Agent launches Facebook attack on Kuoni

An agent has hit out at Kuoni on the social media site Facebook after claiming the tour operator lost her a longstanding and valued customer by undercutting her.

Jenny Jackson of travel-pa.com said the client had refused to book with her again after Kuoni quoted her £1,400 less for a £21,000 holiday to Sandy Lane, Barbados.

She aired her frustrations on the Facebook Travel Gossip page, warning fellow agents that Kuoni is "discounting directly to agents".

"Sadly they are not the Kuoni we all used to love a few years ago…virtually no trade support any more…sums up how agents are being discarded by Kuoni," she wrote.

However, Kuoni told TravelMole it had not undercut Jackson. "That’s just not the way we work," said Amanda Darrington from trade support.

" At Kuoni the customer is at the heart of everything we do. We are channel neutral and do our best to operate a level playing field, in this instance regretfully the customer made a decision which was not to the benefit of the travel agent. The customer was offered the chance to reassign the booking and was assured the travel agent was acting in their best interests."

She said that in this case Kuoni was unaware the customer had already received a quote from travel-pa.com because she used her partner’s name for the quote from Kuoni’s Bluewater store rather than her own name, which she gave Jackson.

"But there was no undercutting," insisted Darrington, "the reason one quote was cheaper was that there were slightly different nuances to the booking, the ad-ons requested were different."

Jackson, who has worked in the travel industry for over 13 years, has had various email exchanges with Kuoni, including messages on Travel Gossip from MD Derek Jones as well as from Darrington.

Jones said he replied directly to Jackson’s posting on Facebook and offered to look personally into the case because he was concerned "something must have gone wrong", but Darrington, who said she had called Jackson from Dubai as soon as she was aware of her complaint, insisted this was not the case.

She said that Kuoni had made it clear to the customer that they could book with Jackson at the same price she had been quoted by the Bluewater store. "The customer said she has made her choice to book with us based on exceptional customer service, not on price," added Darrington.

"It’s a shame that Jenny posted her complaint on Travel Gossip Facebook, I think it would have been better if she’d spoken to us first."

Speaking to TravelMole this week, Jackson said: "I felt that as Kuoni had let me down, and in the long-term lost me a client I have had for 10 years who has never complained about my service and has been happy to book with me, and I have never failed to give her the very best price by discounting from my commission.

"Kuoni asked me what they would like them to do and I asked for them to send a letter to my client, but they would not. They have said they would offer me a financial payment as a gesture of goodwill but have not had a response for over a week now."

Darrington denied Jackson had been offered a goodwill payment, but she added: "We are still in dialogue".

By Bev Fearis and Linsey McNeill