“We travelled to Antalya, Turkey on 6th September to 16th September and was overall a horrible experience. Our flight was cancelled a week and a half before we were due to fligh out and the options given were pay £700 extra for new flights or cancel the holiday all together. When i enquired about changing dates/airports they found same dates for a different airport at no extra cost so was peeved they didn't offer that to begin with. When we arrived at Antalya airport we met the rep for our transfer shuttle which was booked with Golden Sea travel and after an hour and a half of waiting and constantly asking for an update, we were told they have no idea when or if they were coming and was told to book a private taxi at our own cost. The rep booked the taxi for us and made us pay 2800 lira (I later found out average price for a taxi to our hotel were 1100 so the rep ripped us off to line his own pockets!) We stayed at Eftalia Splash resort for 10 days which was advertised as a 4 star hotel but its definitely a 3 (at a push)! The whole experience was horrible, the food was worse than what you would get at a hostel, just chicken nuggets, burgers, chips and pizzas. The photographs of the food served was nowhere near as good at what we got during our stay and my 2 year old would only eat chips for the whole stay as there was nothing on offer to cater for children.
Quite a few facilities were closed as well like the Effes bar and the kids pool was closed 4 of the 10 days we were there also which wasn't great.
The rooms were fine and housecleaning was regular so no quarrels with that but the walls were paper thin and could hear all the neighbouring rooms arguing and partying until the late hours which kept us all up. The pools were nice enough but again the photographs made them look much nicer than what they actually were. Eftalia island was a quick shuttle away and we spent most of our time there. The food on offer was pretty much the same but much nicer pools and better choice for small kids.
We ventured out to the surrounding streets just to look around once and had every shop owner trying to scam us left and right so we stopped going out for fear we would be tricked into paying for something eg a photograph with a camel that quickly turns into a camel ride and then demanding 800 lira for the experience despite stating we didn't have any cash on us in the first place.
The 'clientèle' was just parents looking to let their kids run wild while they inhaled as much free booze as they could get their hands on which made for the hotel to be extremely loud and rowdy when everyone was trying to sleep so stay away if youre looking for a quiet, relaxing holiday with your family or young children.
On our way home our flight was leaving at 8.15am and our transfer shuttle (Golden Sea travel) told us they would pick us up at 4am which didn't give us much time but there wasn't anything we could do about that. 4am rolls by and no shuttle....My family and 3 other families waited until 4.30am and despite several phone calls to the company they advised they didn't know where our driver was or if they were even coming. After chatting to the other families we learned they also did not get picked up from the airport either and had to pay for private taxis.
Another 1000 lira to pool with another family for a taxi and we finally got there at 6am so it was a mad dash through airport security etc and made our flight with minutes to spare!
Overall this has to be the worst holiday experience I have ever had and unfortunately was our daughters first. Luckily she will forget the horrible experience over time but I sadly will not.
If you are thinking of staying at this hotel or you have already booked it and are looking for transfers DO NOT use Golden Sea travel and change hotels if you have time (or cancel your holiday with On the beach if you still have time!). Their customer service is shambolic, their responsibilities to you are a service provider are non existent (as they like to state all over their website) and it will take weeks or months to get back to you with a reasonable response due to closing their customer service call centre, which is convenient for them but not for you as a customer.
Go with TUI if you can or just don't book an all inclusive holiday in Turkey and expect a high quality hotel with the 'great' facilities they advertise with aesthetic pictures that aren't the same in person.
I've made a complaint directly to the transfer company in Turkey and one with On the beach for my out of pocket expenses (4000 lira) and the £98 I paid for the airport transfers that we did not receive and will make sure I book with a more reputable company in future
I would advise you all to avoid On the beach and Eftalia resorts like the plague!”
“I had a holiday booked with on the beach and my brother passed away suddenly...! on the beach refused point blank to refund me... !! what they did say was " I should of told them sooner " which for me was a kick in teeth..!! it was Impossible to let them know something that had not already happened...!! anyway I took them to a small claims court and won... ! however thats when they were still with ABTA... !!”
“The most stressful experience ever! Company is based only on automatic payment online, after taking payment no support is offered at all. Firstly, our outbound flights were cancelled and I was told that on the beach is taking care of that, however several weeks later I had no any information about new flights. I had to chase for weeks to find out what could be done, however no support were offered! They didn't answer any of my messages. After many weeks they sent me message that nothing can be done. I had to arrange the flights by myself, but it took me weeks to get their confirmation that I can arrange it on my own. Meantime, all cheap and convenient flights were gone. Now, I'm abroad but my inbound ticket, that was arranged by on the beach, is nowhere to be found. "Help line" doesn't work due to COVID, they don't respond messages ( of course). I'm 17 hours to my trip and I cannot obtain boarding passes.”
“MYB11295620B
Reference for holiday on the beach, we had the worst experience ever and I don’t want other people with young children to go through the same, we booked our first holiday after covid and thought that we would use on the beach as they are a reputable company…. Avoid as we have been treated awfully and I would never use again, due to staff shortages in April we missed our flight and our 4 year old child was devastated.. I complained straight away that day and called help desk only told that I can only complain online…. 4 months later and nothing back not even a reply? Nothing ????
This is the worst holiday complaint that just steals your hard earned money
AVOID AVOID AVOID”
“🚨 🚨 This is a plea to find other customers that have been scammed by on the beach and or sunshine.co.uk 🚨 🚨
My email is vikj1002@icloud.com . Please reach out if you are interested in either appearing on TV to talk about your issues and/or want to pursue this legally as a team to get justice and the compensation we all deserve.
We are a party of 10 who have had our long awaited family holiday cancelled with no good reason (in fact they blame us?) with only weeks to go before we fly. We have been pushed pillar to post, lied to, deceived and have had over £3000 of our hard earned cash stolen from us.
Customer services promise call backs from
Managers that never happen. Agent admitted on phone that they cancelled maybe in error?
No they’ve cancelled our stay at the be live palmierias in Algarve, Portugal because they’ve hiked the price up from 2020 when we originally booked from 1750 to nearly £6 grand!
Why not be honest and offer us an alternative? Why not offer a full refund?
Because they’ve pocketed our cash and refusing to do anything about it , that’s why!
These con artists get rich off of people like us!
Let’s take a stand together and we will be heard!”
“I would personally avoid On the Beach for any future bookings. I personally feel their business model it's very close to a small Scam in a way. I have booked with them on Sunday 21/08/2022 for a holiday in the future that only happening in December 2023. When I have made my booking I have received the email saying pending (as always with them). On Monday 22/08/2022 I have received a call from them saying my holiday went up in price by £600!! In less then 24h they wanted to change the price of the holiday by £600... their justification was that the hotel probably became quite popular for that date. Well, I understand Caribbean is popular in Xmas but an increase in 12h of £600 for a holiday happening over a year away?! They not advertising accurate costs, my views are that they advertising really low prices to attract bookings and then trying to get you to confirm the booking by charging you extra. Very untrustworthy company and really bad experience with them. Stay away from their "low prices" as they don't exist. On The Beach should review their prices and advertise accurate and real prices!! I have now booked cheaper then they wanted to charge me on other company and my booking was confirmed straight away. Don't waste your time.”
“Utter rubbish - don't even think about trying t get hold of them once they have your money! Take no responsibility for errors or issues - blaming airlines or anyone else they can. If everything is fine, it will be great. If you have ANY issues and need to contact them - forget it. Isn't that the whole point of booking through such companies?”
“i have used these again and in general before they have been ok , this time a query about my hotel i have totally been ignored no reply to a serious question regarding a hotel booking no free number to call and not replying to my emails disgusting.”
“We had to cancel our holiday in 2021 due to both my partner and I contracting Covid.
We were due around a £450 refund on our flights.
This was until 'On The Beach' invoked an excess of £200 per passenger !!!!!!!!! Meaning we got around £48 !!!!!
On The Beach are great until they have your money and there is a problem - TOTALLY SHAMEFUL - BOOK ELSEWHERE”
“MYB11422731B
Taken payment from my account and have not allocated to booking. I have been trying to contact since may with strings of emails and never have had a response even with their promised 56 day response time. We are due to fly next month and are unsure whether the instalment will ever be allocated which will leave us unable to go even after giving on the beach thousands. Disappointed anxious and upset with this company avoid at all costs”
“If I could give a zero I would. Absolutely shocking experience 4 days before we flew out. We booked a holiday for our family of 4 in April only to receive an email, not a call 4 days before we were due to fly stating our hotel was over booked. The same hotel that other family members looked at booking 2 weeks prior but didn’t due to price more than doubling. We were offered a supposed like for like hotel that was 20km away that had poor reviews which we declined. 2 days later, now 48 hours before flying offered 2 more that were even worse. Now finally talking to someone our options were hotel refund but lose flights(package holiday so we thought) or except a below part hotel. In the end we excepted first alternative as best of bad bunch.
Lack of communication, lack of customer service, lack of customer respect and most of all a complete lack of care. We have emailed Customer care but advised this can take 56 days for response.
Separate hotel review will be listed also. Probably a 2 out of 5.”
“We have used Onthebeach for many years but this year (2022) has simply been awful…
We had our flights changed with zero sympathy from them (8 hour change) so had problems with our transfer.
We booked and paid online then they rang us to tell us it was £50 each extra to confirm the holiday!
We made a minor spelling mistake on a name which they insisted we paid £111 to correct although we called within 24 hours and had to wait over 70 mins in the line and then got cut off (have a recording).
Other times we tried to call we were told the lines were closed as they were too busy…
We logged queries through the portal but got auto responses with no humanity at all!
It’s been such disappointment this year and will never use them again.
I understand travel is difficult this year but their customer service scores 0/10”
“On the Leach!!!
Well where do I start? We recently got back from a lovely holiday in Majorca, that was completely spoilt by a lack of competency from On The Beach.
On our itinerary, it clearly shows we have paid for to hold luggage bags each way. When we arrived at Luton Airport, the very nice lady at the Wizz Air check-in desk, advised that we had only been scheduled one luggage hold bag between myself and my wife.
This meant we had to pay another £53 to put our hold luggage into the plane, even though we already paid for this with On The Beach, and it was shown on our itinerary breakdown. The lady on the check-in desk, said this was a very very common problem with On The Beach – she even made the comment that on the beach were just like a criminal organisation, as she sees this every day with hundreds and hundreds of people! When you try to complain to On The Beach, they give you a notification on their message system, which tells you you may wait up to 56 days for somebody to reply! On the leach are nothing short of criminal!!
they should be renamed on the Leach, as clearly they do not respect the customers that are paying their profits, and are just mistreating us all in order to inflate these profits and maximise their income. I would never book with On The Beach ever again.
We are now out of pocket to the tune of £106, which may not sound like a lot of money to a lot of people, but given the amount of financial stress everyone is under, this money is very important to us. I know some others have been put out of pocket to the tune of thousands, And I cannot believe that on the Leach managed to get away with such activity! I will be pursuing this matter all the way to small claims court should it be needed. I am utterly appalled and disgusted at the sheer arrogance and disdain on the leach are showing to their customers. My advice to anyone thinking of using on the leach is to pay the extra and go with a reputable travel firm not run by a mickey mouse outfit that clearly does not care.”
“I have bought a holiday that was ATOL protected with this company. Unfortunately 3 weeks after purchase and three month prior to departure I had a family member that got terminal illness and I needed to urgently cancel my holiday which was still three month away .
Onthebeach advised that my flight cost of £3000 with TUI. Will be totally non refundable which was shocking to us , so I contacted TUI and they were wonderful and help me get my refund minutes £300 . However TUI refunded the money back to a card that onthebeach used to pay to them for my holiday. This card did not belong to me but was used by onthebech to pay to TUI .
I have now contacted onthebeach at least 15 times and their behaviour in their messages are so childish and obtuse . They refuse to read my messages and reply with same old narrative over and over again . They haven’t paid my money back which I really need as I need to take care of my family member that is poorly .
In addition to all of that they have no complaint procedure or numbers to call . The only number is the one that is charged per minute and each time you call you’ve to wait for hours and still unable to reach them . Even the website does not have a complaint procedure and refers to other companies that are issuing your travel tickets.
This company is not extremely fishy and I suspect may be practicing illegal activities.
PLEASE PLEASE STAY AWAY , THEY ARE NOT TO BE TRUSTED . YOU WILL LOOSE YOUR MONEY .”
“On the beach holidays have proved to be an awful experience. They didn't pass on our luggage allowance to the flight company and we had to pay for luggage allowance. This cam out of spending money and has curtailed our activities. I had to email them the receipts and they have said we have got a refund, which hasn't arrived yet. So the holiday has reduced day trips.
When we arrived in Kos the transfer company weren't there, I had to organise the transfer myself at midnight- luckily a shuttle was going our way and I showed the staff our paperwork and they agreed for us to go with them.
They have been dismissive and non communicative, awful service”
“We booked a holiday for mid August, and then realized we couldn't do that date, so we asked to change the dates to late September, only to be charged an extra £700, if we cancel, we lose £650. We can get the same holiday for £1100 on another holiday site!!!”
“Horrible experience. Impossible to find someone at costumer support to speak with. The generate you an email address for the airline company . You don't have access to that email so you can't check ANYTHING , you can't get the verification code to do your check in.
Avoid at any cost !!!”
