Solo Holidays Singles Escorted Tours for Solo Travellers

I booked a holiday to the Canadian Rockies for £6,287 to depart on 18th May 2020. Just You cancelled this on 15th April 2020.

It has been like talking to a brick wall to try and get my money back. Staff try and persuade customers to take a credit note. I have lost my job: I want, and have a right to receive, all my money back within fourteen days of the date of cancellation. I urgently need my money back. The law is clear: a refund should be made within fourteen days under The Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018.

I have been bounced around their call centre, put on hold for seven minutes during one call, waited for one hour and fifteen minutes to talk to someone on another occasion, only to be patronised and lied to. A promised call back never happened and I then had to queue again. Their staff are clearly being told to make a hard sell to force customers to accept credit notes and to delay refunds for as long as possible.

They claim they are short staffed and doing their best. They have enough staff to issue credit notes and to search for and book holidays. It takes a few minutes to process a refund and push a few buttons. They have wasted well over two hours of their staffs’ time speaking to me on the telephone and responding to emails and this review rather than making the refund. They cannot tell me when I will receive the refund and the period of time keeps changing: initially it was several months, then “…at least 28 days and probably much longer” and now it is fourteen days (which was yesterday, hence this review).

They are the Ryanair of singles holiday companies and do not care about their customers. I am a loyal customer of Just You and have spent over £10,000 with them this year alone.

Four other events have been cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic, which have impacted me. Three of those organisations were charities, and all managed immediate refunds without arguing in under a week from the date of cancellation. It is clear that this company is using customers' money to prop up a failing business and for cash flow purposes and is intent on making its customers' lives as unpleasant, difficult and stressful as possible. No doubt they are still paying their staff and non-executive directors on time.

Customers will remember how they have been treated after this crisis is over: assuming this unscrupulous company does not fold. Even though we are in unprecedented times customers have a right to be treated with respect and dignity, and not bounced around call centres, fobbed off by useless, incompetent and patronising staff and have their money to used to prop up a failing business.

Response to Just You comments
Regrettably they are lying in their comments and only interested in PR spin, lying to customers and deceit. My credit card company have stated "Refunds are an automatic thing which we have no control over at all, it's the merchant that send the money back to the account this is solely a credit that's refunded back to you, directly from them. Providing the company has used the right Card number to action this refund this would have come back to you automatically." They refunded only £598.80, which leaves me owed £5,688,20. They ignore emails and fail to explain when I will get the rest of my money - £5,688.20. They are a shambles, inept and incompetent - they will, especially in these difficult times, go bust unless they treat their customers with honesty, dignity and respect.

I've just arrived back after 2018 Christmas in Paris, and can't wait to go on another tour with Just You!! Our tour manager, Debbie, was absolutely amazing.. Some travellers lost there bags etc, but she handled everything so calmly and professionally.. Always smiling and Never lost her patience when I would have pulled my hair out!! We had so much fun.. My first, but not my last tour with this company.. And hopefully, with Debbie again.. Thank you everyone, special thanks to Debbie.... Your a star and as everyone said, an asset to your company. 10000 stars

I booked a holiday to Borneo and Singapore due to depart on May 4th, with this company. Before the advent of coronavirus, I found their customer service , both written and verbal to be very poor to say the least. My holiday was cancelled at the end of March 2020. Since that time I have repeatedly requested a full CASH refund, which they confirmed I would get in writing. However despite repeated emails, confirmation in writing, and telephone calls they have sent me a credit refund note. They have ignored my repeated requests for a CASH refund and my legal rights. They hide behind the recent advice given from ABTA, to issue credit note refunds; which in itself is just advice and not legal practice at this time. They are breaking the law as it stands currently. I would never book with this company again and strongly advise others to think carefully before booking a holiday with Just You. In the meanwhile I continue my batte to obtain a full cash refund , which is my legal right.

I thought I'd write a review, as the other two reviews are very negative
I have just returned from a holiday to Pompeii, Sorrento & Amalfi Coast. It was fabulous from beginning to end. The hotel, company rep & tour guide were all first class. Perhaps I could have saved money by organising everything independently, but it is so much easier doing it through Just You. I was very satisfied & intend to book another holiday with this company.

My mother, Brenda Lantsbury, booked a Japan revealed tour, scheduled to depart on 27th March 2020. Understandably this was cancelled so my mother called Just You on several occasions, requesting a refund, which the team has repeatedly confirmed would be processed within 5 working days. However, here we are, over a month later and still no sign of the money. To make matters worse, when she last called on Friday she has to wait 1.5 hours to get hold of someone, who promised that she would receive a call back the same day but this did not happen. To be clear, my mother does not want a credit note, and awaits the return of her money ASAP.

Further to my previous review about my refund for my cancelled BA business class flight, James, a Customer Services Manager, contacted me by phone about 3 hours after my review was posted. After a long conversation where I thought that someone at last listened to my concerns, James attended to the matter. As a goodwill gesture and because my experience with the customer services call operatives had not been up to standard, James agreed to refund the amount I believe that I was owed. Those funds were in my bank account this morning and I wish to thank James for his prompt resolution of the matter.

I doubt that I would have achieved this result without my Trust Pilot post.

Just You informed me that their policy was to respond to issues such as mine within 28 days, shorter than the mandated 90 days. However, had I had any evidence of progress with dealing with my request during my initial phone calls, I might have not felt so disgruntled with my treatment by the Just You customer services call operatives.

The lesson I have learned is that it is important to use opportunities for public reviews as that grabs company attention and it is essential not to be discouraged or give up if you do t feel your concerns are being taken seriously.

James also offered me a Just You voucher as compensation for my experience which I did not accept. I was not motivated by compensation but by fairness given that I did not get the product that I had bought. However, I acknowledge that Just You has now satisfactorily resolved the matter. Thank you James.

Last December I booked a holiday to Italy with JustYou (ref: A469512), I was assured that if anything happened my £200 deposit would be held as a ‘Protected Deposit’ against another holiday as long as I cancelled before 84 days to departure date.
I cancelled the holiday because of the corona virus pandemic on 13th April, 95 days before the start of the holiday. Not only have I not received the ‘Protected Deposit’ in accordance with their terms and conditions but have been sent an additional bill for £161 as a ‘Low cost airline cancellation charge’ this was the first I had heard of this charge and as it does not appear in the T’s & C’s I have requested an explanation but have been ignored.
I wonder how many people have been pressured into unnecessarily paying this or have had their deposits withheld. It appears that JustYou are acting outside of their booking terms and charging customers illegally in order to claw back any money they can, rather than encouraging us to re-book.
I hope I don’t get the automatic response from Just You on Trust Pilot as when you send emails to their customer service they don’t answer; even though these are ‘exceptional circumstances’ when you book the staff are working from home anyway so it is just a poor excuse for bad service.

I booked a holiday to Croatia with Just You leaving in June at a cost of £2599.
I was not informed that it had been cancelled, but noticed that it had disappeared from their website and called to check.
I received a call back from a customer service advisor who tried to persuade me to rebook next year with the incentive of a chauffer driven car to the airport, I refused and asked for a cash refund. I was then offered a credit note which I again refused and asked for a refund.
The customer service advisor then very condescendingly asked if I understood what he was saying to me, because if I insisted on a refund I would be putting people out of a job. Again I asked for a refund and was told that it would take 90 days to process as opposed to the 14 day ABTA guideline.
Money from customers is seemingly held by a third party so why is it such a problem to refund customers?
I did email Just You to complain, but to date have had no response.

Earlier this week I was feeling down after the death of my mother and decided to cheer myself up with a holiday before the Christmas chaos. So on Tuesday I booked a 5 day Christmas Markets tour online with Just You. It was listed as” Available “ and “ Guaranteed”.
I initially received a confirmation email. Followed quickly by an email saying;
“We need a little longer on your booking...
We are holding your place, however we have not been able to complete your booking. Don’t worry, we haven’t yet taken any payment. A member of our team will contact you shortly to confirm your holiday details”.
The following day/ Wednesday, I received a phone call to say they just had to confirm the room availability and would get straight back to me.
I said “Please get back to me quickly as I have an alternative but it only has 1 place left”. I was assured they would get straight back to me.
I called the Austrian Hotel in question and was informed they had availability. So reassured I waited to hear from Just you. My tour remained “Available “ on their website.
Today / Friday Afternoon I finally heard back from them. Only for Just You to say that they “ Can’t get the room” so they can’t confirm my place on the tour.
4 Days to see if a room is available!
My Alternate is now fully booked and the Just You Christmas markets tour is still “ Available” on their website.
Their customer service people have been sloppy, inconsiderate and could not appear to care less that I’ve been left with no holiday.
When I pointed out that the tour was still listed as Available, the response was “oh is it?” No apology, no suggestion that it would quickly rectified.
In short- terrible customer service.



Update- I’ve just had a phone call from a representative of Just You about my review above.

No apology just aggressive defensiveness.

His biggest issue being that their records have the initial phone call as being at 4.30pm on Tuesday not Wednesday at I had written. I’m must allow that that may be true, I’m not entirely sure.

However if it was on Tuesday afternoon that just makes their service even worse. That would mean it took another 3 days for them to check if a hotel room was available, not 2 days. Not something to be proud of!

This afternoon I have spoken to two other companies with Christmas Market tours. Both had their November tours listed as “ on request- please phone “. Both were able to check their hotel availability and get back to me within 10min!

I do find it amazing that it took Just You 3.5 days to let me know that they would be unable to accommodate me on their tour but only 1 hour for them to contact me about this review.

If the caller was an example of their management’s attitude, no wonder their customer service staff don’t care about their customers.
He was being so unpleasant I had to decline to talk to him further and hang up.

I have been trying to get a cash refund since March on a holiday to Japan. This was cancelled by Just You because of the advice from the Foreign Office, regarding the Coronavirus. I elected to have a cash refund on receiving the phone call from the Just You representative.
Since then I sent an email to Tara Dobb and she confirmed in a return email I would receive the cash refund.
I have a right to my money being returned and it’s been longer than 14 days!

My Personal review of Just You
Just you Holiday Company were great, they sorted out everything including the visa and the holiday booking and everything, so it was easy,
My Holiday with them was to Kenya Africa, on a Safari and the Mombasa add on,
But first I want to say is that I won’t be using this company again, which is not just You fault, but mine for not looking in to this correctly,
Again the holiday was great I saw lots of animals, but most of the people on the trip were over 60 and close to 80 years old, which I did not have a problem with, but it is nice to be with somebody my own age, as I’m in my 30’s, but I was very lucky as there was a girl on the trip close to my age, so because of this, this made it an amazing holiday, as I had somebody to talk to, close to my age, also its mainly woman on these holidays,
But if she was not there, then everybody would have been 30 or 40 years older than me, and everybody went to bed early, very early, so if it was not for the other person my age, I would have either stayed up alone, or went to bed early,
So, if you’re under 40 years old, maybe have a look around at other companies, as I have now found another company that does holidays for people between 20 and 40, as I’m going to south Africa next,
But apart from the age gap, the holiday was amazing, the safari was amazing, lots of animals, and I saw all the big cats I wanted to see,
There was a lot of driving, up to 9 hours per day, but well worth it, and some of the road were so bumpy, as I’m taller, I did hit my head on the roof, which was funny,
The tour guide Damian Stent, Amazing person, I really liked him,
Ive added a few things you may want to know,
Everyday involves getting up about 5am, and there is lots of driving I a jeep with other people, it gets hot, not a lot of toilet breaks if you drink water,
I personally did not like the food in the hotel,
You share the rooms with somebody of the same sex, unless you pay extra, maybe £400
There is lots of dusk while driving and lots of pollution while going though the city or Nairobi,
But this was a great holiday, but I just need people my own again,
Also the Mombasa add on is not worth booking, I really did not like this, the staff in the hotel were very rude, the food was not nice, nothing happens at night, no entertainment, I was alone most of the time, as the people I went with were over 60, and did not want to do anything I wanted to do, and there was no other English people in the hotel, so don’t waste your money on Mombasa,
Thanks for reading this,
Enjoy your holiday,

This company is awful - I have just spent £1400 on a holiday to Italy only to be told that if I cancel I will lose half the cost of my holiday even though I was quite willing to take a holiday somewhere else other than Italy as I'm scared of the threat of Coronavirus and the holiday is in May Don't go wit Just You if you can help it - totally uncaring!

Poorly organised - given misinformation and with an itinerary which had us go to Agra for Friday despite the Taj Mahal being closed on Fridays necessitating a change including 1-2 extra flights. Extraordinary planning for a travel company. Extremely poor Tour Manager who many criticised in the evaluation form and/or letters. Polite response ignoring many of the criticisms or giving a distorted interpretation. Lack of honesty, saying that people were overwhelmingly happy with her. Know of many who wrote the opposite. I would not use them again. There is also no excuse for planning a major visit for a day on which that attraction is never open.

You neglect to say in your reply that I told you that I have kept in touch with 30% of the group, all of whom wrote negative letters or evaluation forms about our manager so the comments could not possibly be overwhelmingly positive. It is highly unlikely that you didn’t have many other negative comments about our manager since the overwhelming majority were not happy with her.

I have done 4 tours with just you and have just booked my 5th. I find them excellent value for money, great guides, well planned full tours giving a real taste of every country. The food, accommodation and people have always been good. If you’re thinking of taking your first solo tour, this is the company to go with.

This is my second Just You trip, the first was to South Africa. I didn't think it could get any better but the trip to Vietnam topped South Africa. The Vietnam trip was outstanding and simply so much FUN. This was due in part to the excellent tour manager, Deb. Deb was organized but always had a smile on her face. If Deb said she was leading a group to the North pole, I would simply ask where do I sign up. We also had the absolute best local tour guide, he had a wealth of knowledge but was just so funny something that is often need on the long bus trips.

Please if you decide to book a Single holiday with Just You be aware that they do not honour their guranteed loyality benifit if you rebook another holiday with them within six months as they advertise.

Also the single room supplement is hidden in the holiday price and the optional excursions are usually three times over priced.

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