Thomas Cook Worldwide Travel Vouchers

Thinking of getting these as a gift - don't bother! These are a real pain to redeem, either in store or online. What they don't tell you is that you need to pay in full initially, then redeem afterwards.

If you use them in-store, some poor sales assistant has to manually enter the codes (they have barcodes on the back - the vouchers, not the assistants, although I suppose they may have).

If you spend them online it gets even more ridiculous. You again pay upfront, then have to send the vouchers to some office in Bradford for them to count and verify. Since you may have quite a large amount, they suggest sending "special delivery" with insurance for the value of the vouchers. This will cost us around £10 to insure plus the cost of the "special delivery" itself.

In this day and age there must be a more efficient system, surely.

I ought to add that the sales staff in-store tell you repeatedly that they are easy to use, but fail to tell you about the posting them to Bradford bit, or any of the other conditions associated with the vouchers.

If you try contacting them:

• By phone - you get some bored bloke who repeats "that's how the system works" over and over again, not even bothering to feign interest.
• By email (if you can find it) - you get a link to their "Frequently Asked Questions" bit of the website and a "we know nothing about in-store, it's a separate company", with spelling mistakes thrown in for good measure.

Customer service - pretty awful, to be honest.

Have suggested they look at Amazon (where you can enter the codes in and build up credit) or Justgiving (where people pay straight into your "account") - both would be more efficient and user friendly. Am awaiting a response. The letter was reasonably sarcastic.

The moral of the story: Don't get Thomas Cook Worldwide Travel Vouchers!