Thomas Cook-reviews 

Where to start. We booked an all inclusive holiday travelling Manchester to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Flying out, our Thomas Cook Airplane was cancelled and replaced with a replacement from a Portugal based airline called Hi-Fly. Very limited in-flight entertainment. One in our party was unable to manage the stairs and as a result we have booked assisted passage with ambi-lift. However this wasnt provided on arrival at Punta Cana as a result of which that person had to be carried down the steps like a sack of potatoes without any apologies. And it wasn't any better coming back. This time our flight was cancelled, something of which only came to our attention when the bus failed to show up to take us to the airport and it was left up to the hotel to find out what was going on which resulted in a total delay of 26hrs. And even then Thomas Cook got it wrong; again no ambi-lift was provided and when challenged the two Thomas Cook cabin crew who we dealt with their attitude was just appalling; we were told that it had nothing to do with them and then it was just left up to us to get the person, who by now was extremely distressed, on board. No aid was offered; no understanding and a complete lack of any compassion. Awful airline, awful staff and never again will I deal with this company. Avoid!!

after having spent a considerable amount with T Cook over the years i was absolutely appalled at the discrimination i experienced during a recent visit.I travelled to Turkey in May by myself as i am widowed no problems.Enjoyed myself so much i was going to go again in June, however in the shop the booking procedure will not allow the staff to input a single traveller. I also tried myself on line with the same result. Contacted the hotel and they have no issue accepting a single person booking. Went on line to check with another company and my booking sailed through no problems. I never thought i would complain about discrimination, needless to say i will never use T Cook again and am considering taking the matter further

Well, I never thought I would be writing such a positive review about Thomas Cook.
As I`ve said in previous reviews, I will never, ever use the company again because of their appalling customer service and that still stands.
However, I cannot complain about the flights we had as they were both near enough on time. The cabin staff weren`t the friendliest but I can live with that. You may be wondering why I have given them five stars?
We had a problem checking in at Dalaman and an angel, in the form of a Thomas Cook rep came to our aid. Please, Thomas Cook company, if you read this, give Brian Barnet a gold star. He is a true asset to the company but such a shame that your customer service isn`t more like him.
So, the five stars are for Brian; but I won`t be using the company ever again and I wouldn`t recommend them.

I had to cancel my flight with Thomas Cook Airlines as they changed their flight times and I have been trying now for 2months to get my money back on my upgraded seats. Nobody seems to care and I am being told by Customer Service that the department that deals with the refunds are in Germany and they can only contact them by email (no direct phone number) It is a very costly phone number to get through and then no one cares or helps what is going on in this country NO CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!! VERY ANGRY AND STILL WAITING FOR MY MONEY!!!!

I have been holding for nearly an hour on the phone to get to the top of the queue. Recurring message says some should be with you shortly. Online chat has gone from 26 in the queue to 13 in the queue in half an hour. Still holding! This is unacceptable.

2x delays, 4 hours and 30 hours and ill for the entire holiday with salmonella poisoning. 3 years on and still not 'non-standard' letter from them

Flew with Thomas cook from Bristol to Tenerife. Check in was quick and efficient. The flight was on time and everyone boarded quickly. The cabin crew were very friendly and took time to speak to my daughter as she was quite anxious flying. On the return flight my daughter was very upset boarding the plane as she was nervous and the kind stewardess called the pilot over to speak to her. He tried to reassure her and asked if she wanted to see the cockpit. Excellent customer service.

We booked a US tour with the local branch in February for July. Nobody mentioned the fiasco with the seating on the booking system and when we tried to use the website it was useless ( as in many other comments). We have to sit the family together so we went back to the shop in Knaresborough, who's manager told us that the website had been hacked and would be OK in a couple of days so go back later.
My partner has been to the shop on numerous occasions and they've never been able to book the seats so we tried online, only to be told, after an hour or so, that they couldn't deal with this as we'd booked in store. "Call our service number".. So I did.
I got through to a helpful sounding chap, Darryl, who said he could fix it... but not quite then as our info was "read only" on his system and he needed to talk to the other team, who were in 9-5.
OK, brilliant! He even sent us an email so we had a point of contact. Lovely!!
Next day, I sent him an email back to check how he was going and if he needed any info. All seemed OK other than he needed to catch up on some stuff and he'd sort it.
Nope, he didn't, as there was a bit of a glitch. "OK but you promised"... He said he'd let us know when he'd done...
No, we've chased you up pretty much daily and heard nothing! It might not be your fault but don't promise what you can't deliver.
Moral of the story... Dunno yet but it certainly isn't that patience is a virtue. Maybe it's "buyer beware"!

We travelled to Fuerteventura on Weds 22nd Dec 2015 on TCX2143 from Manchester. We checked in 4 suitcases but only 3 arrived at FUE. We informed the ground handler ref FUEMT10032.

The next day we informed the rep (Fiona) of our problem but she didn't seem that interested. She said 'it will probably come on the next TCX flight'. She didn't seem concerned that my son would be without his clothes etc for Christmas. Eventually she phoned the TC station manager (Stephan) after I asked her to do so. He determined that the suitcase was still in MAN. I asked Fiona to give him my mobile no and phone me with an update. I asked if the bag could be put on an earlier flight but was told it couldn't come with another carrier.

No one from TC seemed to take ownership of the problem. I had to get the hotel staff to phone TC on Sat 26th Dec. I was told (by Bethan) that the bag would come later that day (26th Dec) on a Condor flight ex Man. Bethan was quite helpful but later I got a message to say it didn't make the Condor flight but would come later on a Monarch flight. I was informed that this meant that we would get the bag until next day Sun 27th Dec. I phoned Bethan and asked if the manager (Stefan) could call me. I then got a msg saying Stephan couldn't ring a UK mobile and was told I should call him. I phoned him and asked if the bag could be sent as soon it arrived in FUE he said it couldn't be sent until next day. HE THEN BLAMED THOMAS COOK AIRLINES FOR THE PROBLEM. I said 'don't you work for Thomas Cook?' and he said he worked for the Tours not the Airline. I thought it was very unprofessional to blame a sister company.

Bottom line is my son went without his stuff for half his holiday over Christmas and no one seemed bothered. This was a shame as it spoiled what was otherwise a very good family holiday.


We travelled to Fuerteventura on Weds 22nd Dec 2015 on TCX2143 from Manchester. We checked in 4 suitcases but only 3 arrived at FUE. We informed the ground handler (ref FUEMT10032) and then went on to our hotel - the Rio Carma.

The next day we informed the rep (Fiona) of our problem but she didn't seem that interested. She said 'it will probably come on the next TCX flight'. She didn't seem concerned that my son (age 22) would be without his clothes etc for Christmas. She seemed more concerned about taking money for excursions!! Eventually she phoned the TC station manager (Stephan) after I asked her to do so. He determined that the suitcase was still in MAN. I asked Fiona to give him my mobile no and phone me with an update. I asked if the bag could be put on an earlier flight but was told it couldn't come with another carrier (although it eventually came on a Monarch flight).

No one from TC seemed to take ownership of the problem. I had to get the hotel staff to phone TC office on Sat 26th Dec. I was told (by Bethan) that the bag would come later that day (26th Dec) on a Condor flight ex Man. Bethan was quite helpful but later I got a message to say it didn't make the Condor flight but would come later on a Monarch flight. I was informed that this meant that we wouldn't get the bag until next day Sun 27th Dec. I phoned Bethan and asked if the manager (Stefan) could call me. I then got a msg saying Stephan couldn't ring a UK mobile and was told I should call him. I phoned him and asked if the bag could be sent as soon it arrived in FUE he said it couldn't be sent until next day. HE THEN BLAMED THOMAS COOK AIRLINES FOR THE PROBLEM. I said 'don't you work for Thomas Cook?' and he said he worked for the Tours not the Airline. I thought it was very unprofessional to blame a sister company.

Bottom line is my son went without his stuff for half his holiday over Christmas and no one seemed bothered. This was a shame as it spoiled what was otherwise a very good family holiday.

I don't think we will be using Thomas Cook again in a hurry!!

Absolute Shambles the way Thomas Cook operates. Just waited 2 hours to get through to your customer services to add bags on for a customer to then be put on hold by the girl who actually put me thru to the end of call survey, noew back on hold for another 2 hours! You are by far the worst of all the travel companies. You just seem to get worse. How can it be so difficult to enable us to add bags at the time of booking or after booking. You dont even deserve the 1 out of 10 score you get on trust pilot. More and more people are becoming sick of you, customers and travel agents. You make so many peoples blood boil to the point that we'd rather pick another destination so we can fly with another airline, than use you. Would also love to see how much you pay out in compo for late flights. Just utterly diabolical the way you operate as a whole. The only good parts of you are your groups department, gold medal and med hotels. Why cant the rest be run so efficiently!!! 0/10 you should be on trust pilot - Genuinly!!!

Booked flights with thomas cook on 2nd january paid in full my husband died of a heart attack on 4th january after everything had been dealt with and i felt strong enough to cancel him from the holiday advised well you will have to pay an admin charge !! Did the girl not hear me my husband had died but yes she said but you still have to pay the charge for taking him off booking !! Thomas cook you are disgusting yes she even asked her supervisor who also confirmed the charge .you are a heartless money grabbing company who deserves to go bust !!!
Done a complaint they just sent me a mail saying they had closed it done another one yes again closed it without a reply call nothing but were only the customers who pay your wages what do we matter !!!

Okay, so if you're planning a long haul flight, be sure to ask several questions to the travel agent BEFORE paying. Please read on for those questions... and sorry in advance for the essay.

Me and my Fiance have been back from Las Vegas for a week now and we're finally settling back in to normality, however, this isn't what this is about. In October 2014, we wanted an experience of a lifetime which was to go to Las Vegas to in October 2015. At the time, we was told we would be on the 'new' Thomas Cook Airbus A330 which was terrific at the time. We also found out that we get two meals, refreshments, 36 movies to choose from, a choice of tv shows/ music and the usual on-flight Duty Free. This was brilliant! I tell you what, lets pay that £2,439.40p and be gone.
October comes, we board the Airbus A330 and it is stunning.... only for a certain length of time. It even had a downstairs to the toilet, very posh. We get settled, looked at what movies to watch on the way, only to find out there are 5 available, 3 were foreign. You actually have to PAY to access the movies which is £4 to upgrade per person, this includes music and tv programs (completely mis-sold). There aren't any new films either, so don't get your hopes up. No blankets were offered, no pillows or headphones unless you asked. The blankets actually ran out. The food eventually came round, a choice of chicken or beef both with vegetables - get neither, its very dry and i'm not just saying this. I didn't even have a drink with me at the time, and when I asked, the fella said I had to wait until they come back around. Hold on.... you're saying you serve the ENTIRE plane the food and I have to wait 45 minutes for a drink? Yes, that's what happened. So, when I mentioned earlier about refreshments throughout the flight being included, you actually had to pay for them too. £2.50 for a bottle of orange the size of hand. If you want a can of pop, coffee on the side, water, alcohol you had to pay for it. Before you know it, you've spent about £20/£30 depending on what you get of course.
Moving on, we had no air-conditioning the whole journey, I was offered one drink the whole flight baring in mind we're in the air for 11 hours, the seats don't go back, the cabin crews attitude when you even ask them for a drink or even anything was appalling, I was looked at like s*** at one point and gave up.
On our way home, we was on a completely different plane, one of the old ones. Just checked our holiday agreement (CHECK WHAT YOU PAY FOR) and it even said we had the Airbus A330. We actually had pillows and blankets on our seats this time, which were as good as plastic bags. My window, tv screen and tray was covered in what looked like dried up sick, sorry to be blunt. I asked the air hostess if I could have something to clean this with, she get some napkins and went to give me them then changed her mind and went the toilet to dampen them, lent over us and started scrubbing it as if it was a fault of ours. Looked at me and then walked away. Explain that one?? Throughout the plane was bits of rubbish from the previous flight. I mean, what the hell have I spent my money on?? We asked for some alcohol which were on offer in the Duty Free magazine to take home with us.... none left or we had to choose something else. Again, refreshments you had to pay for (I took my own on this time), same food as previous... again, awful, and only tea and coffee came round. I understand the cabin crew work closely together, but having a full on conversation about your sisters divorce whilst serving customers (missing us out twice) I felt was terrible. The staff just don't give a s*** at all. Again, no air con, not even them twisty ones above you or a button if you needed assistance. The flight was humid. I am absolutely disgusted with the lack of customer service, the lack of keeping us hydrated, the fact we have been lied to, how unhygienic the flight was. It was all fun and glory until we boarded the first plane. Don't waste your money.

So, after almost 2 months of being back from my hols, I’m still awaiting a reply to my complaint from Thomas Cook – that is my second complaint, as the first was ignored. I would urge everyone to NEVER fly with this company. We arrived at the airport, queued for check in, were told nothing about plane change – a bloke there handed letters to a few people in line and that was it. We were only told as we were checking in, the check in woman was horrendous, demanding to see every single detail of our entire trip – even when we were going to new york after it, where we were flying home from, what airline, where we were landing, even though we weren’t doing anything else with them just the flight out, in all my years of travelling, I’ve NEVER had this issue before. We had paid extra to book our seats in advance and the woman then told us the plane had been changed and we ‘might’ be able to keep our same seats. MIGHT. Anyway, after all this, we spend ages trying to figure out which gate is ours, we get there before boarding – the staff there are too busy giggling and flirting to even acknowledge us, I attempted to get their attention numerous times, they continued to flirt and act like kids. There were no signs or anything so we weren’t even sure if we were in the right section. There was just a plain white plane – no name on it or nothing. People started to arrive, staff continued to flirt around, giggling and ignoring all customers. As we got on the plane, we were front row, we were told we couldn’t put our luggage above us as crew had stuff there. We had to put our luggage 3 luggage packs back – this disrupting every other passengers storage space! We were delayed, delayed, delayed with no information why. Then after approx. 15 minutes, it came over the speaker that they hadn’t put enough fuel in!!!!! We were having to have more fuel put in. During the flight there were about 3 or 4 shows on the entertainment- rubbish. The food was disgusting and in the full flight only twice I was offered a drink. I tried to catch the air hostess I don’t know how many times, she completely ignored me – and many customers around me, storming through, hiding behind the curtain at the front of the plane, giggling away with a male member of staff. Not far from us was a family where they said they had arranged a kids meal, there was nothing available and nothing the child liked, they asked for something like a lunch pack, sandwiches or something – they were told nothing available, shortly after, we watched crew members laughing and joking behind the curtain at the front of the plane eating away at a big box of ham rolls, crisps, etc. The crew spent around 80% of their time here. Their attitude was disgusting throughout the entire plane journey and so unprofessional. After we had landed, the same night I sent a complaint to customer services. I also filled out a questionnaire stating how disgusting I was. Still nothing. I then tried again last month to send a complaint, I had an email saying their had received my complaint, nothing since. I’ve tried to message countless times on twitter – I had a reply a few days later asking for my reference number, when I sent it, they said they couldn’t deal with it through a status, it had to be through DM , so I sent through DM. Surprise, surprise, no reply again. The amount of complaints they have going on, on twitter at the moment is disgusting. I would NEVER fly with this company again.

We were due to go to Tunisia, however due to the tragic shooting there, we could not go. We were not allowed a refund, as we were travelling 4 days past their cut off point for refunds. Thomas Cook could not offer us a suitable alternative at all apart from one, which we had to pay an extra £482.47. It was either this, or lose most of our £3800, so we did what anyone would have done and pay the extra. After booking this alternative reluctantly, Thomas Cook then decide to offer everyone refunds!! We were not allowed as we had changed our destination.
We then had the holiday from hell, starting with 3 different rooms on the first day due to them being in such a poor state that they were unsafe, needless too say I took photos as evidence.
Upon our return back to the UK, we then put in a complaint with TC who said as they are ABTA bound by their regulations, they have 14 days to respond, then a further 28 days to resolve it. It has now been well over the legally allowed time, I was promised a call directly from their head office in Peterborough and waited a whole week with promise after promise from them they would call me, they DID NOT CALL.
The answers we wanted was, WHY could we not get refunded when plenty of other people did. We were at a stale mate and pushed into having a holiday we didn't want due to it simply being, pay a hell of a lot more or lose your money.
Thomas Cook refuse to even acknowledge our complaint and even refused to get a manager so the Customer Service Manager at my local branch could get answers, they actually hung up on him 3 times when he pushed to talk to a manager.
It seems Thomas Cook like to put profit before customer care. All I wanted was the difference back we paid for our god awful holiday and being treated like **** by TC, but they wouldn't even do that.
I can barely find any positive reviews about TC, and all I now hear from people I speak to about this are their horror stories about TC.
I'd have though after the appalling way TC handled the carbon monoxide tragedy, they would have learnt from this, it would seem not.
I urge people, do NOT book with "Thomas Crook", the way they are going, they will end up going bust.

To sum this up, we feel deeply disgusted by TC in the way they deal with serious customer complaints. My rant goes a lot deeper with other problems we encountered with TC, but I won't as it would end up being a novel with the list of complaints I have about them. Employees should be ashamed to be working for such a company.

I was booked on a flight out of JFK to Manchester England last night at 10.05pm
I completed all the check in on-line but was told that I had to formerly check in at the airport as they needed to print out my boarding card and check my details.
I was stuck in traffic in NYC due to a car accident in my taxi and arrived at 8.55pm for check in - the flight had then been rescheduled for 10.27pm departure.
The ticket agents said I was too late to check in my bag and refused to give me a boarding pass even though I was well within the time for the flight. I am 21 years old, never been out of the USA on an international flight on my own and it was the most traumatic experience.
I had saved up for this flight as a student to go back for my grandparents Golden wedding for the weekend and now the entire family weekend is ruined. I was treated exceptionally badly and was actually yelled at by one of the agents. I tried everything to get on the flight , asking security and customer service for help, but nobody seemed to care - there was over 1hour 30 minutes before the flight left and I was left standing there as your staff just closed the flight and walked away. I am so upset and distraught, not only about the whole event but about the money I have now lost. Thomas Cook are not interested - they have not kept to their rule of 1 hour before the flight and just could not have cared less about me - awful company - nobody available to talk to or help - no phone numbers to call...unbelievable...DO NOT USE THEM

There mess up with the fight. Change fight time so not food when we got there. When left had to walk around for 6hrs. Had a tv fire in room and had to sort out money back self the rep only come when we had any money to pay out for them. Only saw rep once had her phone number but she did not aswer it. She did when i payed her some money.

just returned from corfu, myself and the wife had planned to do loads of historical trips and were very excited as this was classed as our honeymoon, booked extra leg seats so on boarding the plane to find my very cramped seat i was not impressed, the response i got " seats have been double booked nothing we can do" disgraceful. when we landed the rep said as you to are the only ones going to that resort i wont come with you i will catch you later!
well he turned up 2 days later i approached him about 4 different trips we wanted to do, 2 of which he did not know where they were! flabbergasted as it was his company organising them. Basically his words were i do not want to do any trips as you are 45 minute drive from everyone else so just enjoy your holiday and i will see you later, how the hell can we enjoy it when we can not do what we wanted, my wife was devastated we saved hard for this holiday.
will never in my lifetime use this poor excuse for a travel company again

we booked our holidays with holidaygems.com the air line was the worst airline, our first bad experience with Thomas Cook, the flight was delays from London Gatwick to Tenerife over an hour coming back the flight was almost 3 hours delay back to london. we did the check in online even they change our boarding pass from booth side they changed our seats. i will request to all the peoples to please please do not book your flight with Thomas Cook, the most worst airline just rubbish, they do not punctuality miss management and poor service

Absolutely disgusting! We flew to Las Vegas using Thomas Cook who advertised brand new spacious planes with entertainment including 35 movies! Instead we were informed that our plane had been replaced with a 'hi-fly' aircraft. Thomas cook refers to flights as "Your flight is arguably the most important element of your holiday and your journey starts with Thomas Cook Airlines." Well, the seats were had broken plastic all over and were taped up in an attempt to fix them. There were 4 movies available, 2 of which were in french. Both my table and my husbands did now work and we had to balance our hot meals on our laps. But we thought ok these things happen, we'll have a nice new plane on our return to the UK. We couldn't have been more wrong. We checked in all ok and were told by Thomas cook that our plane had again been changed. We had booked extra leg room seats so i asked if the representative could confirm that our seats were extra leg room. He asked to see our itinerary to check that we had booked them and informed us that our seats were definitely extra leg room. As we boarded the plane however, we discovered our seats were not extra leg room and we immediately informed a Thomas cook representative. We were told that the plane was fully booked and that they would check if any seats were available when all passengers were boarded. I then over heard a representative say 'They sold their seats to other passengers'. A swissport agent then boarded with no apology and said there was nothing she could do, when asked about the seats being sold she replied "yes they were probably sold after you checked-in but I've had this problem since 7 o'clock this morning" and quickly walked off the aircraft. The planes both going to Las Vegas and returning were filthy, there was chewing gum stuck to the chair in front of me and old sweet wrappers stuck in the magazine racks. There were food and drink stains all over the food trays and on asking for blankets on the outward flight the hi fly representative informed me there were non and looked at me as if I was crazy for asking even though the plane was absolutely freezing. I am absolutely shocked at the treatment and customer care that both Thomas Cook and Swissport have shown their customers and will NEVER book with Thomas cook again. Virgin Atlantic we are coming back to you!

I booked my first family holiday with Thomas Cook in January 2015 to a hotel in Tunisia and due to unfortunate circumstances Thomas Cook changed our booking to alcudia. Our flight out to Palma was at 6 am on the 7th August 2015 to which we arrived at 3.45am we proceeded to the check in desk been a brand new traveler with my young children we didn't really know how everything worked and there was no reps to help, has we finally got to the front of the check in we was informed we was unable to board the flight has we was to late, at 0515 am we was then charged £480 to get the next flight tomorrow morning. On the screen in the airport it did say the gates were still open and nobody called final reminders. The girls who delt with us was smug and extremely arragont and all they was bothered about was getting more money from me. After leaving the airport I went to see someone at Thomas Cook in Manchester where we was traveling from, the rep was very understanding but absolutely would not help me. I have no actually been on the holiday yet as I fly tomorrow but I am not looking forward to the holiday because I feel the service I and my family have received already is horrendous, I would say to anyone booking a holiday please look at other holiday companies first, I would never use Thomas Cook again and I have not even been on the holiday yet.