FRAM, which stands for Fer-Route-Air-Mer (Rail-Road-Air-Sea), is one of the oldest and most significant French travel agencies. The brand was established in 1949 in Toulouse, originally to sell vacation packages to Spain. Since then, the company has grown by diversifying its operations, including managing its own hotels and road transport, and selling a wide range of tourism products across the globe, such as vacation packages, weekend getaways, airfare, hotel stays, resort clubs, and cruises. In 2018, FRAM was acquired by the company Voyages invest, which also controls Karavel, another prominent French travel agency.
Beyond organizing and selling travel, FRAM operates its own network of vacation clubs worldwide. Depending on your preferences, whether you are looking for a family trip, a beach vacation, a mountain getaway, or an all-inclusive package, you have a varied selection of destinations through the Framissima and Jumbo brands, including Spain, the Canary Islands, the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean, Morocco, Tunisia, Greece, as well as the Alps and Finland.
On June 25, 2022, my parents and I were supposed to head home from Sicily. The problem: we found out 2 hours before leaving the hotel that our flight was canceled due to strikes. Our flight was postponed to the next morning. We had no choice but to take the first flight leaving from Trapani. The next morning we left the hotel, but once we arrived at the airport, surprise: our flight was canceled again.
The person from Ryanair at the counter told us she could not direct us to another flight and that it was up to Fram to handle it. We called headquarters, which was supposed to find us a solution, but the person told us there was nothing they could do and it was up to us to figure it out. So we paid an agency to find a flight for us ourselves, even though the previous ones had been canceled twice in a row?? Thanks for the customer service!
We had to fend for ourselves. We took a bus to the Palermo airport, booked a flight from Palermo to Paris, took a train from Paris to Bordeaux, and finally a taxi from the Bordeaux train station to Merignac airport. This trip home cost us €1324 (about $1,425, or €440/$475 per person). We were forced to return because we were going back to work, so we had no choice but to pay that amount upfront.
As soon as we got back, I helped my parents put together a file with all the receipts so Fram would reimburse us. But for almost 7 months now, it has been radio silence. The Fram agency in Andernos refers us to headquarters, which never answers our emails or our certified letters despite our numerous follow-ups.
Conclusion: do not use Fram to book your vacations. If you run into trouble, they will leave you to fend for yourself. They do not care at all about their customers. I think about my parents who were panicked. We thought we were going to be stuck in Sicily because there were no other flights to Bordeaux for the rest of the week. We will remember that day, June 26, 2022, and we will also remember the deplorable customer service from Fram. It is unacceptable to treat customers this way.