Before I start writing my experience, if some one of you have just logged in to check whether it’s worth going ahead to book Makemytrip’s Himachal Tour, just by seeing one experienced person’s comments and blindly decide to ‘go’ or ‘not to go’, I will say only one thing. ‘Don’t go’, with Makemytrip. People with more patience can continue reading.
I booked my vacation to HP thr’ makemytrip, for my family of four, despite going through several bad reviews on various websites including this one. I thought may be those were one off experiences and this may not happen to me. But towards the end it looked like MMT has made up it as their custom to inconvenience all their customers without leaving any one. I will be unfair to say that most of their services could be this way as I’ve tried only HP tour, but looking at the treatment meted out to me, I could guess that MMT is also like one of those numerous ‘faceless’ organizations where everything has to go thr’ procedure and more often than none, professionalism comes outside the set procedures. I don’t want to kill your time by being too much philosophical here and will brief about my bad experiences below. Pls note that words are never enough to explain the trauma one goes through that too on a vacation!! Which we want to have for the very reason of having enough trauma during work days anyway.
1. All the while this executive Rajendra Negi was harping on full payment and I had delayed it purposefully because I was not sure of my trip. Within 10 days, the rates had gone up by 10k (from 75k to 85k) and the reason given was hike in the airfares. I didn’t have any past reference to check what he was saying was true. So without second chance as it was already too late to look for something else, I had to pay full amount of Rs 85k. first suspecion on their operation.
2. I had categorically specified during my chat and phone calls to Rajendra Negi that I needed a sedan car and not a hatch back one. Despite his verbal confirmation to give me an Indigo and not Indica, this person sends me a ca voucher for Indica. I called him again and threatened him that I will escalate this issue then he sends me a ‘modified’ voucher for Indigo which later turned out to be a fake one. On my arrival at Delhi from where we were supposed to leave for Shimla, I found out that I was given a lousy Indica which was stinking, no AC working and almost about to break down. I called up the cab servie people to upgrade me with Indigo and those courteous people (Holiday Himachal) sent me an Indigo with very friendly dirver for 7 days. But later I had to pay Rs 2200 extra for using Indigo as they had received only Indica’s voucher and not Indigo’s. I had contacted Rajendra Negi on the previous day who told me will call me in 2 minutes but NEVER RESPONDED TO MY NUMEROUS CALLS FOR NEXT 7 DAYS!! Such a professional he is.
3. As you can imagine good amount is involved, I insisted that they book 3 star and above hotels for me and my family. I even mentioned that if some extra amount has to be paid only to make sure I get good hotels, I was ready. He confirmed to me that all are 3 star and above category hotels. What I found in Manali, Chandigarh were below standard hotels, forget budget hotels. (Hilltone resorts at Manali, City plaza 7 at Chandigarh) Only exception was hotel at Shimla – Fairmont. It was slightly better than the above. Hilltone Resorts – it was being renovated and the rooms were stinking, puris in breakfast had hair in them, curds was black in color, yuck! Hellish experience there. They didn’t forget to charge us for the heaters used for such chilly nights when it was their duty to provide us with them.
4. I was made to pay service tax in the hotels I had stayed which was never mentioned anywhere in my voucher or hotels’ vouchers. When I called up a faceless executive again, I was lectured on I should have read ‘terms and conditions’ to find out that clause was there. All this while Rajendra Negi had insisted that my trip was ‘all inclusive’
5. I did not even receive an invoice from them. I had to call the toll free number approximately 20 times to get connected and explain them this. Their numbers promptly used to get disconnected when I was right about to hear their response.
6. The feedback section in their website never works.
7. No matter how many times you call, you will always speak to some junior executives and their bosses are never available to escalate any issues. You will be sick and tired of the standard answers they give like ‘we really apologise for the inconvenience caused to you’ and all that blah blah, thus further inconveniencing with such meaningless apologies.
8. If you think you can ‘make your trip’ with MMT, expecting some good star hotels, with your enhanced lifestyle and all, forget it. Sorry to say, this is for the people who have never stayed in hotels before and who have not seen better hotels. I met several customers of MMT during my trip and found none to be satisfied with them.
9. Unfortunately, as said above, I can not write all the bad experiences I had each time I had to call them for the hotels, for the cab vouchers, for invoices etc, in words. But if you ask me next time would I consider MMT for my vacation? NO!!!
Make My Trip – Unlimited moemories – spoiled my trip and gave me unlimited bad memories that I would like to forget.
Date of travel – from may 8th till may 15th 2012.