Barrhead Travel : most-reported complaints
Automated analysis of 2,087 public Trustpilot reviews published 2019-10-11 to 2026-09-20. TrustScore 4.9 from 57,592 total reviews — see the Trustpilot page. Quick answer: is Barrhead Travel legit? Issues below reflect what reviewers reported, not findings of wrongdoing.
Across 2087 Trustpilot reviews analysed, the most-reported issues with Barrhead Travel were: Support unhelpful (143 reports), Other (99 reports), Not as described (91 reports).
How to reach Barrhead Travel
These are the contact details Barrhead Travel publishes on its Trustpilot profile, as of our last check on 2026-09-23 — phone 0330 094 8364, email [email protected], address Libertas House, 39 St. Vincent Place, Glasgow, G1 2ER, GB.
The company claimed its Trustpilot profile on 2018-09-25, uses Trustpilot’s paid features, uses Trustpilot’s AI-assisted replies, and last replied to a negative review on 2026-09-20. Trustpilot ranks it 24 of 204 in Travel Agency. We last checked this profile on 2026-09-23 and found 131 new reviews. These are facts Trustpilot publishes about the profile, as of our last harvest.
Forum footprint: 67 MoneySavingExpert forum discussions mention this company (browse). Roughly 0 of the top, relevance-sorted search results were posted in the last 90 days — an approximate figure by construction, not a true recency count. Recent thread titles: “Barrhead Travel freebies”, “Barrhead travel”, “Barrhead Travel”.
Elsewhere: 0.0★ App Store (0)
TrustScore over time
4.9 → 4.9 across 13 census measurements since 2026-08-12. Our own record, independent of Trustpilot’s display.
Reply behaviour over time
Solid: % of negative reviews replied to. Dashed: typical days to reply. Both as reported on this company’s Trustpilot profile, recorded whenever our census re-checked it and a figure had changed — the gaps between points are not equal: 2026-08-15 (75%, 7.2d) · 2026-08-20 (71%, 7.2d) · 2026-08-24 (71%, 7.2d) · 2026-08-27 (69%, 7.2d) · 2026-09-01 (67%, 7.1d) · 2026-09-04 (66%, 7.1d) · 2026-09-07 (65%, 7.1d) · 2026-09-11 (64%, 7.1d) · 2026-09-14 (64%, 7.1d) · 2026-09-17 (63%, 7.1d) · 2026-09-20 (63%, 7.1d) · 2026-09-23 (64%, 7.3d).
Severity: 16% of this company’s 527 graded complaints were classified as severe (money lost, an essential service cut off, or a problem unresolved for months). See the harm index.
1★ share of negative reviews over time
Share of 1–3★ Trustpilot reviews that were 1★
In April 2024, 50% of 22 one-to-three-star reviews were 1★; in August 2026, 50% of 18.
Counted from April 2024 onward — the period for which our capture of 1★, 2★ and 3★ reviews is complete for all three. Months with fewer than 10 such reviews are omitted.
Reviewers here waited a median of 9.5 days between the experience and publishing their negative review (548 reviews record both dates).
Independent findings
The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint about this company’s advertising:
- 2025-09-03 (Search (paid)) — A paid-for Google ad for a travel agency gave a misleading impression of the advertised cruises’ environmental impact by failing to make the basis of environmental claims clear and
These are the findings of the named independent body, reported here with attribution — they are not our conclusions and are separate from the review analysis above.
Measured reply time: across 336 negative reviews that received a public reply, the median wait was 5.9 days — the company profile reports an average of 7 days. The two are measured differently: ours counts only replies we captured to negative reviews.
Reply quality: of 336 company replies to negative reviews analysed, 25% engaged with the specific problem and 70% were generic templates.
What employees say
Employees rate Barrhead Travel 2.9★ overall from 162 reviews on Glassdoor — the inside view, kept separate from customer complaint statistics. Read the reviews there.
Review provenance: 1604 company-invited reviews in the recent window average 4.92★, while 20 organic (uninvited) reviews average 4.25★.
9% of its 1536 recent 5★ reviews came from accounts that had written only that one review when we captured it (the median across companies is about 39%). A high share is a reason to look closer, not evidence of fake reviews.
Sector benchmark: support unhelpful makes up 27% of this company’s complaints vs a 31% median across 122 ranked companies in its sector.
Review velocity: 10,890 of this company’s 57,592 Trustpilot reviews (19%) were written in the last 12 months.
What are the most common complaints about Barrhead Travel ?
Support unhelpful
143 reports · 27% of complaintssteady“still chasing £1900 refund with the excuse coming form them that they need it back from TUI.”
The company replied on 2024-05-03: “Hi we are sorry to see that cruise has been cancelled and that you are awaiting a refund. We will contact you directly to discuss this with you.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Just received an email for balance of this cancelled holiday.”
The company replied on 2024-05-24: “Hi, Thank you for your feedback we are sorry to hear about the issue you have had with your cancellation, we will pass your feedback on to the Store Manager.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Two members of staff got annoyed with me when I pointed this out and handed the euros back to me without comment or a smile.”
The company replied on 2024-06-10: “Hi Mr Falconer, we are sorry to see that you have had some issues when trying to change back some Euro's in one of our stores we will ensure this feedback is passed on.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Other
99 reports · 19% of complaintssteady“With numerous e-mails and phone calls with no response”
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Have not received and more contact from them. The only way we seem to get any results from them is when we send them an email and patch in there CEO.”
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“proceeded to shout across the shop , "eh I'm no gonna run away with your money."”
The company replied on 2024-07-01: “Hello, Thank you for your review. We are sorry to hear about your recent experience in store and will ensure this is passed onto the Manager in the store.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Not as described
91 reports · 17% of complaintsrising since 2024-10“the lock was very loose as we got in eventually. We first noticed the fan light was working correctly”
The company replied on 2026-03-12: “Hi John, Thank you for your feedback we will ensure your feedback is passed on.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“We had only very vague return flight information, so we got to the airport and had to sort out the flight arrangements ourselves.”
The company replied on 2025-04-14: “Hi James, we are very sorry to hear this and will ensure your comments are passed on. Thank you.”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“They booked us into a hotel that was dirty and unsafe”
The company replied on 2024-11-11: “Hi Victoria, thank you for raising your concerns - we would be grateful if you could email [email protected] with your reference number so that we can investigate this further for you.…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Misleading pricing
89 reports · 17% of complaintssteady“lying about the system to get me to pay an extra 100 quid”
The company replied on 2024-07-15: “Hello, Thank you for your review. I can see the branch has contacted you directly to discuss this with you.”
Our classifier read this reply as a substantive response.
It promised: to escalate.
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Flight time on boarding passes different to invoice and different to flight ticket.”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“This wasn’t discussed at the point of sale.”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Support unreachable
72 reports · 14% of complaintsfalling“I have emailed them 3 times and received a generic reply every time”
3 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“With numerous e-mails and phone calls with no response”
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“complete lack of response which is hugely disappointing”
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Overcharging
30 reports · 6% of complaintssteady“their chasers for payment is unacceptable”
The company replied on 2020-06-03: “Hi Paul, I am sorry you have not yet been able to speak with one of our team. We have thousands of bookings cancelled which we are working through as a priority and have a team available to support…”
Our classifier read this reply as a template response.
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“when we refused and cancelled they cancelled and informed us we lost our deposit”
“The jet Two company took another £250 for this. Was over charged for the holiday too!”
The company replied on 2026-03-21: “Hi Mr Smith It was lovely speaking to you earlier today and if you have any more concerns please let us know and we will see you soon for your next holiday Kind regards Lynne”
Our classifier read this reply as a deflection.
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Method: reviews are classified into a fixed complaint taxonomy by an automated reader; every category shown is backed by at least two verbatim quotes from distinct reviews. Trends are computed from dated review counts only. Negative reviews are deliberately over-sampled for evidence depth; headline percentages use an unbiased recent sample only. Report updated 2026-09-20.