Nearly 20 per cent of people experienced problems with overseas holidays last summer, according to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, with flight issues, poor quality hotels and lost luggage causing concern. By chance, we have stories this week that cover these very topics.
First up is Deirdre. She and her family had a tough time in the past year, and decided to start 2026 on a more upbeat note by booking a family holiday to the Greek resort of Sani to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday in April.
The plan was they would leave Dublin on April 5th and return a week later. They made their booking, including flights, with the Loveholidays website.
“We had booked direct flights with Ryanair,” she says.
Or at least, that is what she thought had happened.
After making the booking, she got an email from the website saying she could expect a reply within 72 hours detailing her itinerary.
When the mail landed, Deirdre realised “they had the wrong flights on my booking”, and instead of flying direct to Thessaloniki with Ryanair, they were to fly to Greece with Dutch airline KLM, via Amsterdam.
“I went online to try amend the booking, but couldn’t,” she writes. “I emailed Loveholidays to correct/change the flights and then I called them,” she continues.
She spoke to a rep but “was left none the wiser” as to what had happened, so – in a panic – she tried to cancel the booking so she could start the process again and ensure she had the flights she wanted.
She then received an email saying “the details were confirmed and I would not be able to change the flights and if I wanted to cancel my booking immediately I would incur charges over €700”.
So then she contacted KLM and was told they had a 24-hour cancellation policy, but she would have to contact Loveholidays as they were her agent and were the ones who made the booking.
She says Loveholidays “pushed my request out until after 24 hours had lapsed, and refused to correct the booking”.
She says after more than a week she got a call back from Loveholidays and was told they were going to forward her a link that would allow her to change the flights and pay the difference between the KLM flights with a layover and the direct flights via Ryanair.
Then she was told there were no direct flights available.
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But Deirdre had already checked on the Ryanair website and there were flights to Thessaloniki from Dublin on the days in question, although they were now a bit more expensive. For what it is worth, Pricewatch checked the same route in the middle of last week and there were still seats available on the Ryanair flights.
It’s madness, an issue that should have been resolved immediately
— Deirdre
Deirdre says Loveholidays told her that she had “accepted the terms and conditions once l opened the email with details from them, but l would never have seen the error if l hadn’t opened the email”.
She says when she spoke to another rep “she attempted to walk me through where the terms and conditions can be located on their website. I countered and asked her to open the Loveholidays booking page and proceed to book a package holiday and show me where it asks me to agree to any terms or conditions or to show me where it states when making a booking that flights are non-refundable. It says ‘flexible changes’.”
She says the woman she was speaking to on that occasion apologised that she could not offer any more assistance, so Deirdre then asked to speak to a manager.
“I was informed that there was no manager available. She assured me a manager would call me back and she asked me for a suitable time. Seemingly, front-office customer service cannot make any amendments to a booking! Managers are in back office and can’t be got. They would have to call me back.
“I have simply requested they change our bookings to the correct one with Ryanair with direct flights, and charge us the €481. This error is not acceptable, and at no stage did we accept those flights or terms and conditions. My mother of 80 will not manage the layover as she always requires airport assistance. I have had lower back surgery also, so this is not a flight we would ever choose.
“They have said they will charge us over €700 to cancel. It’s madness, an issue that should have been resolved immediately. It’s such an ordeal to get any help.”
On the same day we heard another story about Loveholidays from a reader called John, who told us he had used the site a few times in the past “and never had an issue”.
It was a different story at the very start of the new year.
He booked a break in Malta in mid-December for arrival on New Year’s Day just gone. He says he had travelled there previously – in 2019 – and had enjoyed it.
“The hotel didn’t look like the pictures on their site,” he says. “It probably looked that way 15 years ago and I noticed a few bits on day one that didn’t scream ‘clean’ or ‘well-maintained’, but we carried on. It was 16 degrees outside when we checked in. We dropped the bags and went out for a bit of dinner.”
When John and his travelling companion returned to the hotel at around 9pm, they “noticed the room was very cold. We turned the heat up to max to see if we could heat it up a bit. It got colder. We gave it an hour to see if it would heat up but no. We contacted the front desk. Twenty minutes later the night reception fellow came up.”
We woke with sore throats and blocked noses
— John
John says he “twiddled the dials etc but couldn’t get the heat to work. He promised us it would be fixed in the morning.
“We were tired and went to bed but didn’t sleep much. We woke with sore throats and blocked noses. I work outside all year long and I don’t take any notice of the cold, but this was freezing.”
With not much else to do, they went about their day and when they came back on the second evening, they were told the heat had been fixed.
Happy days.
But the heating wasn’t fixed and the room was still Baltic.
“They brought up a heater that wasn’t working properly and they offered us a few other rooms, but heat was an issue in these too and there was cold air only,” he continues.
So John emailed Loveholidays and was assured they would take care of it.
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“They told us they were in touch with the hotel. They were all apologies and said we had to deal with the front desk.”
The following morning it was still cold so John went to the front desk again and was assured “it would definitely be sorted”. However, that evening it was “still the same”.
We feel like we were sold a product that we didn’t get
— John
He was told then that the boiler was out of order but had been fixed. “The very helpful night porter at the hotel told us that there was loads of complaints about the heat.”
The following morning after another chilly night in the bedroom, the manager of the hotel said it was not the case that the boiler was broken and other rooms were impacted.
When John said he wanted his money back he was told he could not be refunded for the three cold nights he had spent in the room but the manager added that “if we wanted to leave he would refund the remaining two nights”.
So they left.
“I booked a hotel for the remaining two nights. I went back to the hotel and the manager denied telling us we were going to be refunded. We aren’t badly off but we feel like we were sold a product that we didn’t get.
“Loveholidays told us to check our booking and there was no mention of heating on it. The hotel website said heat and AC. We are sick of it.”
We contacted Loveholidays and it investigated both cases.
A spokeswoman said its systems clearly showed that Deirdre had booked the flights with KLM via Amsterdam and that the terms and conditions were clearly outlined to her at the last stage of the booking process. It also stressed that at no time had it delayed dealing with the case and had been in touch with her on multiple occasions over Christmas.
We asked if more could have been done to accommodate the changes Deirdre wanted to have made.
The spokeswoman said the company was “committed to helping [our reader] and her family to find a solution to ensure she can go ahead with her holiday, and our customer service team will be back in touch with her to review her options”.
When it comes to John it was much simpler. The spokeswoman said the company was “very sorry that [John’s] recent experience at his hotel in Malta fell short of our usual high standards. We are investigating his complaint with the accommodation provider, and have been in touch with him to offer our apologies and a full refund of his accommodation costs.”