A BRITISH couple went through “hell” on their £1,800 holiday to Egypt after being left stranded without accommodation.
Upon arriving at the King Tut Aqua Park Resort in Hurghada, Egypt, last week, Gareth Tysoe was told that his booking through loveholidays didn’t exist.
After hours of stressful phone calls with the holiday letting agents, the 40-year-old claims they were redirected to Sunny Days Resort which loveholidays had allegedly booked as a substitute.
However, when Gareth and partner Tracy Senco, 46, arrived at the resort they were left fuming to discover that this booking hadn’t been processed either.
Now into the early hours of the morning with allegedly no answer to their frantic attempts to resolve the situation, the couple were forced to fork out over £80 for a bed that night.
The following day Gareth, from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, says he flooded the company with phone calls, but heard nothing back.
The warehouse supervisor claims he collected a phone bill of over £350 as he frantically tried to sort somewhere for the couple to stay.
Unable to return to the hotel they’d paid for, the couple have been forced to carry out the rest of their 14 day holiday from a completely different resort.
Venting his frustration on Twitter last Friday, Gareth wrote: “@loveholidays second day stranded in Egypt with no accommodation and lacking support and contact from @loveholidays. This is hell!
“Please can you sort the accommodation that we have paid for and confirm our new accommodation ASAP.”
Speaking today, Gareth said: “We arrived at 11:40 to be told by the receptionist that there was no booking for us and they did not offer any advice or help.
“We immediately called loveholidays who said they would get in contact with their agent out here who made the booking and call us straight back.
“They didn’t and we had to continually call to try and find out what was happening.
“They then sent us to a new hotel and said they had made a reservation. When we arrived there they had no booking for us either!
“Another hour went by with no contact from Love Holidays. It was me constantly contacting them, we then had to pay for the first night ourselves.
“Love holidays then told me, after I called them throughout the next day, that we could check in the following day, leaving us once again with no accommodation!
“I told them this wasn’t acceptable and during my final call to Love Holidays they managed to arrange for us to stay in the second hotel where we already had paid to stay.
“The room was okay but not what we booked and although we were grateful to the hotel for helping us, it was substandard and not what we paid for.
We feel we have been left stranded in a foreign country by loveholidays who did not help us at all.
“It totally ruined the start of our holiday and the fear we had at being stranded with no support was overwhelming.
“We are currently still in Egypt trying to rescue this holiday and enjoy ourselves.
“However, in the current economic crisis I am very stressed about paying the phone bill that loveholidays has accumulated by not contacting me.”
Speaking today, a loveholidays spokeswoman said: “We’re sorry to hear of Mr Tysoe and Ms Senco’s experience with our hotel partner.
“As soon as we were made aware of the issue we got in touch with them to offer our support and we have also been in contact to make arrangements to reimburse the additional expenses incurred.”
