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*Editing to update - I did get a response to my email after submitting this review. I am unhappy with the response and have lowered the rating from 2 to 1. Travelodeal acknowledge there were schedule issues, but think that it was not a reasonable expectation for me to expect the transfers would get me to the track for the races. They claim to have covered their liability by getting me there at any time.*Please take the time to read these Trustpilot reviews carefully. You will note that the majority of them are just rating phone calls, not the holidays. Travelodeal are quite pushy in requesting a rating after a phone call during the booking process purely to rate the call, which is inflating their good reviews. The good news is that Travelodeal are reasonably responsive prior to and during your holiday. The bad news is that they don’t seem to vet their local suppliers well.We initially booked our F1 Spain package via Secret Escapes – you select all your options, confirm the cost and commit to the booking with a cancellation fee if you back out when Travelodeal call to take payment. When Travelodeal called to take payment, they told us we couldn’t actually have the options that we’d selected because they were unavailable – in particular relating to the Grandstand we’d chosen, which we’d done a lot of research into. We ended up having to pay an additional amount of money for what we considered to be a lesser seating option. So through the booking process the customer has to make a purchase commitment, but it seems no such commitment is made from Travelodeal’s end. Aside from the more expensive seats for a worse view for the Grand Prix, we had two main problems on the holiday. The first was relating to the airport transfers – the supplier that Travelodeal chose to use (From2) are terrible. If you look up this company, you will see truly atrocious reviews. On our way back to the airport they were late collecting us by an hour and then made a 30 minute journey take 2 hours. We nearly missed our flight, saved only by the flight having a last minute delay. There is clear evidence available that this was not an isolated incident with this supplier, and they should not be used for Travelodeal’s packages.The second big problem was the supplier used for the Grand Prix transfers (MTS). The information provided (via Travelodeal) for the transfers each day was completely incorrect. We were given bus numbers that didn’t show up, incorrect number plates for the buses, conflicting schedule information. The transfer schedule was completely incompatible with the track schedule, and the bus drivers had been given different information to the passengers. For example on the Friday, the drivers were telling passengers that they were leaving the track at 5pm, whereas the passenger schedule said 6:30pm, and based on the track schedule it really needed to be 7pm. The final F1 track action of the day finished just after 6pm, so anyone listening to the bus drivers would miss the final session completely (some people did – they left the track at 3pm to make sure they were at the bus on time), and anyone who managed to get clarification in the morning that it was indeed 6:30pm would still have needed to leave before the end of the session as for many locations on the track you could not get back to the bus in half an hour. For us, we left a few minutes before the end of the session, jogged most of the way to where the bus was parked and were there bang on time, and yet the bus had already left. The buses were timed too late in the morning to catch all the racing (even if they left on time they’d still be too late because the schedule was all wrong, but there were additional delays because of the assigned buses not showing up), and we ended up missing 2 out of the 5 races that took place. We contacted Travelodeal throughout the weekend and whilst I know that Travelodeal reached out to the suppliers, they weren’t actually able to improve the situation. Travelodeal continued to pass incorrect information to us each day about which bus we were to get, and the schedule was not changed to be compatible with the track action. While we were still away, Travelodeal asked us to compile our list of issues which we said we’d do when we got back. We’ve sent over our complaints, and then not heard anything back. Not even an acknowledgement of receipt. I really don’t believe that Travelodeal are intentionally putting together bad packages, and I believe there was a genuine attempt by them to work with the circuit transfer supplier while we were away to try to improve the situation, but ultimately we’ve bought a Travelodeal package that didn’t work because of the poor suppliers, and Travelodeal’s speedy responses prior to and during the holiday have vanished.
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