I am posting this to spread awareness about the fraud that is being carried by the travel triangle.
Guys, I know this will eat your time but please go through my experience, I don’t want anyone to fall into their trap so giving complete details of moments on how they planned to cancel all sightseeing.
I will mention each and every fraudster who was involved in arranging the trip and ruining 3days of my life.
I made a booking in communication with SAMUEL LETKHOLA(Travel Triangle Holiday Expert) and Arti(Corporate Host Destination who arranges for hotel accommodation).
The package looked fine so I got into this devil’s deal and called Samuel(found his number on the website) to plan the trip from Bangalore to Ooty. After receiving the itinerary, Samuel and Arti called me several times to pay the amount asap otherwise the selected accommodation would not have been available. So I had no choice but paid INR9700 of INR18000 as a booking amount for the trip using a card.
They didn’t share driver details before so I had to call them many times before leaving for Bangalore from hyd. Late-night I received driver’s detail and were informed that driver will pick up at 9 am.
First Day: I reached Bangalore airport and called the driver. He dint arrive there for pickup and was told he would be there by 10:30. That’s when I reached out to the first contact of the point - the trip coordinator MOUIN and asked him why the driver dint come on time when already informed overcall. They gave some traffic excuse and finally driver arrived at 10:30 and we left for Ooty.
As per the itinerary, we were to go for Bandipur Safari and discussed with the driver about the timings for the safari. He lied saying will reach there by 3 pm and can take a safari. But he took a long route to reach there. He pretended that he doesn’t know where to take the safari so we asked many people and reached the Bandipur safari campus by 5. Now guess what? The ticket counter was CLOSED by 4:30!
So there was no Bandipur safari on the trip. Again we spoke to trip coordinator "MOUIN" from a local travel agency(Trip away) and he told will cover the Bandipur safari on the last day of the trip and connected us to his SALES HEAD "Narendra Mourya". This guy has no sense of talking, very rude and instead of giving us a solution he blamed us by saying that driver reached the airport at 9 am but it was your fault you were not at the airport by that time. And when confirmed with driver SHREEDHAR, this driver also lied and took part in their bloody game plan by saying that he was already at the airport at 9 am and was waiting for us. We lost our temper but had no choice to go with him.
EVERY NUMBER THAT WAS PROVIDED TO US AS A POINT OF CONTACT IN TROUBLE WAS WRONG OR UNREACHABLE. I tried calling Arti who has given me these numbers but she was also not reachable. Now we had only the driver’s number and some local coordinator MOUIN.
We then headed to our hotel in Ooty and next what? The driver took a long route to get over to the hotel by putting some wrong location across Ooty city.
Can you imagine totally dark place with no light, no person, no other cab, the only thing we could see was DARKNESS and there was no space for going back? We would be killed anytime by a wild animal. We even tried calling the hotel but as the expected call was not answered.
Somehow we figured out landmark for that hotel using our own GPS
(driver GPS dint work) and followed it. We reached the hotel at 10 PM.
Did you calculate we left from Bangalore at 10:30 AM it was 12 hours journey for us? UNBELIEVABLE!
Forget about the other viewpoints that were mentioned in the itinerary for the first-day trip(Ooty lake and botanical garden) because of all the above shits that happened because of their blooding planning. Note: Ooty lake and the garden closes by 5:30 pm This is one more reason why the driver dint gets us there before 10 pm.
Second Day: Before starting the trip at 10 am driver asked us to pay the remaining trip amount of INR8000 otherwise he would not take us back. Plus he told us that we have in total 750km free distance for our entire package of which we have already covered 410km on the first day. Once those remaining free km are spent we would be charged extra with 10INR per kilometer. He wasted 30 minutes on this discussion.
We paid him the money in cash and forgot to take a receipt for it. He told me that the toy train to Coonoor starts at 12 from Ooty so he will drop us at the railway station. Next? He did drop us there but the ticket counter was CLOSED for the 12 pm train. We had no choice but to stand in queue from 11 to 2 pm and wait for the train. We reached Coonoor by 3 pm and looked for the driver as he was supposed to pick us up there. BUT as expected he arrived late and we headed for the dolphin nose and tea factory. On the way, he insisted us to visit some other viewpoints so that he can increase the km distance and late ask us for more money. He refused for Sim park visit, golf course, Dobadetta peak, wax museum, rose garden. We again spoke to MOUIN, remember the trip coordinator. He again made the same story that he will cover those points on next day. (We understood that wouldn’t happen).
To make sure the driver doesn’t take a long route to increase km distance, we followed GPS through the journey. Sounds painful? Wait something big is coming.
We wandered in the Ooty local market and reached the hotel at 10 PM. We discussed with a driver about next day plan and everything looked improvised,
BUT,
Third and last Day: As planned last night, we checked out from the hotel and headed towards Ooty lake but on our way, the driver stopped and told us that it would take more than 4 hours to cover the remaining points including the Ooty lake, gardens, Dobadetta peak and many other. He also added that if we cover these places in Ooty and stop for on-the-way places like Pykara falls, Kamaraj Sagar Dam, and other small viewpoints, we will reach Banglore by midnight. Like every other morning, this was also well ruined and we again had to speak to MOUIN for not staying committed to his words for covering all places on the last day of our trip.
This person turned out to be the head of all involved, he said that these places cannot be covered. He had the guts to ask us to reschedule our flight for 9 pm for the next day and give him extra INR10000 as 4th-day charges would apply after 10 PM. Plus we already had a deal of paying them per km 50INR from Ooty to Bangalore drop. Plus driver charges would be there because his service ends at 6 PM.
We asked the driver to get us at Bangalore airport before9pm by hook or by crook. We wanted to stop at many points but dint because it would delay our arrival. The driver again took a different route and we dint take any halt and just before Bangalore airport. driver stopped the cab and said something new.
Any guesses? We already paid extra for Ooty to Bangalore travel distance but he got something else to add.
He asked us to pay for an extra 35km to travel back to his office.
I lost my temper. I mean we paid for the trip that didn’t has any sightseeing mentioned in the itinerary. We paid him for our way back to Bangalore and he was still trying to make money. He was out of his senses, dint realizes what he was asking. We stopped the ride there and went to Bangalore airport on our own.
ENOUGH OF MENTAL TORCHER.
This trip was no less than a nightmare. I don’t know how to act against these people so trying my best to expose them in every portal. There is no way to get my money back but I will make sure their business is shut down one day.
All their ratings and good reviews are fake, Don’t fall for them.
Guys make yourself time when planning for your trip. We could have done it on our own if time permitted.
Please contact me if you need more information.
After few days of that trip, I finally got to speak to their customer support service. they asked me to wait for a week before they dig into all the concerns. and turns out they had some vague and hilarious response to my mail and calls. They said that the itinerary was cancelled by me(the customer) and everything was conveyed to me! I really wish for your mental well being I mean why would someone pay them INR 18k to go on a cancelled itinerary! Seriously TravelTriangle at least spend some bucks on getting witty and smart customer executives! You will burn in hell!