I am amazed ....havent a clue how you knew it was from their computer....know we all have IPS's ...but fancy you knowing who it belonged to....well done David
Hi All,
My name is John and I am the Sales and Marketing Director for Tickets to India. I must say I was shocked when I read the posts on this forum and I would like to take the opportunity to answer our critics directly.
I would like to thank Jetsetter, who is a genuine customer of ours, for her valiant attempt at defending us. She was in our East London office booking a trip and offered to post something positive about us, apologies to all of you that believe we were "trying a crafty one" - I can assure you this was not the case.
Having read through every post on this blog several times I can see that out of 23 posts there are 4 genuine complaints - the other 19 posts are all comments and replies. As a business we sent over 60,000 customers to the 4 corners of the world in 2009, 22,000 of them from tickets to india, so let's get some perspective.... you have branded us "worst travel agent" based on 4 complaints.
Show me a company out there, regardless of size or brand, that doesn't have a small percentage of disgruntled customers, the old adage "you can't please all of the people all of the time" comes to mind. Are we perfect..NO, do we get it right all of the time..NO, are we a dishonest organisation out there just to rip off our customers..NO, do we take issues as discussed in this forum seriously..YES, will we review internal processes based on this..YES
If I could explain and clear up a few of the issues listed
1) ABTA - Is an association that aprox 5000 travel agents belong to. As a voluntary organization we could see no major benefit to us or our customers in becoming members. We are, however, holders of a Civil Aviation issued ATOL license, our license number is 5092 - please feel free to check the validity on the CAA website. ATOL licenses are not handed out to "bucket shops" or fly by night disreputable companies. ATOL offers our customers full financial protection in the unlikely event that we cannot cover our liabilities, it is the only protection that a consumer need when booking travel. In short, your money is 100% safe when booking with tickets to india.
Furthermore we hold an IATA license and ticketing plates on all major airlines, again these are not things that are given out lightly or to disreputable companies or their owners.
2) We do not purposely advertise prices to India that are out of date. All airfares that we display come directly from our GDS provider (Global Distribution System) and are loaded directly by the Airlines. All fares are subject to availability and that availability when using an API application via the web comes from a cache that is aprox 96% accurate. The reason a cache is used is to stop every travel agent and every website and comparison website worldwide all hitting the airlines systems for every search which would certainly crash their systems. Occasionally the cache shows flights and costs that are not available, these drop into our back office system where we try our best to book the space as requested and quoted. We speak to the airline to see if we can get the space and we look for alternatives to offer the customer. If any customer is not happy with an alternative offering be it because of the airline, the route or any additional cost we offer a full and immediate refund. We are in discussion with our GDS provider regarding a fix for this issue and are sparing no time or resource in finding a workable solution. Developing an API application that works with every airline in all circumstances is very complex and I won't bore you with it now, but happy to answer any question any of you may have on the subject.
I would like to point out that we do not have backlogs in our system, the only thing that will slow us from issuing and dispatching confirmed bookings is when we are waiting for customers to supply us with documents, this is covered in the next point.
3) Accepting a credit card over the internet is a risky business for any retailer. In 2009 we were hit with £30,000 worth of friendly fraud. This is where someone buys a ticket, travels and then tells their card company that it was not their charge. £30,000 worth are the cases where we lost money, we also successfully prosecuted and won many cases simply because we could produce card copies to prove that the charge was legitimate. Unless we have proof absolute like this or you have entered your PIN number in our PDQ machine the banks will not guarantee our money. We have recently added 3D security to our site, if used we don't require card copies, however, many customers choose not to use this or someone else may be paying for their ticket (3rd party credit card). We ask for card copies when the travel date is imminent, where the address details provided do not match what the card company holds, for all 3rd party transactions and for overseas registered cards. We stipulate that the card number can be blanked out except for the last 4 digits; the details are stored securely on our server and destroyed once the time limit to reject a charge has been reached. Let's face it, if we wanted to get involved in card fraud with our customers cards, as one person intimated, we already have all of the details we need in order to issue your ticket, do you think we would go to the trouble of collecting a copy as well.
We do specify in our terms and conditions what documents we require, why and when we require them. Unfortunately we have all become accustomed to ticking YES I have read and understood the T&C's without actually reading them.
I can assure you all that asking for card copies is for your protection as much as for ours, we have rejected many many sales where the card being supplied was being used fraudulently. We look forward to the day when someone can come up with a fool proof way of protecting both the consumer and the retailer from online fraud.
4) We have been contacted by trading standards in the past who have been 100% satisfied with our practices and explanations to certain issues.
To any of our customers out there that feel we have provided you with bad customer service and don't care, please accept my sincere apologies, we certainly do care. We take our business seriously and we are in it for the long haul, we do realise that ripping customers off is a sure fire way of going out of business fast, hence we don't do it.
Customer service is by nature heterogeneous and whilst we strive to provide excellent customer service, sometimes we get it wrong, but please be assured that all of your comments have been taken seriously and are being investigated and we will learn, change, train and continue to strive for perfection.
I am happy to blog on this site and answer any specific questions that you may have, for anyone who has outstanding issues you can contact us by e-mailing to customer-care@myvacations.co.uk I guarantee that you will get an answer.
Thank you for reading this and for the opportunity to respond.
My name is John and I am the Sales and Marketing Director for Tickets to India. I must say I was shocked when I read the posts on this forum and I would like to take the opportunity to answer our critics directly.
I would like to thank Jetsetter, who is a genuine customer of ours, for her valiant attempt at defending us. She was in our East London office booking a trip and offered to post something positive about us, apologies to all of you that believe we were "trying a crafty one" - I can assure you this was not the case.
Having read through every post on this blog several times I can see that out of 23 posts there are 4 genuine complaints - the other 19 posts are all comments and replies. As a business we sent over 60,000 customers to the 4 corners of the world in 2009, 22,000 of them from tickets to india, so let's get some perspective.... you have branded us "worst travel agent" based on 4 complaints.
Show me a company out there, regardless of size or brand, that doesn't have a small percentage of disgruntled customers, the old adage "you can't please all of the people all of the time" comes to mind. Are we perfect..NO, do we get it right all of the time..NO, are we a dishonest organisation out there just to rip off our customers..NO, do we take issues as discussed in this forum seriously..YES, will we review internal processes based on this..YES
If I could explain and clear up a few of the issues listed
1) ABTA - Is an association that aprox 5000 travel agents belong to. As a voluntary organization we could see no major benefit to us or our customers in becoming members. We are, however, holders of a Civil Aviation issued ATOL license, our license number is 5092 - please feel free to check the validity on the CAA website. ATOL licenses are not handed out to "bucket shops" or fly by night disreputable companies. ATOL offers our customers full financial protection in the unlikely event that we cannot cover our liabilities, it is the only protection that a consumer need when booking travel. In short, your money is 100% safe when booking with tickets to india.
Furthermore we hold an IATA license and ticketing plates on all major airlines, again these are not things that are given out lightly or to disreputable companies or their owners.
2) We do not purposely advertise prices to India that are out of date. All airfares that we display come directly from our GDS provider (Global Distribution System) and are loaded directly by the Airlines. All fares are subject to availability and that availability when using an API application via the web comes from a cache that is aprox 96% accurate. The reason a cache is used is to stop every travel agent and every website and comparison website worldwide all hitting the airlines systems for every search which would certainly crash their systems. Occasionally the cache shows flights and costs that are not available, these drop into our back office system where we try our best to book the space as requested and quoted. We speak to the airline to see if we can get the space and we look for alternatives to offer the customer. If any customer is not happy with an alternative offering be it because of the airline, the route or any additional cost we offer a full and immediate refund. We are in discussion with our GDS provider regarding a fix for this issue and are sparing no time or resource in finding a workable solution. Developing an API application that works with every airline in all circumstances is very complex and I won't bore you with it now, but happy to answer any question any of you may have on the subject.
I would like to point out that we do not have backlogs in our system, the only thing that will slow us from issuing and dispatching confirmed bookings is when we are waiting for customers to supply us with documents, this is covered in the next point.
3) Accepting a credit card over the internet is a risky business for any retailer. In 2009 we were hit with £30,000 worth of friendly fraud. This is where someone buys a ticket, travels and then tells their card company that it was not their charge. £30,000 worth are the cases where we lost money, we also successfully prosecuted and won many cases simply because we could produce card copies to prove that the charge was legitimate. Unless we have proof absolute like this or you have entered your PIN number in our PDQ machine the banks will not guarantee our money. We have recently added 3D security to our site, if used we don't require card copies, however, many customers choose not to use this or someone else may be paying for their ticket (3rd party credit card). We ask for card copies when the travel date is imminent, where the address details provided do not match what the card company holds, for all 3rd party transactions and for overseas registered cards. We stipulate that the card number can be blanked out except for the last 4 digits; the details are stored securely on our server and destroyed once the time limit to reject a charge has been reached. Let's face it, if we wanted to get involved in card fraud with our customers cards, as one person intimated, we already have all of the details we need in order to issue your ticket, do you think we would go to the trouble of collecting a copy as well.
We do specify in our terms and conditions what documents we require, why and when we require them. Unfortunately we have all become accustomed to ticking YES I have read and understood the T&C's without actually reading them.
I can assure you all that asking for card copies is for your protection as much as for ours, we have rejected many many sales where the card being supplied was being used fraudulently. We look forward to the day when someone can come up with a fool proof way of protecting both the consumer and the retailer from online fraud.
4) We have been contacted by trading standards in the past who have been 100% satisfied with our practices and explanations to certain issues.
To any of our customers out there that feel we have provided you with bad customer service and don't care, please accept my sincere apologies, we certainly do care. We take our business seriously and we are in it for the long haul, we do realise that ripping customers off is a sure fire way of going out of business fast, hence we don't do it.
Customer service is by nature heterogeneous and whilst we strive to provide excellent customer service, sometimes we get it wrong, but please be assured that all of your comments have been taken seriously and are being investigated and we will learn, change, train and continue to strive for perfection.
I am happy to blog on this site and answer any specific questions that you may have, for anyone who has outstanding issues you can contact us by e-mailing to customer-care@myvacations.co.uk I guarantee that you will get an answer.
Thank you for reading this and for the opportunity to respond.
a very interesting [but correct] use of a word i have not seen for years , [fr greek ] a basic modern variant would be ...having many different parts/componentsheterogeneous
yasus
wizard
WARNING. Do yourself a favour and stay away from this company. It looks cheap, but with the highly unprofessional and rude staff the possibility that something goes wrong is very very likely. Just only read the reviews below. Once you have paid, the company dissappears. They don't answer emails, telephone, nothing. My advice is to pay a bit more and therefore save a lot of money in the end.
Mark2.... as you can see I am here, I'm not running away..if you have an issue contact me through customer-care@myvacations.co.uk
Could I ask that an administrator from HT contact me as soon as possible ... you have my e-mail address from my registration
Could I ask that an administrator from HT contact me as soon as possible ... you have my e-mail address from my registration
Dear TicketstoIndia,
Thank you for the fast reply.
I already sent my issue to customer-care@ticketstoindia.co.uk last weeks, and some other people in your company, but nobody replies or when someone replies nobody is willing to solve the issue.
Thank you for the fast reply.
I already sent my issue to customer-care@ticketstoindia.co.uk last weeks, and some other people in your company, but nobody replies or when someone replies nobody is willing to solve the issue.
Don't know what others think but I feel HT is being used here for a personal attack rather than a constructive post. TFI has posted a reasonable reply/explanation and made an offer of assistance. Getting TOs and agents to come onto HT in this way shows how influential this forum is and how serious it is taken.
If someone has a genuine complaint then post the details but for all to see, but it is not a platform for a rant, or a means of getting support for campaigns and dubious undefined allegations.
fwh
If someone has a genuine complaint then post the details but for all to see, but it is not a platform for a rant, or a means of getting support for campaigns and dubious undefined allegations.
fwh
Hi FWH, Believe me, people don't spend their time to use HT as a personal attack. Apparantly many people suffered form the bad service that this company provides. I cannot speak for other people and I really would like to have companies like TicketstoIndia because indeed they seem to have excellent deals. But my own experience is very very bad. I tried to solve my problems in a descent way, but untill now the company doesn't seem to be interested in solving my case. The "offer for assistence" isn't been offered to me by the company. As far as your reply concerns, it is better for agents to provide good service in advance rather than trying to solve it afterwards. And FYI, if they solve(d) my case properly I am also very willing to ventilate that in this forum as well. I have better things to do than just complain.
Mark2.. If you would like to re-submit your issue to me via customer-care@myvacations.co.uk and add in the subject "Please forward e-mail to John P" I will personally look into this and reply to you directly.
Email to this affect also sent.
Again I sent my complaints to customer-care@myvacations.co.uk and still nobody contacted me. I didn't hear anything yet from the mysterious Mr John P. Perhaps they have too many complaints that they don't know whom to respond first?
I think it shouldn't be too difficult to at least contact your "customers" with problems when they ask for it.
It is not over yet because I still want my problems to be solved but never never again.
I think it shouldn't be too difficult to at least contact your "customers" with problems when they ask for it.
It is not over yet because I still want my problems to be solved but never never again.
-
Edited by
Glynis HT Admin
2010-02-17 20:57:23
Edit to remove paragraph.
This is a message for Mailbuk who opened this thread in July. You wrote that you reported your issue to Trading Standards. Could you please let us know on Holidaytruths.co.uk how it ended, so that other can learn from this. Were they able to help you? I also sent this week my issue to them but I am very curious if they can help me. Thanks.
mark2...I have not seen your e-mail as yet, I have been travelling and have not had access to e-mail.
I am happy to look into your issue if you are prepared to stop using this forum for your own personal crusaid.
I can answer your question regarding trading standards... yes we have been contacted by them and they are 100% satisfied
that we are operating honestly and with integrity.
I will reply to you outside of this forum once I have looked into your issue.
I am happy to look into your issue if you are prepared to stop using this forum for your own personal crusaid.
I can answer your question regarding trading standards... yes we have been contacted by them and they are 100% satisfied
that we are operating honestly and with integrity.
I will reply to you outside of this forum once I have looked into your issue.
Mark, I understand fully were you are coming from regards Tickets to India and after my own dreadful experience last summer, I will never ever use this company again. My problem was never resolved and in the end I gave up after writing numerous letters and sending several emails to them.
Trading Standards were very interested in Tickets to India when I told them how shabbily I had been treated. As far as I know they are monitoring there website frequently as they have a habit of advertising prices that dont exist or come up with some lame excuse as to why the prices are quickly "removed".
Only today I booked yet another flight to India, with a different company and a little bit more expensive than Tickets to India but at I dont need to worry about my sale not existing or prices mysteriously disappearing and not existing.
Here is a link to my previous posts from last summer:
http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=34100&p=1371875&hilit=tickets+to+india#p1371875
All the best I hope you get your problems sorted, although I wouldnt hold my breath waiting if I were you.
Trading Standards were very interested in Tickets to India when I told them how shabbily I had been treated. As far as I know they are monitoring there website frequently as they have a habit of advertising prices that dont exist or come up with some lame excuse as to why the prices are quickly "removed".
Only today I booked yet another flight to India, with a different company and a little bit more expensive than Tickets to India but at I dont need to worry about my sale not existing or prices mysteriously disappearing and not existing.
Here is a link to my previous posts from last summer:
http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=34100&p=1371875&hilit=tickets+to+india#p1371875
All the best I hope you get your problems sorted, although I wouldnt hold my breath waiting if I were you.
Hello, I also had an issue with TicketstoIndia based on a misunderstanding. First I had some problems contacting the right person at this company, but due to this forum I also contacted John P through customer service. And I must say that he picked up my problem very quickly and that he solved it perfectly. In the end I had an excellent deal of three tickets form Heathrow to Chennai for 900 pounds. So if you have an issue with TicketstoIndia, contact John. So this time a positive feedback! Thanks.
Thats great to hear. If only we were all as lucky there wouldnt be all these problems.
Nice and convenient that you joined HT today, found this thread immediately, and managed to post in John/Tickets to Indias favour .........
Nice and convenient that you joined HT today, found this thread immediately, and managed to post in John/Tickets to Indias favour .........
Peter..was a pleasure helping you resolve, as you righly noted, a misunderstanding.
Mark2 I have still not received an e-mail from you, so how can I help ?
Gemma33... I can help to solve gennuine problems with our customers, I'm afraid I can't do anything for your Scepticism!
Mark2 I have still not received an e-mail from you, so how can I help ?
Gemma33... I can help to solve gennuine problems with our customers, I'm afraid I can't do anything for your Scepticism!
Hi, This is to inform you all that TicketstoIndia solved my issue properly. Thanks John
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