Man named Thomas Cook manages to blag free holiday

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A man called Thomas Cook has managed to wangle a free holiday in Paris after posting a message on the Thomas Cook Facebook page asking for a freebie.

However, it wasn't travel company Thomas Cook who treated him to the trip, but their low-cost competitor lowcostholidays.com

The Mirror reports that Mr Cook posted his message back in November, asking Thomas Cook if they would offer him a free holiday to compensate for a lifetime of ridicule.

He wrote: "Seeing as I share the exact same name as your huge company, and because of this I have been ridiculed for as long as I can remember.

"I think it's only fair that you help compensate for this by giving me one of your lovely holidays."

He said that he deserved a weekend in Paris to "promote your brand by constantly keeping it in peoples minds every time they speak to me" (sic).

However the travel responded by saying that they are unable to give away free holidays and suggested that he should check their website for the best available prices.

Luckily for Mr Cook, lowcostholidays then stepped in, and offered to help.

Marketing representative Charlotte Hunt left a message on his Facebook page which read: "We completely sympathise with your suffering and if your name was lowcostholidays.com we would certainly have accepted your request to be sent away on a weekend to Paris. So in Thomas Cook's time of crisis we thought it was about time we stepped in to offer a helping hand to customers like yourself who have found themselves, as we like to say, 'Thomas Crooked'. So how about we send you on the weekend to Paris, in fact - why not make it a week for your and a friend! What do you say?"

So earlier this month, Thomas Cook took his trip to Paris, and posted a snap on the Reddit website of him and his friend near to the Eiffel Tower.

Posting under the headline 'Benefits of sharing my name with a travel agent..' (sic), Mr Cook attracted more than 2,000 comments, with one person writing: "The genius of it. Now lowcostholidays.com can say that their packages are so good that even Thomas Cook doesn't use Thomas Cook."

Another added: "Smart marketing lowcostholidays, some people just don't understand the power of social media."

Even though they didn't offer him a holiday, Thomas Cook have since taken to their Facebook page to congratulate Mr Cook on his free trip.

The post read: "Just a quick one from the team to say we're really pleased our namesake Thomas Cook looks like he's had a great time on his free trip to Paris!!!

"We'd love to have helped him out (along with all the other Thomas Cook's who write to us!), but we've love to help out ALL of our other loyal customers too... so unfortunately we can't give freebies to people who just happen to have fantastic names!"

Click on the image below for some alternative things to see and do in Paris...

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