ABTA Avis 

Following a really unpleasant experience with TUI, I contacted ABTA to lodge a complaint. Complete waste of time. ABTA simply forwarded TUI’s feeble, dishonest response to me and did nothing else. Fairly depressing realisation that travel agents like TUI have carte blanche to rob consumers blind and there is no ombudsman or organisation to hold them to account.

Made my complaint to ABTA after being offered £350 compensation (which I found insulting) for a disastrous cruise costing £2,500 with TUI and they said there was nothing they could do except recommend using Hunt-travel arbitrator at a cost of £108.
The arbitrator highlighted that points of my complaint and TUI answered with lies. I challenged TUI with my final comments and TUI did not respond. They did not respond with their final comments as they did not want to produce evidence in my favour. The arbitrator ignored this point and awarded me a minimal amount. Then they said I can appeal if I give them £350. This is a money making scheme for Hunt and it’s sad that ABTA recommends them to people with genuine complaints. ABTA complaint reference: 290955. Still waiting for ABTA to get back to me 5 days after they asked for my ref??
2.10.24 still waiting
So got a response from ABTA instead of telling me the findings of their review of my case with HUNT the told me to remove the amount of my award as it wasn’t in line with HUNT’s terms. They obviously don’t want to put HUNT’s future clients off by finding out how little they really award. This should tell everyone what they need to know about ABTA!!!! It should not be ABTA’s place to police reviews for HUNT and I now have to question why ?
££££££££

Another 1 star only because there is no stars available from us. :-) As another reviewer stated what an absolute sham. :-(

Our complaint was our first and a simple one, or so we thought.

Upgraded to Half Board - buffet style & show cooking at an additional cost of £482. Got to the resort and it wasn't offered and in it's place was a 3 choice restrictive bland menu plated up in the kitchen. We didn't eat in the restaurant which cost us additional. Wanted our money back or a resonable proportion of it, which seemed reasonable to us.

Complaints process Quick Summary.
You have to pay to complain £108 and if you loose you pay an additional £108 respondents fee. If you win you get your fee back. So they are making additional money.
Complicated online interface to navigate hard work.
Hunt ADR do not honour their own 28 day rule for a decision, 56 days for us only after complaining.
Hunt ADR do not answer the telephone.
The decision eventually found in our favour then compensated us on Jet2's cost of 10 euros a night completely which left us significantly out of pocket. The arbitrators narrative rambled and seemed to lack understanding and clarity throughout. Plenty of copy and paste.

To cap it all the Arbitrator despite their proclamation of giving you a decision within 28 days eventually when they felt like it :-) issued a 'legally binding' decision barely in our favour and Jet 2 had 21 days to settle 33 days in and no contact at this time of writing. Jet2 complaints are also uncontactable and despite my attempts to contact them by telephone and their web based email [no evidence] to sort this mess out reasonably Jet 2 have ignored this decision completely so far. I have attempted to prompt them via ABTA speaking to a very sympathetic lady last week who said she would speak to Jet2 'remind them' but no joy so far.

Should you wish to appeal or have any further comment it will cost an additional £350.

It appears holiday organisations can simply blatantly rip people off/ mis sell with impunity and they know it. This complaint cost us more money!

Small Claims court or leave it.

It is noteworthy that Google reviews of Arbitrator [Hunt ADR] are all similarly poor from all who have used their service.

I was very surprised how easy it was to go down the ABTA route. I had hit a brick wall with the company I had booked with and I was half expecting to have a similar experience. However it was sorted quite quickly and I got the result I had been after all along.

Quick and efficient complaint resolved.
Was trying to find out why holiday company increased the price of my holiday after booking but nobody was able to tell me why,they just wanted me to pay almost £400 more for my holiday which costed around £2500 !!!
After contacting the ABTA they refunded the money saying that was a mistake but when I was calling them they couldn't tell me why as nothing in booking changed apart from price.
Very happy with the resolution.
Thank you ABTA !!!

I made a complaint to a holiday company and after the initial acknowledgment email, I heard nothing more despite the fact that they said they would investigate the matter and reply within 28 days. The ABTA form was really easy to complete and they informed me that they would chase the company. The company immediately responded with a decent offer which I accepted. I don't think I would have got very far at all without the support and help from ABTA.

I am extremely disappointed with ABTA, I am now not really sure what they actually do. I was expecting more of an 'ombudsman' approach but all ABTA did was to tell TUI to call me. There was no checking that TUI's facts where correct, ABTA just accepted TUI's position no questions asked. I see some positive reviews on here but I suspect it is more to do with whether the travel agent/company you are actually complaining about is 'scared' of ABTA. In my case TUI was refusing to refund the cost of a cruise despite the fact that it was their own boat that broke down so we had to be sent home, how can that not be TUI's responsibility. ABTA failed to check TUI's facts. I cannot understand how ABTA doesn't have more teeth but looking at how ABTA is set up I suspect the tail is wagging the dog!

Was getting nowhere with a travel agent until ABTA stepped in. Only way I was getting the money owed.
5 stars.

Contacted ABTA as getting nowhere despite numerous e mails to P&O for over 2 months. Once ABTA involved I received a cheque in full within a few days. Thank you ABTA.

We booked a package including transfers with an online agent. As our flight was delayed by two hours the transfer had long gone, leaving us in a foreign airport at 2.30 on a Sunday morning. On the advice of their helpline we got a local taxi (159 Euro) but got nowhere with claiming a refund from the company. So when I came home I raised a dispute with ABTA. They aren't quick, but within 24 hours of them saying they were contacting the company, I got an email from the travel agents to say that they would be reimbursing my costs. I was being fobbed off and blamed for incurring additional costs and got nowhere until I contacted them. It wasn't straightforward to get information to them, I ended up printing it out and posting it as the tech options are clumsy, but it worked out in the end.

ABTA resolved my complaint quickly and efficiently. I had spent months corresponding with the travel companies, without a resolution. On escalating it to ABTA my complaint was sorted within 2 weeks.

Whilst they responded to me in a timely and professional manner, it seems ABTA only act as a go between, between you and the travel company. They may force them to respond, but they have no actual powers, or actually do any mediation. The travel company respond, and ABTA just tell you what they said. To get proper arbitration you have to pay £108 to an independent company, which is not worth the time and effort, if all you're after is admission of wrongdoing, a proper apology, and only a couple of hundred in compensation. I guess that's what the travel companies rely on ....

Appear to be useless from what I’ve learned. You have to pay for arbitration so the customer is immediately on the back foot. What a complete waste of time.

ABTA solved our problems swiftly and efficiently. They kept us informed of progress at all times. Should we need them again, which I hope we won't, we wouldn't hesitate to get in touch with them.

What do ABTA actually do?? My wife and her friend had dreadful service from a travel agent but, as has been previously mentioned, when it came to complaining their response was toothless. They suggested the arbitration route at a personal cost and pretty much wiped their have of the matter. Very disappointed. It seems that ABTA Protected means very little at all.

Waste of time and effort.
7 months after raising initial complaint with Easyjet Holidays and 5 months after referral to ABTA we are no further forward in our claim for compensation for Easyjet's failure to provide return transport to airport.

(A month after receiving confirmation from ABTA that our case documents had been uploaded we received notification that this was not so - uploaded a second time, verified a second time and then another month later we were asked to send docs again!)

ABTA is sold by Travel Companies to guarantee that services are provided as in the contract (at a cost to the customer). ABTA for its part states “If your complaint is against an ABTA member, you can register your complaint with us, send through details and we can look into it on your behalf” and “If something has gone wrong with your holiday, we can offer you advice and potential solutions”. ABTA does neither - it simply refers the matter back to the member company for comment.
ABTA has even failed to respond to our request that they confirm that ABTA members are obliged to follow the ABTA Code of Practice and Package Holiday Regulations (1 July 2018) so that one wonders whether anyone at ABTA actually reads customer complaints.

Easyjet Holidays for its part has now refunded "cost of the shared transfers and the Taxi cost" we incurred but has refused to pay compensation due under Package Holiday Regulations for its failure to provide the service in the agreement and the resulting stress, inconvenience, discomfort and loss of time. Easyjet Holidays have also so far refused to explain why they failed to inform us of return transport arrangements, why we had to contact the In Holiday Support Team to get this information, and why the information we eventually received was faulty. They claim that we have accepted this refund in settlement of our claim for compensation (untrue) and that we "did not contact the In Holiday Support Team" (also untrue).

21 May
Interesting that since lodging our complaint with Trustpilot ABTA have contacted us (via Trustpilot) to "ask for more details to better understand your (our) experience" - information already submitted on numerous occasions to the ABTA website!
Update 1 July 2024.
We have been informed by ABTA that we have now reached the end of Stage 1 of the official ABTA ADR Process (pre Action Notice) and nothing has happened to change our initial opinion of ABTA (whose review was apparently carried out anonymously by individuals unknown and unnamed - none of whom, it is stated, "is a qualified Arbitrator") or its member Easyjet Holidays. We have been given the option of pursuing our claim for compensation either through court action or arbitration (at personal costs). So one may ask - what exactly is the point of ABTA and what have we gained by referring our complaint to tehm ?
As a traveler it may be reassuring to know that ABTA exist (as long as you don't need to use them) but in practice (if you do need to use them) they are not "fit for purpose"

A really poor experience from start to finish, drawn out, no powers to actually do anything, no way to contact them to raise a complaint about their dreadful service, and direct you to an arbitration process which they charge you for and then don't even administer in line with their published rules.

Update - ABTA have now also confirmed the rules they publish for their Arbitration Scheme are not those actually used when processing cases, and they have no published complaints process.

Response to ABTA reply - Unsurprisingly remain dissatisfied with the 'correct information provided' being confirmation that a different set of rules to those published by ABTA were used to benefit an ABTA member!

August update - CTSI (the scheme custodian) have confirmed they 'will now address the issues that (I) have raised with the ADR body directly and take further action with the body, as necessary. Any non-compliance issues that are identified...will be reported to the Department of Business and Trade.

It was nice to have experts fighting your corner in any dispute.
I should imagine ABTA are very busy with complaints and that was obvious with the time the complaint took to rectify.
But I am more than happy with the outcome.

Not sure why you bothered to reply to my statement as yet again unhelpful. This hotel should never have been advertised as a 5star hotel. I have stayed in a couple of 4star and 5star hotels in the same area and yours was absolutely disgusting. Furthermore my Christmas was ruined. There was no TUI Rep that came to the hotel even though TUI said there was, which I have in writing. I was also told this Hotel was not thru a 3rd party, in writing, this was also incorrect information.

I put in a complaint about a 5star Hotel which was dirty, unhygienic, cold food etc. I decided to move out half way thru my holiday. I complained to ABTA. Heard nothing for 2 months, went in to Facebook and said this and ABTA sent an email saying I was on stage 1. Another couple of months went by. Again said something on Facebook and again I got an email saying there has been an update. What a scam of a company. They didn't look into anything at all. Pointless company. I wouldn't trust TUI or ABTA, appalling customer service.

ABTA really helped me with my concerns regarding a package holiday that was changed by an airline.
Really easy complaints procedure, and helped resolve the issue after I was getting no where speaking directly with the airline. Thank you ABTA