 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| bar shaker wrote: |
Parkyparcours, It would have been far better for the TO to have explained the extras but to be fair to them, they asked if you wanted the holiday at price £XXXX and you said yes. That's not a rip off at all.
A rip off would be if you said you wanted it and they billed you at a figure above what you were expecting... without telling you.
If anything though, Iglu might have got some business out of this thread. I looked at their website and saw some very nice catered chalets, at very good prices. They have a potential customer in me for next year. |
That's true but at www.snowfinders.co.uk you do get a far more personal service and they always quote the final price never adding on extras.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Parkyparcours wrote: |
Ok, went on the website & saw the prices. Called up Iglu and said I want to book 4 to go to this chalet for this date. He said - ok the total is £X, how would you like to pay. Obviously at this point, I should have pulled a calculator out of my pocket (whilst on the run) and realised that 4 x the quoted price did not equal the amount he said. At the end of the workday I sat down to work out who owed what and it was then that I realised the breakdown didn't add up to what I was expecting.
Should I have been more careful and waited till the following day and I had more time? Probably
Should Iglu be upfront about the costs on the website and disclose them during the booking process? Probably
BTW - even by their own calculations they had overcharged me - by £4!!!!!  |
You have no cause for complaint. You asked how much it was. They told you. Over 4 people the rounding up or down has probably made a difference of £4 total. Boo hoo.
If you can't work a calculator, then more fool you. Sorry, but I can't honestly feel sorry for somebody who can't either work with numbers, or who takes the time to get the information and then talks to somebody who can work with numbers. Personally when I ring up to buy anything I do it with a piece of paper to write everything important down and a calculator in front of me. If not I ask them to send me an e-mail with the details and hold the booking until I call them back and read it in detail. Pretty basic stuff really, especially on a large purchase like a holiday.
You handed over your payment information without thinking, and you paid more than you realised because of it. They haven't hidden anything, they charged you what that trip costs, you just didn't do the maths.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Morrissey wrote: |
| bar shaker wrote: |
Parkyparcours, It would have been far better for the TO to have explained the extras but to be fair to them, they asked if you wanted the holiday at price £XXXX and you said yes. That's not a rip off at all.
A rip off would be if you said you wanted it and they billed you at a figure above what you were expecting... without telling you.
If anything though, Iglu might have got some business out of this thread. I looked at their website and saw some very nice catered chalets, at very good prices. They have a potential customer in me for next year. |
That's true but at www.snowfinders.co.uk you do get a far more personal service and they always quote the final price never adding on extras. |
But their search function is crap. I want to have a look at a week away in April 2010, either 10th or 17th for a week. I want to see chalets, catered, for 10 people.
Possible? Doesn't seem to be...
And where's the price?
That website is really pretty awful for somebody who needs headline information to start coming up with a shortlist, and to try and make an informed decision.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Quote: |
temptation of a potential bargain from the headline price on the website has led to making a booking before checking on the final price per person.
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Exactly the point I would think. It makes you feel bad even if you shouldn't. Used to work in insurance where this sort of thing has been prevalent for years. It is depressing that it works on most people. 
Hope the holiday is good.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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late payment charges , flight supplement, admin fees. Yellow Pyranha, hmm, don't think its very ethical not to tell people they aren't paying the web price. The price we are paying is fine even with the extra charges - the issue I have is that they didn't say anything. If only the Euro exchange rate would improve I'd go back to booking independantly...
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The late booking fee IS mentioned on the iglu website - but I agree that it's very difficult to get a bottom line price out of them on the web - so I voted with my feet (mouse??) and went elsewhere!
Anyway, as Dav says, you're on your way, so enjoy!
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| Monium wrote: |
| Morrissey wrote: |
| bar shaker wrote: |
Parkyparcours, It would have been far better for the TO to have explained the extras but to be fair to them, they asked if you wanted the holiday at price £XXXX and you said yes. That's not a rip off at all.
A rip off would be if you said you wanted it and they billed you at a figure above what you were expecting... without telling you.
If anything though, Iglu might have got some business out of this thread. I looked at their website and saw some very nice catered chalets, at very good prices. They have a potential customer in me for next year. |
That's true but at www.snowfinders.co.uk you do get a far more personal service and they always quote the final price never adding on extras. |
But their search function is crap. I want to have a look at a week away in April 2010, either 10th or 17th for a week. I want to see chalets, catered, for 10 people.
Possible? Doesn't seem to be...
And where's the price?
That website is really pretty awful for somebody who needs headline information to start coming up with a shortlist, and to try and make an informed decision. |
I think their premise is to speak to one of their consultants (they are a bit old fashioned like that) but believe me they know their stuff. very informative and friendly. Try their deals tab it worked for me. I have just done your search click on this http://www.snowfinders.co.uk/offer-search-results.aspx?previousCountry=0&startDateDay=10&startDateMonth=04&startDateYear=2010&offerCountry=any&offerResort=any&offerQuality=any&x=32&y=6 - hope it helps. It does show some randomn dates to be honest but if you click on to the chalets then the price is correct for 03/04 April.
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| queen bodecia wrote: |
I did book late back in 2006. I hadn't been skiing for getting on ten years and it was an impulse purchase. The free lift pass offer at the time swung it for me although I paid brochure price for everything else. No late booking supplement though. I thought the purpose of leaving it to the last minute and taking pot luck was to get a nice reduction. Is a 'late booking supplement' a way for TOs to claw back some of this 'loss'? What sort of cost are we talking about?
I don't book late any more, trying to get the same resort/hotel/week as my ski buddies requires careful early planning. |
It isn't a "late booking" charge, it is a late payment charge.
Normally, for "early" bookers, you pay a deposit up front, and the balance is due 8-10 weeks (depending on TO) before travel.
If the final payment is made less than that time from travel, then a late payment charge is imposed, and some TOs may impose that even if the payment is at time of booking, when that is less than 8/10 weeks from travel.
It does seem silly, but it really is only the final price you are asked to pay that matters, rather than how it is made up.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I'm the Sales & marketing director at Iglu and just wanted to clarify how we work.
We are an online travel agency, who have been selling ski holidays for 11 years, working with around 60 ski tour operators, who all provide their different information in various forms - so a very complex task.
When the tour operators inform us about additional compulsory supplements we add them to the price that is displayed on our site. In many cases we may even appear to be more expensive than our competitors because it is our policy to include all known supplements. If there are extra supplements (that are added by the tour operator) caused by late payment for example we give a total quote at the time of booking followed shortly by email confirmation with a full written breakdown - under normal circumstances the quote given at the time of booking is broken down but it sounds like this particular booking was made in haste unfortunately.
The happiness of our customers is of of prime importance to us so we welcome the feedback on here as there's always room to improve our service/website. We are now open until 10pm most nights so have consultants on hand to advise people further and give full quotes over the phone/by email. Hope this helps.
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sim, welcome to snowheads and thanks for taking the time to give us feedback. If you can listen to what's being said and learn from it, that's great
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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It's always nice to see TOs come on here to put the record straight; and as Axsman has pointed out, in this case the thread title of "rip off" is pretty well over the top, and perhaps should be amended by the OP. The constructive criticism that could be drawn from this instance is that the normal policy of breaking down the cost over the phone at time of booking broke down on this occasion, though as I and others have previously posted the OP also has to take a considerable amount responsibility for this.
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sim, welcome to SnowHeads. I have used Iglu in the past,mainly for late bookings, and had good service.
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You know it makes sense.
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I suspect we all (me included) try to do everything on line these days, when sometimes a phone call is much better. I've just spent ages trying to sort out something about my Barclays offset mortgage, online. A short phone call, and it was sorted out. With holidays, we've probably all persuaded ourselves we don't need an "agent" of any kind any more, but sometimes maybe we do. Someone who books holidays all day long, and knows all the companies, can probably find us something quicker than we can ourselves.
As the OP thinks she had a good holiday at a good price I agree the thread title is OTT and unjustified.
sim, useful explanation, thanks.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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It staggers me that people wish to do so much by email/net these days. If the phone was invented after email the techy world would go mad and email would be reduced massively. The phone facilitates a two way conversation. Iglu do not actually do on line booking - you have to get through to them to actually confirm the contract. I work in an office where emails ping back and forth between clients and vendors all day with both parties misunderstanding/not reading/not concentrating properly. Just pick up teh phone and communicate in the old fashioned way - that way yo get a personalised interaction with empathy and things can be explained far more easily - it's much quicker. .
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Poster: A snowHead
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| nbt wrote: |
| sim, welcome to snowheads and thanks for taking the time to give us feedback. If you can listen to what's being said and learn from it, that's great |
Not sure if that's meant to sound so condescending?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Morrissey,
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It staggers me that people wish to do so much by email/net these days
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Two main reasons, so far as I'm concerned a) so that you can get on quickly and book or buy, without having to hang on the phone waiting in an interminable queue, going through a succession of irrelevant automated messages, or speaking to some moron in another continent and b) because deals are often available over the internet which aren't by telephone. Otherwise, I entirely agree with you.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Wasn;t meant to sound condescending, I was referring more to the whole view of the average skiier. Too often, the people wh build websites think about how they want to present the information in a certain way and don;t consider how the user wants to access it - e.g. when I look for holidays, I'm usually open to all sorts of destinations but living ten miles from manchester airport, that's just about the only place I'll fly from. However most holiday companies make you choose your destination before you get to choose your departure point. Iglu do allow you to search that way, but their mechanism for excluding certain destinations (e.g. I don;t want to go to bulgaria) doesn;t seem to work
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I don't think sim has anything to worry about here. Good company (not used them but always good feedback about them) and good prices at good locations.
I would have booked with them, if I wasn't already sorted.
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FAQ
's, although I see from the front page ad that you have been aware of us for some time. 
