Sold a Holiday we Can't go on
UPDATE: sorted yesterday with full refund. Giving 4 stars due to the fact we could book in the first instance. Kudos to everyone we spoke to though who were really helpful. It took a while but that seems to be down to the process as opposed people.
I feel a bit bad writing this as the staff I've spoken to regarding the issue have been very helpful and polite. However, we have still ended up with a holiday that we can't go on as we won't be allowed on the resort. To cut a long story short (as possible), we left booking late (8th August) as didn't know when our son and daughter would both be available to travel. We got confirmation last week that we could go for a week either 12th or 13th August so booked a hotel that we all agreed on in Negril, Jamaica. When booking online we entered the age of my daughter who is still classed as a child as she's 17.5 years old. This was done during the room section of the search. We were very happy to find that rooms were found for us and we picked seats on the plane and checked out. Whilst the payment went through, an error occurred and a message displayed asking us to call TUI, I called and the agent was really nice and booked on our behalf, this payment also went through but we were informed the first one wouldn't be 'settled' (so ok with this). Anyway, all fab and we started packing. However, we weren't sure on dress code so joined the hotel's Facebook page to find out. On here it was apparent that the hotel was adult only. Now, we've done adult only with TUI last year and this was fine but we did wonder so called up. We were told it would be fine but asked them to contact the hotel and get back to us. My wife decided to email them herself and got a response back saying it was 18+ due to insurance issues and that we would be turned away. Too late to call last night so we went to the shop today. The lovely lady dealing with us confirmed that the system should not have let us book this and that she would escalate and we'd get a call back today. She suggested that we should be eligible for a full refund or amended booking. We want a full refund so we can double check next time before booking (and so we can book at our own pace as opposed to on a call). Anyway, no call back today :-(, We now have 2 days to sort a refund so that we can book our holiday. Hopefully this will be possible but it really should have been sorted today as this is not our fault.
Please double check the hotel's age if you're booking an adult only hotel. Yes, most are 16+ but lots aren't. The system should also have alerted to this at the point of adding the age when defining room selection (agents should also be aware - no obvious on the site mind). Surely all that is needed is a back end check to compare 'hotel required age' with age entered.
Fingers crossed this will get sorted tomorrow! I will update post accordingly with outcome Just worried that we are running out of time booking one and that the hotel/flight seats won't be freed up for someone else the longer this takes!
August 9, 2025
Unprompted review