work. They only had one day (Sunday) where we could book in for a restaurant so in the end out of 3 hotel restaurants we could only chose 1! Please note: prior to this I had contact the hotel via the enquiry form linked on their website for information on any special extras or packages for the room and to see if we could book the restaurants before arriving so this issue did not happen however received no response. He laughed when I mentioned this enquiry.
On the beach customer service
My bookings team (portal)
The my bookings team via the portal were very unhelpful when I bought the issue of the transfer and the rep to them! they stated l they would issue feedback to the transfer company to improve their service which did not resolve my issue and when I questioned this further they stated they would be investigating this issue. After 2-3 days of back and forth they finally stated they could not help and I should email the customer care team and call the in-resort team.
In-resort team
I called the in-resort team and waited a total of 40 minutes with no response or anyone picking up before the line cut out and I was unable to call back! What is the point in having a contact number to use while away if it does not work or there is no one available to take the call. I made the call during working the working hours based on the UK.
Overall, I have sent a more in depth email to on the beach’s customer care team however taking 56days to reply to a complain is a joke. This was a poor experience with this agency. Going forward we will not be using them. Our money has gone to waste and who’ve returned home more stressed than when we left.”
