Terrible booking experience and the worst customer service.
The customer service of this company is terrible. We wound up booking with Heart of Scotland after dealing with Timberbush.
IT all started when we booked the trip, part of a three week vacation in the U.K. and Ireland. Due the company's extremely poor website design, in particular the method they use to display the date when purchasing a ticket, caused me to pick our itinerary from the list available and not realizing that the numbers barely visible above were dates. The web site defaults to tomorrow's date. So when i picked our trip and paid for it, it automatically booked it for the next day, instead of months later when we would actually be in Scotland. I didn't even realize the mistake until i got an email the next day asking why were we not on the bus. After realizing what had happened, and after emailing back and forth with Lara, Eva, and Kirsty, we were offered a chance at free seats if we called late the night before we wanted to go, and refused a refund. We were told that it wasn't their fault and they had even held the bus for us when we didn't show, thus inconveniencing other passengers. My response was, as for the departing late for the tour, while I certainly sympathize with any patrons that were inconvenienced, the decision to delay starting was their choice, not ours, so they bore the responsibility for any inconvenience to their customers. Their competitor’s websites dates are much more prominent and viewable and, most importantly, easy to recognize as a date, and easy to pick from, displaying as a calendar. And as Timberbush's TripAdvisor reviews show, this is not an isolated incident for their customers.
What we were offered, as per their customer service policy, Was an offer to call at 9:30PM the night before we wanted to go to see if they had any open seats. as they stated in their response, even in April, this is a very popular tour and was fully booked, with Timberbush turning customers away after we purchased tickets for the next day. So since this tour is so very popular, the chance of finding open seats during the height of the tourist season, the middle of summer, would be essentially nil. That said, their offer of reserving seats only after 9:30PM the day before it is possible for us to go, means essentially that they are not giving us anything at all for the money we paid. As we live in another country on another continent, it would be impossible for us to make use of the tickets at any time other than the two days we are spending in Scotland this year.
I guess what I am essentially saying is that their offer to book seats for our tickets only the night before any particular day, seems in actuality to be designed to prevent that exact possibility, not just for us but for any of their customers. I am disappointed in this company and the country of Scotland. If this is an example of Scottish hospitality, I can honestly say that we do not plan to return, and will make sure to spread the word of Timberbush's poor customer service.