updated price

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Hi Victoria

Apologies for the frustration using the site.

There could be a number of reasons for the pricing issue - if you can provide the details of the holiday you were looking at, I can explain and get the team to investigate for you.

I will need to know
* Departure date
* Destination & accommodation
* Departure airport
* Party makeup (inc child ages if you have children)
* Room combinations if you have chosen something specific

Thanks
DJ

Hi DJ

I've booked for 11 February for Grand Bois Apt. Departure Airport is Edinburgh. There are two adults, 16 y. old and a 10y. old. We chose type F apt but the prices for all types accommodations got up when I pressed 'keep and continue'.
Initially the price is 874 per adult and 2694.20 for the party. But when I continue the cheapest price changes to 841 per adult and to 2995.35 for the party.

OK thanks, sounds familiar. We've had some fairly complex issues around web pricing for children in apartment accommodation that we've been looking at for some time.

We've got someone investigating this end and will come back to you shortly.

HTH
DJ

Unfortunately we already paid for the holidays - deposit only. Will we have to pay the higher price even if it will go down? Thanks

Hi Victoria,

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you, I wanted to make sure we gave you an accurate account of what happened whilst you were making your booking. I have now got to the bottom of the price change you saw on screen and can confirm it was due to a change in the child price for the accommodation you booked.

Hope this clears up the issue.

Kind regards
Jennifer

Dear Jennifer,

We had to spend a lot of time trying to find a package which matches our criteria and of course, used the 'total package price' as the main guide. But, when we decided to go ahead with the package, we found that the price we have to pay is over 300 pounds without any good reason. If we new that, we would choose a different package, and probably from another source. We repeated the search some time later and it was still showing the lower price. As we'd invested a lot of time, we decided to pay the deposit hoping that price mistake can be fixed, since the search result and first two pages show lower price.
But, the lower price is still advertised today, a day later,even after you said we had to pay the higher price. Therefore, this is not a price increase due to changes caused outside the system, on the contrary, this appears a known, managed and maintained price difference, which benefits Crystal Ski.
Needless to say we now fell that we are being treated unfairly, as the package is still being advertised at over 300 pounds lower price. This is more than just a mistake, but a pattern of unfair practice.
We strongly feel that whatever is the reason, it is unfair that we have to pay for Crystal Sky's mistakes and thus support the practice of continuous false advertising.
Crystal Sky is responsible for keeping its promise and I very much hope that the price can be lowered by 301.15 pounds, which is the exact difference between two prices. Please review that with your management,

Best regards
Victoria

Dear Victoria,

On our website we displayed a price based on 2 adults and 2 children under 16 sharing, however as soon as you reached the room selection page and our system realised that the 16 year child did not meet the maximum child age of 15 for the hotel you booked we updated our price accordingly.

On our website we base our initial pricing on the cheapest room available and supplements for other room types will show as the booking progresses. I note that you did in fact select a more expensive room type so the original ‘base’ price seen on the search results page would never have been the final cost.

I hope I have been able to clarify this and very much regret any confusion caused.

Kind regards
Jennifer

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you for more details, but unfortunately, they do not clarify why we should pay more or why this practice is acceptable.
What you are saying is that at when giving the price on the search page and on first 2 pages of the specific package, Crystal Ski does have ALL information about the party, including children's age, required to calculate the package price CORRECTLY in all cases. But, still, Crystal Ski, which main business is to help to find BEST deal, chooses not to use the information to show the correct price until the customer has gone deep into booking a specific package. Needless to say, the price £300 difference is big enough to seriously mislead the customers, which is exactly our case. This is a clear case of unfair and false advertising practice.
Crystal Ski had ALL information from us and from the hotel at the search time, but returned wrong, significantly lower price. Even more, this appear to be known system issue, which is not being addressed (it still works the same for days), it is not recognised as wrong and in the urgent need of fixing. The peculiar behaviour of the system is no excuse and definitely not the reason why we need to pay for that and support the practice which is unacceptable and is likely to be against the law and the industry regulations. We strongly believe that Cristal Ski should take full responsibility and pay the difference.
Regarding the large room, yes, you are correct, we need to adjust for that, the price difference is £45.60. So, the overall difference is 301.15-45.60= £255.55.
Please reissue our invoice for the package with the price lowered accordingly, as per above calculation. The booking reference is 582307. Please address it as an official request. If this is not enough, please advise how I can make official request of complaint.

Best regards
Victoria

Hi Victoria

Thank you very much for your further comments.
I am sorry you remain dissatisfied. Please could you email your details to crystalskihelp@tuiski.com and our Customer Services Department will get back to you directly.

Thank you for your prompt answers anyway.

To whom it may concern.

The problem we had was like follows:
We gave all necessary information to Crystal ski to calculate the accurate price. Crystal Ski gave us 'price you see is the price you pay' promise, but deep in the booking process, when we were mentally committed, they raised the price. Now they keep explaining how the website only uses part of the information given first, then recalculates when you go deep to the booking. Needless to say, the inital price is optimistic, £300 lower. No apologies, no commitment to fix it, no refund.

According to Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading (OFT Regulations) this can be identified as a Banned Practice called 'bait advertising'.

Hi Victoria,
As we've explained previously, the final price is displayed during the process and the user is able to to discontinue if the price is no longer acceptable. Our Online team is however always looking at ways to improve the system and the comments received on this subject have been taken on board. The opinon of our customers is most important to us and we are taking this feedback very seriously.

Well I'm getting the same problem, through all 7 steps to payment and the price changes, and I'm booking for 2 adults!

We are having the exact same problem (@willrose28) - 2 adults, price remains the same until the payment page

Payment states original price, but in the top right-hand corner the price changes to add an extra £571.50 but nowhere does it explain why nor confirm that the price listed that we're attempting to pay (which shows original price) is in fact the Total.

Very misleading and we are reluctant to go through with booking.

Hi Knightmaher,

Sorry to hear you're having problems online. Don't suppose you'd happen to be looking to depart in the next 14 days are you?

Kind Regards,
Simon.

Before going to arbitration (ABTA requirements, as well as OFT) we needed to get the final yes/no reply from CrystalSki and sent the following letter:

Dear Sirs,

All the previous replies made on behalf of Crystal Ski since early November confirm that CrystalSki is not willing to address my reasonable request and make a price difference refund so that I pay the package price which was heavily advertised and confirmed as final many times during booking process. If you think this is not so, please make the refund immediately, otherwise, I will proceed further, assuming that the refusal of refund is the indication of deadlock in my attempt to reach agreement with CrystalSki directly, and as final confirmation that:

1. CrystalSki (trading division of TUI UK Limited, Company Number 02830117) uses its website www.crystalski.co.uk to advertise and make an invitation to purchase packages in the way which includes:
- Using information given by the customers to calculate the package price lower than it is possible to provide, (calculating the package price with children discount applied to 16-17 year old party members, while knowing that the discount is not applicable to this age), so that the package is advertised at the price much lower (by £300 in this example) than CrystalSki expects to charge the customer at the end of the booking process.
- Not disclosing the existence of any reasonable grounds that CrystalSki may not be able to offer the package at the specified price.
- Not disclosing the way the price was (mis-) calculated;
- When the advertised package is selected by the customer, confirm the lowered price on at least first three pages – specific hotel page, travel options page and board options page;
- Assuring the customers that the artificially lowered advertised price is confirmed as final by the statement ‘Our website's prices are accurate, including all compulsory taxes and charges. So the price you see is the price you pay’, with the statement being printed in a pop-up box next to the price;
- in total, the ‘price you see is the price you pay’ statement for the price is repeated seven (!) times on four different web pages (search results page and 3 specific package pages);
- later, on the 5th page (4th page for the selected package), at the end of booking, changing the price by removing g the incorrectly applied discount, and saying, only once in a small grey box, that ‘the price has changed as we had a price update in our systems’, as if it happened independently, that moment, not due to the CrystalSki’s own design. That is a knowingly false statement since the price was deliberately miscalculated;
- by the actions above, misleading the customers to pay the higher price because
- the customers are assured, made feel safe by multiple ‘price you see is the price you pay’ statements, that the lower price is the final price they will pay, and the new, higher price is wrong and accidental, and the price difference can be refunded after sale, the way it is done in accordance to the fair trade and advertising regulations, and is a common practice and part of daily shopping experience, say in supermarkets, when one can always get refund if wrong price was calculated by the cashier.
- or, the customers simply miss the price increase before they pay, as the price increase is indicated with minimal possible effort.

2. CrystalSki does not take responsibility to provide the package at the price which was heavily advertised as final in the way which includes:
- having been asked multiple direct question in written correspondence, avoiding making any comment about the ‘price you see is the price you pay’ commitment;
- denying that the known and deliberate price manipulation at the search and during booking is wrong and not doing anything to have it fixed;
- not providing adequate customer support by looking into the matter of the case, and instead attempting to point that the price increase at the end of booking was visible and the booking could have been cancelled;
- attempting to make it look like the latest price ‘was agreed upon’ and the advertised price did not matter, avoiding to acknowledge the false advertising subject;
- ignoring all requests to look into the aspect of false advertising and misleading information, even after having been pointed out that the way the package was advertised can be identified as :
- banned ‘bait advertising’ practice in accordance with Office of Fair Trade guidelines, as the search results and booking pages contained false information in large amount, strongly misleading, deceiving the customers into committing to make the purchase while expecting to pay the ‘bait’ price.
- ‘false advertising’ according to Advertising Standard Authority (ATA) rules.
- not meeting the requirements defined by ABTA, the Travel Association, as in the Guidance of Code of Conduct, that the member must be able to back up the price indicated and advertising itself must be honest, decent and truthful.
- making cynical statements that the issue is taken ‘seriously’, that the issue is being addressed, when it was clearly not the case, since the price difference is not being paid back and the false advertising practice continues for months.

3. Therefore, CrystalSki, represented by multiple employees (Tony Mallah (Admin Support), Jayinee Patel (Admin Support), Jill (Head of Customer Services), Jennifer Dallas (Web Sales and Operations Manager), Emma Stephenson (Customer Services Team Manager)) confirmed that they trade in the manner which can be seen as consistently and deliberately deceitful and dishonest, throughout the organisation, from web design to the customer services.

And here is the reply (they call it serious...). Note that I highlighted "flight change", which has nothing to do with pricing and false advertising being discussed. No flight had been ever discussed or changed.This is how 'hard' they try to resolve the issue.

"I acknowledge receipt of your recent correspondence dated 21st December 2011.
It is with regret that I note you remain disappointed however I do feel that we have fully explained the reason for the flight change. Our position in this matter therefore remains the same.
I am sorry that we have been able to reach an amicable conclusion to this matter.
Yours sincerely

Emma Stephenson
Customer Services Team Manager"

Do we have to take it as "No" answer?

We're very sorry that you remain so dissatisfied and that you consider it necessary to refer this matter further. We have outlined our position as fully as we can and we will of course respond accordingly to any third party correspondence we may receive.
I must apologise for the genuine error contained in my colleague's latest letter to you whereby she referred to a flight change. As you know, Emma is most certainly aware of the issue in question and has provided a detailed explanation to you in previous correspondence.