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“Short 3 day break to Budapest using a wowcher voucher. ”

written by YadiraSpencer on 04/09/2014

This is fairly long but worth the read if you want to protect your precious money. An awful company to deal with, unfortunately we trusted wowcher as a good company and thought that spread to their suppliers. My wife contacted Clearsky to book with our wowcher and they asked for the voucher number immediately and then proceeded to book our what we thought was our weekend away. Unfortunately for us it was just flights and hotel. 
The agent spoke broken English with a heavy accent and was difficult to understand and we had to keep asking to repeat. This created stress. We waited for long periods on the telephone with just silence and he eventually came back with unrealistic flights arriving 2.00 am first day and leaving on the 3rd day at 5.00 am. He the searched and found better flights and we agreed to go for it as he had already taken voucher code and therefore we had stupidly committed to the holiday/short break. 
The better flights gave us 3 full days , but the he said there would be an additional cost of £49.00 per person as they were now going to a different flight operator. We are now in a situation and reluctantly agreed as we now felt we had no choice. We gave our card details and money was debited as we thought £98.00 but they took £108.00 which still no one has given reason. The whole process became stressful and we mistaking by said yes. 
We were given a confirmed time but could not be given a flight operator as it could be one of any, we now reluctantly had booked our 3 days away for a total of just over £400.00!. 
My suspicions aroused and I looked at flights leaving Stansted on our specified time and day and sure enough it was Ryan Air at a total cost of around £99.00 return for both of us, I then checked the hotel with booking.com and the cost was £45.00 per night. So a a total cost of £244.00 doing it yourself buys the same.
I feel that the low cost holiday is some form of scheme wher you are offered impossible flights to they get you to upgrade the holiday. We were finally told that we are now entering a new contract with them and that free fast track Spa tickets were no longer applicable so we effectively paid more and got less. 
I have contacted, Atol, abta,and citizen's advice and they came back to us saying that by paying the extra we entered into a contract. We have yet to hear from wowcher. The only way we can get to them is by issuing a breach of contract because they took the money before we ordered the holiday. The customer services of Clearsky were not friendly and spoke over me and read stock answers from a crib sheet. I suggest this happens with frequency and they are geared up to deal with the unhappy customers, by being on the right side of the law, but morally and ethically wrong. 
I will not give up on this, but will advise anyone who cares to read the following:
Whether it is Groupon or wowcher make sure you read what it is you are actually getting.
If it is a holiday check that is not just flights and hotels
When redeeming a voucher make sure you know it is what they are offering first(we innocently gave the code when asked)
Do not accept the holiday if you are asked for more money.
Do not accept alternative hotels if they say the holiday is no longer available.
You are not under any obligation to take the holiday unless you have handed over the code.
Do not agree any extra payment other than that you have agreed by buying the 'deal'
You do not lose money with wowcher or Groupon as it will be placed in a wallet for future use, so don't feel under pressure to buy.
Morally and ethically they show bad practice as far as I am concerned, but they are just on the right side of the law.
Do not get stressed out by talking to a representative who has a strong accent, ask to speak to another.
Check who the holiday supplier is using for flights and hotels, remember this holiday I could have sourced myself in hindsight.
The Clearsky customer services were of no use and took out the human element by reading scripts in a robotic fashion. My wife and I did not think about that we were dealing with a third party as we have complete trust in wowcher and thought that their suppliers would be the same. I escalated my concerns to a supervisor in customer services at Clearsky and she introduced the human element into the conversation, but after a lengthy conversation (60 mins) was offered £130.00 if I cancelled and because my wife and I are retired £20.00 by way of compensation. (Found this somewhat patronising). I was told how tight their margins are on these offers, in my experience I do not agree.
It looks as though we are caught in a sticky position of taking this short break with having paid this operator a lot of money. We are not looking for sympathy but wish for other potential customers not to make the same mistakes. We have beaten ourselves up as we let our guard down on making this booking. 
From our experience I would not advise anyone to use them, or if you do proceed cautiously. Book it direct yourself as we have done frequently, do not use unethical companies. 
We have dealt with some great companies using both wowcher and Groupon web advertising, but this is our first experience that has caused such stress. 
Be warned! Mr unhappy.