Advantages: Clean Cabins, Food OK
Disadvantages: Cramped, Pricey On Board Snacks, Some Check In Confusion.

...So, I've just returned from Rhodes for my one week of summer sunshine & I am raring to go with some reviews, Thomas Cook Airlines, here's yours. I will divide the review into UK Pre-Flight, Outbound Flight, Overseas Pre-Flight & Inbound Flight as I there are so many elements I feel I need to mention to get a fair and balanced review. USEFUL INFO: Flight No: TCX 334 Dates 6/09/2006 & 14/09/2006 From: Manchester Terminal 2 To: Rhodes Plane: Boeing 757-200 (235 Seats) UK PRE-FLIGHT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Check In ********** We had received our tickets prior to departure so we did not need to enlist the service of Thomas Cook Airlines to obtain our tickets. At Manchester Airport, Thomas Cook have a dedicated check in area in Terminal 2, on our departure day it was check in desk 2-7 and you apparently could check in for any Thomas... Read review

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Advantages: FANTASTIC WEBSITE BUT IF YOU HAVE TO TELEPHONE
Disadvantages: THE STAFF CAN TRY TO PERSUADE YOU A LITTLE TOO MUCH

...Being an inveterate holiday-goer, I generally use Thomas Cook's website to find hotels, apartments, and special late deals, mainly because it's easy to navigate and is more informative than most. www.thomascook.co.uk. ADVANTAGES: The Thomas Cook website is one of the best I've used for holidays (I am assuming here that everyone knows how to get around the internet as Ciao is web-based!). Filling in details such as number of people, travel destination, hotel, apartment, etc, is very easy and, unlike some other sites I could mention, i.e. "Punn Loly"(!), it gives you much more flexibility with regard to dates, and also doesn't "bounce" around as much. On many sites you have to specify an EXACT day to travel and, invariably, you get a message pop-up which says "This holiday is not available on this date", so you have to input... Read review

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Advantages: Easy, friendly staff, no hassle
Disadvantages: Bit slow sending out wedding info

...I have written a couple of reviews on my resort and the airway i flew with so i thought i would write a review regarding the tour operator who i booked through. I have used Thomas Cook twice now and i have found them to be very good, i personally have had no problems with them, had to chase them up on a few things but nothing major. The guide book best to show the resort we went to is Carribean Holidays by Virgin Atalntic. *BOOKING:* In february 2004 we decided that we wanted to get married at Club St Lucia in St Lucia. Now we have been there before and we enjoyed it ,as it was so good for the children. We have 2 little boys aged 8 & 9 and as you appreciate little children eat and drink all the time so this was good for us as it was an All Inclusive resort. We went to see Thomas Cook and make the arrangements. In total... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, clean and cheerful
Disadvantages: Not for those who want to bring half their house in their luggage!

...I’m not a regular flyer. In fact this was my first flight as an adult! So I don’t really have anything to compare them with. However I was pretty happy with Thomas Cook! I flew with them from Gatwick (London, England) to Vancouver in Canada and back last summer. One of the weird things about this is that it doesn’t seem to be possible to book on these flights through the Thomas Cook website! I booked via Canadian Affair. I’ve done a separate review on them if you want to look it up. I also paid for an upgrade to 'Premier' class and I suppose partly because of that check-in was very quick and painless. There’s an extra baggage allowance for those in Premier Economy: 30 kg hold luggage and 5 kg cabin. I believe this is still a lot less than most schedule flights, and basically means one bag and one suitcase. But I found... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: leather seats, friendly staff, good food
Disadvantages: pre-allocated seats which could not be changed

...I have just flown to and from Austria with Thomas Cook and I have to admit I previously had no idea that they actually ran an airline themselves! A friend of mine booked the flights through the Barclaycard travel service and we got a good discount on our whole skiing holiday as Barclaycard holders. The whole holiday was provided by Thomas Cook along with Neilson Holidays and everything thankfully ran very smoothly. I flew from Gatwick to Innsbruck and and as a nervous flier I was somewhat anxious, especially not having heard of Thomas Cook flying aeroplanes. However, as soon as I saw the plane, my fears were allayed and friendly staff were on standby on the plane to show you to your seat. Unfortunately, this seat had been pre-allocated. This was great as I was travelling in a group of 7, which meant that we were all seated... Read review

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Advantages: up to date deals in window
Disadvantages: expensive insurance

...There's a statue of Thomas Cook outside Leicester railway station which I walk past whenever I catch a train. I've only booked one holiday with them but I found their service to be friendly and quick. We saw a late deal in the window which was still available once we went inside - on previous occasions with other travel agents I have found that the deals on display are unavailable. In this case the actual price quoted had been reduced since the card was put up, so we saved an extra bit of money. On the negative side, Thomas Cook seemed to have a very strange way of selling insurance. They offered us cover for a week in Europe for £30 each, which was ridiculously high, so we said no thanks. Once we had rejected £30 she said that she could offer us insurance for £15 each, which we accepted. It just seems very dodgy practice... Read review

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Advantages: Good Cheap Flight
Disadvantages: The Planes

...Good Points In-flight movie Children's meals Bad Points Delayed for 3 hours Cabin crew Pilots Seats TV's on the aircraft Aircraft General Comments I flew on the same Thomas Cook flight last year, and it was one of the best flights I have ever been on, but this year it was a different story. 4 Days before we were due to depart we got a call from Thomas Cook telling us the flight times had changed. When we got our new tickets we could see that the aircraft had been changed from an A320-200 to a Boeing 757-200, which we thought would be better. We thought wrong! On the Sunday we got to the airport and went to check-in, to be handed a letter telling us that when they changed the aircraft they didn't know that it was already out. So we had a 3 hour delay waiting for the aircraft to come back in. When we boarded... Read review

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Advantages: Friendly, efficient
Disadvantages: None

...We recently travelled with Thomas Cook and found them refreshingly good. With a recent poor experience with Going Places we were reluctant to book with any travel agent again but Thomas Cook restored some faith in travel agents with us. Their staff were friendly and seemed very well trained. They found us a holiday with JMC at short notice and followed through their service quickly and efficiently. Our holiday destination was unknown until we arrived in Mallorca, which we were worried about, but we ended up in a good hotel at a nice resort. The only thing that went wrong with the whole holiday was a three hour delay at the airport on departure and return but this was not the fault of Thomas Cook.... Read review

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Advantages: None
Disadvantages: No seating plan for 46 people, had to cancel holiday, no help from anyone !

...My current holiday was booked on line through Thomas Cook. Due to fly Sunday morning, received a telphone call on the Friday afternoon to say that the seating arrangement online hadn't been transfered over for 46 people, so 46 people had nowhere to sit on the plane. After alot of useless phone calls, nothing was sorted out. Our holiday was to Tunisia and they were offering Spain - I dont think so ! So after alot of frustration and arguements we had to cancel the holiday all together. We booked online again the same night through Thomas Cook again and got a holiday to the same place for the same price but a better location and hotel. Why couldnt the people on the other end of the phone do this ! Obviously they just weren't interested because they had 46 other people to sort out. We have applied for Compensation, limit £ 50 each... Read review

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Advantages: Great service, comfortable seats
Disadvantages: the usual weight restrictions

...Last year was the first time I flew out of the country, from Manchester heading for Vancouver Island (I have a seperate review about the holiday titled "Vancouver Island-a Wildlife watchers dream"),for my backpacking holiday. I booked my flight through a company called Candian Affair, which I had found by surfing the net. I had searched a few sites and made a few notes on prices, and these were cheaper by far. Now for those of you who don't know (I never knew they did), Thomas Cook have now bought their own fleet of Aeroplanes, and have been running them now for a few years after buying out a German Airline company. They use the fairly new Airbus A330, which boasts a 35 inch seat pitch, which is the best out of any scheduled or chartered airlines flying to Canada, and thats just for Economy class. On boarding the plane, you... Read review

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