If you are planning to book through www.onthebeach.co.uk (www.otb.co.uk) read this first!

I unfortunately have had a recent bad experience with www.OntheBeach.co.uk (www.otb.co.uk).

A Summary of the complaint.

Basically beware of a triple price match guarantee that they will not honour, misleading advertising, and hidden £300 cancellation charges (in addition to your deposit)

I have tried to resolve this through the normal complain procedures but have just received numerous canned responses from the customer service department (if you can call them that) and I feel I have no further response but to publish my experience to help aid any future customers/victims.


Details of the Complaint.
I was looking to book my hotel for our up and coming honeymoon and found the perfect resort (The Baron 5* Resort in Sharm el sheik). After looking around on the net I found what I thought was a good deal with www.onthebeach.co.uk. I would normally look around allot more before booking but we noticed that they offer a triple price match guarantee and thought that if we found it cheaper anywhere else we would be able to claim this back, So I booked.

After a little more research I found a great deal with another company £500 cheaper and so collected the details and emailed www.onthebeach.co.uk to claim under the triple price match guarantee. Basically they should deduct £1500 from my holiday balance.

The next day I received a canned response from OTB stating that they do not honour their price match guarantee for hotel only bookings.

I want to emphasise that I was totally unaware of this as the icon is plastered all over their site including the hotel only section and even appears directly above the total on the hotel only booking page. There is also no detail saying terms apply on this icon.

I called their customer service department and was told that I should have known to click the icon where it brings up a huge list of exclusions and requirements to this deal (in my opinion worded so it is practically impossible to claim under any circumstance).

To be honest I was expecting a little resistance because of the amount of this claim and was not interested in making money on the deal so emailed asking if they would compromise by just doing a simple price match to the other site basically waiving the £1500 I felt I was entitled to from the offer.

Cue the canned response. No

I felt that I did not want to get into a long strung out conflict so informed them that I would like in that case to cancel my booking and asked for my £60 deposit back as a goodwill gesture.

Cue another canned response. And you guessed it; I was given a no chance.

I was then informed that if I wanted to cancel my booking I would not only lose my deposit but would need to pay an extra £300 in cancellation fees!

I questioned this fee given the history of the complaint and you guessed it got another canned response basically saying tough luck.

I VIEWED THEIR SITE FOR A LAST MINUTE HOLIDAY. I FOUND ONE GOING OUT ON THE 9TH DECEMBER. TOGET A FULL COSTING YOU NEED TO ENTER ALL YOUR DETAILS. WHEN IT CAM TO THE FINAL PAGE IT STATED THAT TO TAKE HOLD BAGS ON THE FLIGHT WAS AN EXTRA £88 WHICH I THOUGHT WAS A RIP OFF SO I CLOSED THE PAGE BY CLICKING ON THE X AND DID NOT CONFIRM THE BOOKING NOT ONCE DID IT STATE CONFIRM BOOKING ON ANY PAGE.
NEXT DAY I BOOKED THROUGH RYAN AIR FOR THE SAME HOLIDAY WITHBAGS ON THE FLIGHT FOR LESS MONEY.
WHEN I CHECKED MY EMAILS THAT EVENING IN MY SPAM MAIL WAS A BOOKING CONFIRMATION FROM ON THE BEACH. I RANG THEM STRAIGHT AWAY AND TOLD THEM I HAD NOT BOOKED THE HOLIDAY AND THEY STATED I HAD PUT MY DETAILS IN, WHICH YOU HAVE TO DO TO GET THE FINAL COST. I TOLD THEM I WANT TO CANCEL AND HE SAID IT COSTS £100 EACH TO CANCEL OR CHANGE THE NAME ON THE BOOKING. THIS IS THE SAME COST AS THE HOLIDAY SO I CAN'T EVEN SELL THIS HOLIDAY TO ANYONE.
PLEASE WARN PEOPLE WHAT A RIP OFF THIS COMPANY IS.