Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Recent research carried out by Co-operative Travel Trading Group (the UK's most comprehensive study of holiday complaints) reveals some maybe rather predictable results.

The views of a million Co-op customers were unveiled just as this year's holiday booking season gets into full swing.

Despite the fact that in general complaints are falling, some big name holiday companies still refuse to divulge the overall level of complaints they receive. This means that the CTTG study is the only way UK holidaymakers can judge who is the best and worst at customer service.

Unijet and British Holidays were best at keeping customers happy with a complaints to passengers ratio of just 0.08 per cent each.

Bottom of the league were Virgin Holidays and Balkan Holidays with complaints levels of 2.92 per cent and 1.65 per cent respectively.

Now there's a surprize - Balkan beaten into 2nd place

As you constantly defend the indefenceable BP then perhaps you can explain these facts that I, and others have experienced from Balkan Holidays over the years.

1. Arrived in Sunny Beach in 2008 having booked a holiday 9 months earlier. On arrival (and not before) we were told that the Mercury hotel we had booked was actually over-booked and we had to moved elsewhere. That is in spite of other traveller being given rooms at the Mercury even though they had booked 7 months after us!

2. 2009 Flight from Bristol moved to Gatwick at the last minute meaning it cost us an extra £150 for pre night accommodation, higher car parking charges and extra fuel.

3. 2007 Pamporovo Hotel vastly over-booked and many guests moved to lower grade accommodation.

4. Almost EVERY year - Flights cancelled from Bristol - Newcastle - Cardiff - East Midlands - etc. etc. Name me one single year this has not happened?

5. The decision not to use Plovdiv Airport for Pamporovo travellers. A decision based on their own financial interest in using Sofia Airport rather than any consideration for passengers. I think many many passengers would happily pay a tad more to avoid a round trip of 8 hours which is totally unnecessary.

I could go on - but I'm sure others will have a say on this and add their own personal experiences to this 'wonderful' holiday company that fail year in year out to provide a consistanly high level of customer satisfaction. In balance, there have been years where I have had no complaints with them - but others have, and it is a topic that comes up on here every single year without fail.

Can I ask you BP, why do you think Balkan advertise local airports EVER year and then cancel them EVER year if it is not a ploy to encourage people to book holidays as the departure airport is close to them?

I await your explaination to correct my cynisicm - but I won't hold my breath as I might turn blue.