You paid for a holiday overseas, but the holiday was very disappointing. Write a letter to the travel company. In your letter - explain which holiday you went on - describe why the holiday was disappointing - tell the company what you want them to do
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with the poor service quality I encountered during my last holiday in Egypt. Being a regular customer of your travel company for about seven years until recently I have had no complaints. However, through some oversight my vacation turned into a real nuisance.
The hotel that was declared as five-star premises in fact does not meet high standards: a room without air conditioning and with a view of the roadway, irregular hot water supply, importunate service personnel (barely speaking English). Besides, a sightseeing bus tour, organizedso kindly organized by your firm’s partner, ended in a minor road accidentended with a minor car accident. During the rideAnd during the ride I felt thathad the sensation that our driver was absolutely ignorant of traffic rules. Fortunately, nobody suffered serious injuries.
To remedy this situationRegarding the ways of remedying the given situation, I suppose there are at least two options:
your company will either make a partial refund within no more than two weeks (effective from this letter’s date) or offerguarantee me a discount on the next trip and comfortable accommodationcomfortable living conditions. Certainly, I am open to dialogue and waiting for your offers in the hope of finding a speedy and workable solution.
Yours faithfully,
Why this response received Band 7.5
This is a detailed, purposeful complaint that identifies the holiday, develops several specific service failures, and proposes realistic remedies in an appropriately formal voice. The main limitation is occasional over-elaborate or imprecise wording, alongside a few awkward sentence and paragraph boundaries. Prioritise concise, natural complaint language and integrate the proposed remedies into a smoothly punctuated paragraph to strengthen precision and flow.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter fully addresses the holiday, the reasons for disappointment, and the requested remedy with specific, relevant supporting detail.
Clarify whether a refund or a future discount is the preferred outcome so the requested resolution is more immediately actionable.
Coherence and Cohesion
The complaint follows a clear sequence and uses well-focused paragraphs, with only minor disruption around the colon and separated remedies.
Keep the two remedy options in the same paragraph as their introductory sentence and link them with cleaner punctuation.
Lexical Resource
A broad range of formal and topic-specific vocabulary conveys dissatisfaction precisely, although a few expressions are strained or overly elaborate.
Prefer natural phrases such as advertised as a five-star hotel and unhelpful staff over less idiomatic alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex structures are used with generally good control, while occasional punctuation, agreement, and sentence-boundary issues remain.
Review long sentences for clean clause boundaries and ensure that lists introduced by a colon are grammatically integrated.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You paid for a holiday overseas, but the holiday was very disappointing. Write a letter to the travel company. In your letter
- explain which holiday you went on
- describe why the holiday was disappointing
- tell the company what you want them to do
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.