Never been to US so decided to book our holiday of a lifetime via travel agent. Booked a‘Taylor made’ holiday to travel down the California Coastline via Barrhead Beverley office. Booked car hire, flights and 7 night’s accommodation- other 14 nights we were arranging ourselves. Accommodation not at all to our satisfaction - we weren’t aware they booked this by 3rd party and as such our rooms were not at a standard we expected - when booking the holiday we told them we wanted good hotels and prepared to pay. We had to pay $300 to upgrade at one hotel! One hotel was being refurbished and we were put into overspill accommodation which was dirty, no lock on the patio door, water not working and had to move room!
The sea view room which we were lead to believe was booked was never available as SeaVenture Pismo Beach only have sea view rooms booked direct - not via ‘ third party’ bookings. On our return home I contacted Barrhead - customer service- they did not put my complaint to a named person and told they would Not give a breakdown of the holiday- it was in their contract. No compensation given by Barrhead and they did not reimburse the extra $300 we paid to upgrade our room for 2 nights. We did receive compensation from the hotel doing the refurbishment but it went via third party booking, then Barrhead, then eventually to me. Totally dissatisfied as this was to be a holiday of a lifetime with the travel agent organising the framework and their part costing over £9,300 Lesson here, read the small print very carefully. Taylor made holiday it was not and very dissatisfied by lack of response from Barrhead Travel when I formally complained.