Long post but hope this makes people aware such a cheat they are!
We were referred Bhagyashri Travels by my Brother and we had trust in them since it was my Sis in Law’s friend who worked here.
We booked 1 week trip to Bhutan for 2 people(7 nights & 8 days - Bhutan with 5 star hotels bookings, flights & Vehicle) with them where the places to visit, days and hotel names were provided them by us for them to plan detailed itinerary and make the bookings along with travel.
Their team gave high hopes initially by continuous calls / emails to finalize the trip details, which we did post checking hotels, sightseeing mentioned etc.
Once this was done they started to ask advance payment of 1 lakh for bookings and later before trip balance payment of 95, 640 as they clearly mentioned that the trip should be fully pre paid before we begin it, we were really wanting to keep balance of 10, 000 in case of any service issues but they denied and we were forced to pay balance amount as they were not ready to handover itinerary file with our bookings and travel details file.
Once we gave the money, they sent the itinerary file to us which we checked thoroughly and found for 1 of the places sightseeing was marked as option 1 or option 2 and we immediately spoke to them and understood that they without informing us decided that both sights cannot be covered so any 1 should be visited.
They had arranged a call 1 week before our trip to explain us about our local contact / guide / driver and other trip details which was in line with the file they provided but the horrendous phase begins when we land in Bagdogra where driver was supposed to pickup and we find out that our local agent, driver and car and locations have been totally changed from what was given in itinerary. Our trip started from Thimpu and ended in Paro whereas we were given itinarary of trip starting from Paro and ending in Thimpu.
We immediately tried contacting Bhagyashri Travels contact person who spoke to us on call and he was unreachable so we decide to atleast began our trip. Some while later we again contact them and they react surprise as how is this possible and we were made to believe they had no clue of all this changes.
All our bookings was in 4-5 star hotels and itinerary clearly mentions double bed but in none of the hotels were we given double bed. When we complained this to Bhagyashri travels team they put blame on their local agent conveniently(How are we concerned what your internal errors were?) We paid your company money.
We were also not given the car that was mentioned in the itinerary even after shelling out hugely.
We still managed to finish our trip but not very happy since lot of issues at the start of the trips.
Once we came back, we contacted VP Marketing - Yashodhan Gole who was our initial contact and did our bookings and shared our feedback to which he coolly denied their mistakes and blamed their local agents and sub agents for all the miscommunication and bookings and my question to him was very clear - for us they were the face/ contact person and liable people since we paid their company the money.
I requested him compensate for whatever was not as per the itinerary / simply give back 10, 000 which we were going to hold back for service issues like this to which he kept dragging the matter by denying their office role in any of the mistakes.
At the end he offered us 6k(3K each) compensation along with a "Complaint Resolve form" which we had to fill out for their horrible mistakes and bad coordination. The form is as below:
To,
Director,
Bhagyashri Travels Pvt. Ltd.
Mumbai. I, _ on behalf of the group(Sector)(Travel Date – ) hereby admit that our group including me have accepted the compensation which you have provided us & are satisfied with the same.
I assure you on behalf of the group that henceforth I/we will not indulge in –
Taking any legal action.
Publishing any matter related to this trip in any media,
Make any kind of negative communication about the company at personal or public level.
Ask for any further compensation.
Once again, we accept this full & final compensation amount. Yours Truly, _
Name,
Mumbai.
We denied accepting 6k as their compensation in return of so much issues in our trip.
I urge people to not book with these cheaters and come out in open in case they have failed in any of your past trips.