AVOID IMPERIAL TRAVEL, CAUSED PROBLEMS EVEN AT AIRPORT

I have just arrived back from the holiday I booked with Imperial Travel which I found through icelolly.com. THIS COMPANY IS NOT EVEN WORTH ONE STAR...

During conversations there was no mention of the fact that we would need at least 6 months validity on our passports from the date of travel in order to get visas. This important detail came to light only a week before we were due to travel, when I was trying to get the visas online. I called the office frantically but there was little reassurance and someone even said "well its not our fault its yours". This caused very much stress for all of the family and we were on the verge of not travelling and wasting all of the money paid.

Nevertheless, after ringing the passport office, we managed to sort the new passports at an additional cost. During that week, several calls were made to Imperial and during one call we had another scare that "the hotel we were due to stay at has gone into administration." This was just another unnecessary worry on top of everything else as this was false information given to us.

Following all this, I thought that I had better make a final call to Imperial to confirm and clarify that our holiday was still in place and to ask some little details i.e baggage allowance. I was speaking to someone who told me that I can take 20kg in the hold and a further 10kg in hand per person. My response was "that's generous" to which he replied "yes they are". Additionally, I asked about the transfer as we were unsure of how to go about this when we arrived in Turkey. It came to light that the employees at Imperial, had not sent me the transfer voucher even though it was only four days prior to travelling. He was not aware he did not send it to us but I then had to ring up another two times after this to finally receive the voucher by email.

To our horror when we got to the airport we were told to pay for all of the hold luggage. We immediately contacted Imperial and spoke to several people who were of very little help. The payment was required ASAP, and the employees said that there is no manager in the office and there is no-one who can authorise the payment. Several calls were made that day from the airport and during these calls we were put on hold mid-conversation and someone even hung up on us. They said they would get the 'manager' to call. This went on for about an hour at the airport. The 'Managing Director' called him, finally called back and when he did he basically admitted that he gave us wrong information and said "I'm sorry madam, I didn't correct you on that information." I then asked him to pay for the baggage since it was his fault and he said he would not and hung up the phone. We then had to pay £320 of our spending money on baggage and Easyjet had advised us to keep the receipts. As you can imagine, the whole family was under so much stress and disappointment from this. The whole excitement of the holiday was consequently ruined.

To add to the distress, the hotel that we expected to be 4* was not in fact 4* at all! It was 2.5-3* and so we were very annoyed at the fact that we were promised and payed for 4*. We were not the only customers to find this. Three other separate families that we met at the hotel, were all so extremely upset as they expected a 4* hotel.

PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THIS TRAVEL AGENCY!!! NEVER AGAIN ARE WE TRAVELLING WITH SUCH A DIABOLIC TRAVEL COMPANY.