Jet2 cancels agent’s personal holiday twice in two years

A travel agent says she is baffled and left with no confidence in selling Jet2holidays after the operator cancelled her own personal booking twice in two years.

Susan Young, who runs the The Holiday Arcade in North Duffield, Yorks, with her husband, made a late booking at the Elias Beach Resort, Limassol on Jet2’s agent website.

The booking was made on August 24, for the couple to travel on September 10. On August 29, she received a phone call from Jet2 saying there had been an ‘error’ and there was no availability at the hotel.

Susan was offered an alternative hotel in the resort, a new holiday or a cancellation with full refund.

A similar situation happened in October 2014 when she booked to go to Rhodes. Two weeks before travelling, she was told the hotel was not available.

She booked alternative accommodation, but says it was a ‘disappointing substitute’.

She said: "I’m very disappointed with Jet2holidays. This is the second time they have rung to say my hotel choice is no longer available for my personal holiday.

"I gave them a second chance this year after a disappointing substitute last time.

"I was dismayed when I got the phone call last week to say that hotel was not available and gave us similar options.

"I am either very unlucky or because my surname is Young we come last in the pecking order.

"I was told by a Jet2 agent in operations that it is a case of ‘last booking in first out’ but in my opinion they should not be advertising holidays that are not available.

"It doesn’t say much for their administration and it doesn’t give me a great deal of confidence when booking my clients’ holidays."

She has rebooked to another hotel, but she thinks Jet2 could have been more flexible with her request to change her flights from Manchester to Leeds Bradford, which is closer to home.

Susan said: "I did ask them if we could change the flights to depart from Leeds Bradford on September 11 for 14 nights instead of Manchester on the 10th but they said we had to keep the same dates.

"That was a shame because Leeds is better for us but when we booked the Elias it was around £200 more to fly from Leeds. Now it’s cheaper to go from Leeds rather than Manchester.

"That would have gone a little way to compensating us for not being able to go to our first choice of hotel. But they couldn’t accommodate us for the slightly different dates."

A spokesman for Jet2holidays said: "This is a rare and unfortunate coincidence, and we are sorry for any inconvenience caused to Susan.

"On both occasions we offered alternative accommodation to Susan in her chosen resort, free of charge, and we are delighted that Susan is still travelling with us this year, so that she can experience one of our holidays herself and be assured of the quality and standard of our great value package holidays."