Have been a loyal customer of MMT for 7+ years. I still love their response for flights and cabs. For the first time booking an international holiday package with them and was horrible.
Note: I am an MMT black exclusive member which is the highest tier of membership in MMT and still has such poor customer service.
A Maldives vacation of 5 days and 4 nights itinerary converted to 3 days and 4 nights trip. Leaving aside the bad resort experience as that will go on review of the resort.
Detailed summary about the mishaps -
Issues -
Issue 1 - Arrival time at Male airport on 2nd September at 16:00. The expected time to reach the resort is mentioned to be 2 hrs. Any logical person would assume to reach by 19:00 and in the worst-case scenario by 21:00. I was in Male airport till 23:30. Making excuses like flight might be late or similar will not work as another couple who had completed visa processing by 16:00 were also sent to resort with us. There was no other plan to send us to the resort other than the late-night arrival. MMT sold misleading itineraries. There are two things here.
1-a) The booking itinerary and the holiday booking card both mention very clearly that there would be no travel between 11 pm-5 am and MMT violated its terms and conditions. We were supposed to be in the resort on Day1 but we weren’t. We reached the resort on Day2 at 2:00. We paid for the plan and we were not given the facilities. This again violates the booking itinerary and booking card.
1-b) We reached our rooms at 2:30 am on 3rd September. We were so tired that we woke up around the afternoon on the 3rd. We just didn’t lose the 2nd but also the morning of the 3rd. I will be kind and just take it as a half-day loss.
Issue 2 - Departure from Male airport on 6th September was at 17:05. The expected time to reach the resort is mentioned to be 2 hrs. Any logical person would assume to leave the resort by 12:30 and in the worst-case scenario by 11:00.
We were made to leave the resort at 6:30. We had to sleep early 1 night before to wake up early the next day. This is again a more than half-day loss for us. Adding it to the earlier half-day loss, we lost 2 half days. We didn’t have enough time on our hands to enjoy things we had planned, activities that were present, or wear the dresses we had taken. This is a very expensive trip and one doesn’t take such trips often and MMT just ruined it.
Absolutely nothing was done for Issue-1 or Issue-2. We talked to a lot of people who came to the resort and everyone had a similar experience and the resort behaves like that for arrival and departure so this is not a one-time thing for MMT. MMT representative sold me a higher package with a misleading itinerary. Two half-days were not provided at the resort which is the major component(25%) of the package.
Issue 3 - The RO(relationship officer), let’s call her "B" is supposed to be the contact source for any issues. They need to keep checking for any issues and be the primary source of contact. B, in our case, stopped responding to messages or picking calls from 4th September night. I tried contacting MMT through any other means for any customer support to get a resolution and save the 2nd half days but since I only had WhatsApp so couldn’t and B had stopped replying to messages and picking calls. She didn’t even check if I filled the forms or reached back to India. I was just left helpless at the resort from the MMT side.
Issue 4 - A(Issue resolution team member) came into the picture on 4th September. Was supposed to call by the 4th September end and knew I wouldn’t be reachable as I was not in India. Still, he made the trademark excuse on 5th September evening that I was not reachable. If you are duping customers, at least train them well. He didn’t connect till 5th September late evening, asked about the experience and same. I asked to drop a message as 2 days had passed for the complaint and nothing happened and he promised to do it in 10 minutes. I had to complain again to even get an email from him.
By now, it did seem like a regular occurrence with similar trips, where the representative just passes it to someone and spends time till the trip gets over. I even asked B if this is a scam because it seems like one.