I would like to share the experience of my husband who has taken services from the firm for travelling to East Europe in the recent past. I would like to highlight the shortcomings of the firm for the customized tour itentiary through which it will be evident that how unprofessional the firm is and will make you leave high and dry in a foreign land and makes you run pillar to post to manage your tour in a foreign land:-
My husband has taken a tour for East Europe covering Berlin, Prague, Budapest and Vienna.
(a) The firm has indicated during discussions that since the iteniary is customised a local guide will be provided who will come and pick up from all the hotels. However, the final iteniary did not provided the same. 01 Mineral bottle was to be provided in all hotels as per iteniary. However, no such facility was provided.
(b) The train tickets provided for travel between the cities were general tickets without seat reservation. I believe no tour agency does the same with their clients and makes them travel standing. My husband has to stand in the train for hours and travel which was too tiring and awkward.
(c) One of the train ticket provided was without barcode for the journey from Hannover to Berlin. My husband was unaware that in Europe train tickets should have barcode . The ticket checker post evaluation told my husband that the ticket is fake and could lead to heavy fine. However, with phone calls with the agency fresh ticket(Unreserved) was obtained. I would like to highlight that it was a really scary situation which my husband has to undergo.
(d) In all hotels as per the iteniary breakfast was to be provided. However, at Prague the hotel refused to offer breakfast view the firm has not paid for the breakfast and have booked only for the stay.
(e) The most disturbing experience was at Budapest. Since so much of bad experience I had during the travel so I decided to visit the railway station to verify the train ticket provided by the firm for travel from Budapest to Frankfurt which was a long travel. At station, my husband was told that the document provided by the firm is not a ticket and he will not be permitted to board the train. It happened in the evening prior and next day morning he was suppose to catch the train. All sightseeing planned for the evening went haywire and even the firm was not responding on being contacted. The complete night my husband was not able to sleep. Subsequently my husband has to book a flight by paying a heavy amount to come to Frankfurt.
(f) This is not over, on return to India when my husband went to their office for the refund. The firm stated that they will be able to refund only when they receive the amount from the third party and which will take around 30 days. Post 40 days also no refund was provided nor any communication was received. Subsequently, we have approached the third party and got to know that the amount was credited 30 days prior and the same information was shared with the firm however they refuted. Again, we tried to obtain the credit card details to which the amount was transferred and then only the firm has intimated that they have received the amount and the same was refunded back to us after almost 2.5 months.
(g) In addition, a case was registered against the firm in Consumers Court for the unprofessional service and mental agony through which we have to undergo.
I thought of penning down the experience with the firm and I am sure by reading my review you can make your own judgement whether to take services from the firm in future or not.