The best tour operator and why?

The Crystal Agent at Gatwick went down the checkin queue telling us that we all had to pay a "fuel supplement" to get on the flight. When we got to the checkin desk, the airline said this simply wasn't the case. Crystal had charged their agent with getting some extra payments in whatever way she could. When I went to other people in the queue to tell them, the rep threatened to get the airport security to arrest me. Welcome to Crystal corporate customer care. As you can imagine, I wouldn't recommend them. No doubt, Crystal would say they're not responsible for the specific actions of their agent. But it reflects the way they do business.

We do a mix but mainly DIY, but when the Ash cloud struck we were away with ski world, excellent, coaches organised, and we were home only 12hrs late. :shock: Very nice chalet and very good staff.

Last year the other half and me went away (just the two of us) First time in 19 years with alpine elements, staff were ok, ski guide very good Chalet poor, but so were the other people in the chalet and that could have clouded my views.

This starting with a DIY :D

msej449 wrote:The Crystal Agent at Gatwick went down the checkin queue telling us that we all had to pay a "fuel supplement" to get on the flight. When we got to the checkin desk, the airline said this simply wasn't the case. Crystal had charged their agent with getting some extra payments in whatever way she could. When I went to other people in the queue to tell them, the rep threatened to get the airport security to arrest me. Welcome to Crystal corporate customer care. As you can imagine, I wouldn't recommend them.

This is an astonishing story ! And Crystal didn't care ?

msej449 wrote:The Crystal Agent at Gatwick went down the checkin queue telling us that we all had to pay a "fuel supplement" to get on the flight. When we got to the checkin desk, the airline said this simply wasn't the case. Crystal had charged their agent with getting some extra payments in whatever way she could. When I went to other people in the queue to tell them, the rep threatened to get the airport security to arrest me. Welcome to Crystal corporate customer care. As you can imagine, I wouldn't recommend them. No doubt, Crystal would say they're not responsible for the specific actions of their agent. But it reflects the way they do business.

We had a similar incident with the ski world repeat gatwick. 6am flight out to Innsbruck with monarch, and she went down the queue making people pay for ski carriage despite the airline not actually charging ski carriage back then. She also tried to get my group of 8 to pay for ski carriage even though we already had, because it hadn't been added to her printed list that we had booked skis. She was adamant we had to pay, and unfortunately I had to be quite blunt (that must come as a shock......) and basically tell her to do one and come back to me once shed checked with head office.......needless to day she couldn't at 4am on a Saturday morning. She thought she was onto a quick £180.

I hope you complained. Or it just pointless?

I always carry full paperwork to show what I have and have not paid for. We have had queries like this before and a battle of the paperwork seems to do the trick.

Like when I paid for 3 x 2 bedded rooms in Andorra and they tried to put us in 2 x 3 bedded rooms. Could have been a bit embarassing deciding who was to share with who!! :oops:

I gave some constructive feedback to the head of Skiworld groups about the ski carriage Gestapo, which I know was passed on to management.
Basically pointing out that having someone totally devoid of interpersonal skills as the first Skiworld employee customers came into contact with was probably not good for business.
We'd had a similar experience to the above.
Since then we've had a good customer experience at check in.

I've only ever used Thomsons but they are closely tied in with Crystal. My only problem was on my first trip with them when, being a novice, I had failed to navigate the booking procedure properly on the Thomson website, hence had not only booked myself a first time ski package, which included lessons, equipment and lift pass, but, not realising this, I'd also booked myself a separate lift pass and separate ski hire too (dumb, I know .. but it shouldn't be possible to do imho, at least without flagging up a query on the webpage). The reps in resort were pretty sympathetic but wouldn't sort it out there and then, and so on my return home I wrote a letter to Mr Big at Thomson, thanking him for a great holiday and then explaining that it was possible for the uninitiated to pay twice via their website. Within a few days a cheque for £ 220 dropped on my mat. (I still think the website allows this to happen though !)