Gemma33... I can help to solve gennuine problems with our customers, I'm afraid I can't do anything for your Scepticism!
John if you would care to take the time to read the link that I posted it will clearly tell you about the dreadful problems I encountered with this atrocious company last July. As I say problem was never resolved, no replies to emails, letters, phone calls etc etc, the list is endless. In the end I gave up, but made sure Trading Standards in Scotland were fully aware of the situation, and all details were forwarded to their branch in Essex. So at least I have the peace of mind knowing that they are under the watchful eye of Trading Standards, even to this day.
Ive been to India many, many times and have met lots of people doing this and ive made them more than aware of how Tickets to India operate so zero business from anyone I know and I will continue to let people know (if necessary) how this company operates.
Peter its quite hard to "find" and "follow" threads when you are not a member. Unfortunately your story doesnt wash wish me. I am sure you are a member of staff at Tickets to India but posting from home, ie the different IP address. But its doesnt interest me anyway, I am only telling you what I feel.
Pity John was "invented" until just recently, he would have saved people at lot of heartache and upset and worry. If he is so on the ball I dont know why my complaint and others werent forwarded to him as the problems occurred (internally by his own company). Speaking for myself I can only say I contacted them often enough and sent enough letters and emails!!!! Doesnt matter now, everything is fine and there are plenty more honest and reliable companies on the go. I just wouldnt anyone else to experience what I did.
Hi Gemma,
Sorry to hear about your problems, but I can assure that I am not working for Tickets to India, I am a Dutch resident.
As a non-member I googled Ticketstoindia.co.uk and in my google list this Holiday Truths thread is the third hit, so quite easy to find. Good luck, Peter
Sorry to hear about your problems, but I can assure that I am not working for Tickets to India, I am a Dutch resident.
As a non-member I googled Ticketstoindia.co.uk and in my google list this Holiday Truths thread is the third hit, so quite easy to find. Good luck, Peter
I can confirm that both PeterdeB & Mark 2 are posting from the Netherlands.
The internet is a fantastic tool, it puts so much information at our finger tip, unfortunately these types of blogs only showcase the exceptions to the rules. We don't go out to fool our customers or make them unhappy, as I said in my first blog show me a company no matter how large or well known the brand that doesn't have some aggrieved customers. Gemma, customer relations isn't my job, I don't see every e-mail that is sent to us and I certainly wasn't 'invented'. I picked this up with my marketing hat on to try and solve the 4 complaints that are registered on this blog because I believe in our product and I thought it was the right thing to do. It would appear that no matter what is said or done you will continue with your opinion and it would appear that I can't help you or change your mind. Anyone else that would like to contact me feel free by sending an e-mail to customer-care@myvacations.co.uk with a subject of PLEASE PASS TO JOHN P
The unfortunate thing is we very rarely hear from satisfied customers. On the few occasions we do it seems some people are intent on rubbishing them and suggesting it is a fix. John has joined a very select few travel providers who have come onto HT and offered assistance in resolving customer complaints. I would not expect him, or any of the others, to publicly comment on the queries raised. It is a matter to be resolved between them. There is also the Data Protection Act which limits how much information may disclosed.
Personally I would like to thank him and the others for their efforts. Having had many years experience in customer care it is reassuring to know that we do have people who who know what customer care is about.
fwh
Personally I would like to thank him and the others for their efforts. Having had many years experience in customer care it is reassuring to know that we do have people who who know what customer care is about.
fwh
Hi,
I have been a long term lurker on the forum and have found the collective wisdom of the posters here very helpful in the past. I have been charged by ticketstoindia.co.uk and was hoping for some advice on how to take things forward with them.
In short, my wife was caught up in the volcanic disruption in April and missed her outbound flight to India as a result. I subsequently paid a fortune (more than the original return ticket) for a one way ticket for her on Air India through ticketstoindia.co.uk. Unfortunately the flight was also cancelled due to the ash cloud but she eventually managed to fly out on her original ticket once flights resumed. I rang the Air India Office in Mumbai and cancelled the second ticket but was asked to contact my TA (ticketstoindia.co.uk) for a full refund. When I contacted ticketstoindia.co.uk for the refund I was told that the company would be deducting £ 50 from the price of the ticket towards 'admin charges' as the disruption was due to 'an act of god' and the company was perfectly entitled to recoup any charges incurred from its customers. I have since spoken to Air India and have been told that all travel agents will receive full refund for cancelled tickets from the airline and they should not deduct any admin charges. I have also spoken to Trading Standards who have told me that such a charge would appear to be disproportionate and possibly illegal under EU legislation.
Trading Standards have advised me to write to ticketstoindia.co.uk, but I think it would be pointless as on occasions when I have managed to speak to them, staff have been exceptionally rude and unhelpful and chances are any letter would immediately find itself in the dustbin.
I am considering going down the small claims route but what do other members think of my chances of success? Any other anecdotal evidence of TAs engaging in such practices in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption and what people have done about it?
Thanks in advance for your valuable suggestions and advice.
FiD
I have been a long term lurker on the forum and have found the collective wisdom of the posters here very helpful in the past. I have been charged by ticketstoindia.co.uk and was hoping for some advice on how to take things forward with them.
In short, my wife was caught up in the volcanic disruption in April and missed her outbound flight to India as a result. I subsequently paid a fortune (more than the original return ticket) for a one way ticket for her on Air India through ticketstoindia.co.uk. Unfortunately the flight was also cancelled due to the ash cloud but she eventually managed to fly out on her original ticket once flights resumed. I rang the Air India Office in Mumbai and cancelled the second ticket but was asked to contact my TA (ticketstoindia.co.uk) for a full refund. When I contacted ticketstoindia.co.uk for the refund I was told that the company would be deducting £ 50 from the price of the ticket towards 'admin charges' as the disruption was due to 'an act of god' and the company was perfectly entitled to recoup any charges incurred from its customers. I have since spoken to Air India and have been told that all travel agents will receive full refund for cancelled tickets from the airline and they should not deduct any admin charges. I have also spoken to Trading Standards who have told me that such a charge would appear to be disproportionate and possibly illegal under EU legislation.
Trading Standards have advised me to write to ticketstoindia.co.uk, but I think it would be pointless as on occasions when I have managed to speak to them, staff have been exceptionally rude and unhelpful and chances are any letter would immediately find itself in the dustbin.
I am considering going down the small claims route but what do other members think of my chances of success? Any other anecdotal evidence of TAs engaging in such practices in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption and what people have done about it?
Thanks in advance for your valuable suggestions and advice.
FiD
First problem is they don't seem to show T&Cs on their website.
Did you original invoice show a seperate booking charge? If so then they may have a case for keeping it whatever it was.
If you had old style IATA tickets it's hard to tell how much the actual price paid was, it's all coded in the corner, It's possible that they added a bit on to cover their costs and Air India have refunded the fare but don't know about the extra.
The important word in Trading Standards advice was disproportionate which is one way of saying that some charge may have been OK. So if you went to court you might be arguing over less than £50, maybe £30. I'm all for principals but how much is your time worth? Anyway, before you got to court you have to make reasonable efforts to resolve the problem and one of those is a letter by recorded delivery. Try the disproportionate angle and see if they will come down a bit. Any reasonable costs involved in these efforts can be added to a claim if you do go to court so keep receipts for postage.
Did you original invoice show a seperate booking charge? If so then they may have a case for keeping it whatever it was.
If you had old style IATA tickets it's hard to tell how much the actual price paid was, it's all coded in the corner, It's possible that they added a bit on to cover their costs and Air India have refunded the fare but don't know about the extra.
The important word in Trading Standards advice was disproportionate which is one way of saying that some charge may have been OK. So if you went to court you might be arguing over less than £50, maybe £30. I'm all for principals but how much is your time worth? Anyway, before you got to court you have to make reasonable efforts to resolve the problem and one of those is a letter by recorded delivery. Try the disproportionate angle and see if they will come down a bit. Any reasonable costs involved in these efforts can be added to a claim if you do go to court so keep receipts for postage.
Steve, thanks for your prompt response. I do not have a paper ticket and the e-ticket does not mention a separate booking fee. It instead gives a 'total price' and a 'cc fee', which in my case was 0 as I used my debit card.
In response to my query, ticketstoindia did send me their T&Cs (which may have been amended in light of the volcanic disruption) and it states:
(48) FORCE MAJEURE
We accept no responsibility for and shall not be liable in respect of any loss, damage or alteration, delay or changes arising from unusual and unforeseeable, circumstances beyond our control such as war or threat of war, civil action, industrial dispute including air traffic control disputes, terrorist activity, natural disaster, fire or adverse weather conditions, technical problems with transport, closure or congestion of airports or ports, cancellations of schedules by airlines. You can check the current position of any country by calling the Foreign and commonwealth Office's Travel Advice Unit on 0870 606 0290.
In the event of official warnings issued by the Foreign Office and/or airlines advising passengers not to fly to any specific destination, we shall act in accordance with guidelines issued by the airlines in question at the time. Options offered by airlines may include rescheduling for another date, credit note, transfer to an alternative destination or full refund less any administrative charges levied..
I believe the T&Cs refer to any penalties or charges levied by the airline itself and in my case Air India has made it clear that will be making a full refund to the company. Also, I am not holding ticketstoindia liable to any losses my wife suffered as the result of the cancellation (which ran into a few hundred pounds due to hotel, onward journey cancellations etc) but only asking them for a full refund of charges for a ticket my wife never used, in line with EU legislation in this regard.On the other hand, ticketstoindia is trying to hold me liable for their alleged admin charges related to the booking, which is grossly unfair.
Elsewhere in the T&Cs there is mention of the company's cancellation policy:
PLEASE NOTE: There is no automatic right to a refund. For every ticket returned to us for a refund, we shall charge a handling fee of £25.00 per ticket irrespective of the number of tickets returned to us. This administration fee is in addition to any cancellation charge made by the airline or agent as per their terms & conditions. When you return a ticket to us, we shall arrange for it to be presented to the respective airline/agent in consideration for eligibility for refund. It can take up to 12 weeks from the time the refund request is submitted for an airline to refund us following which we shall refund you.
If a recoverable air ticket refund is less than the above mentioned administration charge, the ticket will be deemed to be fully non-refundable.
This obviously relates to any cancellations made by customers and not flight cancellations by airlines where a full refund has been made. Also, the charge mentioned is £ 25 instead of the £ 50 ticketstoindia is trying to charge me.
I take your point about wasting time to recover what is a small amount but my guess is ticketstoindia is trying this on a lot of customers and its important that their attempts to profit from people's misery in this manner is challenged.
I think I will write to them in the first instance as you suggested but will be interested to hear from others who might have had similar difficulties in securing refunds from TAs.Having read the relevant EU legislation, it does state that passangers are entitled to a full refund but it does not clarify whether this includes admin charges (although commonsense would suggest that it should). I feel that the airline should make good any lost revenue of the TAs in such cases, instead of the latter attempting to extract it from passangers (or, as I suspect in ticketstoindia's case, trying to make extra money from cancellations).
In response to my query, ticketstoindia did send me their T&Cs (which may have been amended in light of the volcanic disruption) and it states:
(48) FORCE MAJEURE
We accept no responsibility for and shall not be liable in respect of any loss, damage or alteration, delay or changes arising from unusual and unforeseeable, circumstances beyond our control such as war or threat of war, civil action, industrial dispute including air traffic control disputes, terrorist activity, natural disaster, fire or adverse weather conditions, technical problems with transport, closure or congestion of airports or ports, cancellations of schedules by airlines. You can check the current position of any country by calling the Foreign and commonwealth Office's Travel Advice Unit on 0870 606 0290.
In the event of official warnings issued by the Foreign Office and/or airlines advising passengers not to fly to any specific destination, we shall act in accordance with guidelines issued by the airlines in question at the time. Options offered by airlines may include rescheduling for another date, credit note, transfer to an alternative destination or full refund less any administrative charges levied..
I believe the T&Cs refer to any penalties or charges levied by the airline itself and in my case Air India has made it clear that will be making a full refund to the company. Also, I am not holding ticketstoindia liable to any losses my wife suffered as the result of the cancellation (which ran into a few hundred pounds due to hotel, onward journey cancellations etc) but only asking them for a full refund of charges for a ticket my wife never used, in line with EU legislation in this regard.On the other hand, ticketstoindia is trying to hold me liable for their alleged admin charges related to the booking, which is grossly unfair.
Elsewhere in the T&Cs there is mention of the company's cancellation policy:
PLEASE NOTE: There is no automatic right to a refund. For every ticket returned to us for a refund, we shall charge a handling fee of £25.00 per ticket irrespective of the number of tickets returned to us. This administration fee is in addition to any cancellation charge made by the airline or agent as per their terms & conditions. When you return a ticket to us, we shall arrange for it to be presented to the respective airline/agent in consideration for eligibility for refund. It can take up to 12 weeks from the time the refund request is submitted for an airline to refund us following which we shall refund you.
If a recoverable air ticket refund is less than the above mentioned administration charge, the ticket will be deemed to be fully non-refundable.
This obviously relates to any cancellations made by customers and not flight cancellations by airlines where a full refund has been made. Also, the charge mentioned is £ 25 instead of the £ 50 ticketstoindia is trying to charge me.
I take your point about wasting time to recover what is a small amount but my guess is ticketstoindia is trying this on a lot of customers and its important that their attempts to profit from people's misery in this manner is challenged.
I think I will write to them in the first instance as you suggested but will be interested to hear from others who might have had similar difficulties in securing refunds from TAs.Having read the relevant EU legislation, it does state that passangers are entitled to a full refund but it does not clarify whether this includes admin charges (although commonsense would suggest that it should). I feel that the airline should make good any lost revenue of the TAs in such cases, instead of the latter attempting to extract it from passangers (or, as I suspect in ticketstoindia's case, trying to make extra money from cancellations).
the problem is it isn't obvious. But they clearly state £25 so they definately shouldn't be charging £50.This obviously relates to any cancellations made by customers
I'm not sure which EU regulation is being refered to, Air India would be liable under EC261/2004 to refund the fare (although they are not an EU airline this was a journey from the EU so is covered) but what we're dealing with here is an agent applying a handling charge for processing the refund for you. Clearly the agent has an expense here so did Air India cover that? And did they take back the agents commision when they refunded the ticket - in which case the agent has really lost out since they also had the expense of handling the original booking.
When you write say you don't accept the £50 charge and ask them to confirm where in the T&Cs this is allowed. If they say they made a mistake and it should be £25 you'll have to decide whether it's worth pressing for the rest - if they don't give an answer keep on for the lot!
Dear FiD,
I have just read your recent posts regarding your Air India ticket refund due to volcanic ash.
Tickets to India do charge an administration fee in these cases as we have to provide staff to a) re-book any existing travel arrangements and the b) process the refund of any non-required tickets. Through the ash cloud period we were not making new bookings, we spent a whole week refunding and rearranging travel. Whilst our revenue went down we still had to provide the same level of staff and incur the normal running costs of the business. Yes the airline refund the full fare to us and we reserve the right to charge an administration fee for our time and services, this is normal in any business. Unfortunately the airline do not cover us for anything, we are paid no commission for selling their product and are certainly not reimbursed for any losses due to cancellations.
We have not altered our T&C's, they are the same ones that all passengers booking on our site must tick to agree that they have read and accept, however, this unprecedented incident has prompted most travel companies to re-look at their T&C's, we shall also be releasing an updated version shortly.
I can't comment on your personal case and would not do so in a public arena, however, if you would like to e-mail me privately to (john@myvacations.co.uk) I will gladly look in to your booking and complaint.
Rgds John
I have just read your recent posts regarding your Air India ticket refund due to volcanic ash.
Tickets to India do charge an administration fee in these cases as we have to provide staff to a) re-book any existing travel arrangements and the b) process the refund of any non-required tickets. Through the ash cloud period we were not making new bookings, we spent a whole week refunding and rearranging travel. Whilst our revenue went down we still had to provide the same level of staff and incur the normal running costs of the business. Yes the airline refund the full fare to us and we reserve the right to charge an administration fee for our time and services, this is normal in any business. Unfortunately the airline do not cover us for anything, we are paid no commission for selling their product and are certainly not reimbursed for any losses due to cancellations.
We have not altered our T&C's, they are the same ones that all passengers booking on our site must tick to agree that they have read and accept, however, this unprecedented incident has prompted most travel companies to re-look at their T&C's, we shall also be releasing an updated version shortly.
I can't comment on your personal case and would not do so in a public arena, however, if you would like to e-mail me privately to (john@myvacations.co.uk) I will gladly look in to your booking and complaint.
Rgds John
Thank you for your helpful suggestions Steve and John. I have written to John as he suggested and am awaiting his response. Will update you if and when I hear back from him!
Thank you for your help John.
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Edited by
Indianewbie
2010-07-20 20:43:36
Hi Indianewbie.... firstly I think your comments are irresponsible and unfair. Why would I openly come on this forum and offer to sort out issues that customers have if we are, how did you put it "so dodgy". Dodgy companies are the ones that you can't get hold of when things go wrong, hopefully the more than satisfied customers that have all had their issues dealt with will testify for us.
When you click BOOK NOW on any website you enter into a contract to purchase, you cost the company concerned time & money, irrespective of whether a ticket has been issued or not... do you know how many people simply change their mind, or find a fare a few pounds cheaper else where and expect us to just say OK no problem, you committed to purchased a ticket, it cost us money to process but now you've changed your mind... it's ok we don't mind.... Get real ! this is a business with costs & responsibilities. As per your own post you changed your mind, after committing, because you read this forum.
We do not charge fee's just for the sake of it, your card payment didn't go through because your credit was declined, this is not our fault, you still made a booking, you agreed to the T&C's and now just because you have changed your mind you expect us to just say No Problem.
We take our business our reputation and our customers very seriously, as I have said before, do we always get it 100% right, no of course we don't but show me a company out there that does. What I do is provide my e-mail address on line and invite you to contact me direct to sort any misunderstandings out, so as you can see we try to get it right, would a "dodgy company" do this ?, however, when I see destructive and mindless posts like your, especially when you are at fault (and yes I do have a full audit trail of exactly what happened) I am loath to even want to help.
A last word to put the record straight, our telephone recording of your conversation clearly shows that you hung up on us... not the other way around.
When you click BOOK NOW on any website you enter into a contract to purchase, you cost the company concerned time & money, irrespective of whether a ticket has been issued or not... do you know how many people simply change their mind, or find a fare a few pounds cheaper else where and expect us to just say OK no problem, you committed to purchased a ticket, it cost us money to process but now you've changed your mind... it's ok we don't mind.... Get real ! this is a business with costs & responsibilities. As per your own post you changed your mind, after committing, because you read this forum.
We do not charge fee's just for the sake of it, your card payment didn't go through because your credit was declined, this is not our fault, you still made a booking, you agreed to the T&C's and now just because you have changed your mind you expect us to just say No Problem.
We take our business our reputation and our customers very seriously, as I have said before, do we always get it 100% right, no of course we don't but show me a company out there that does. What I do is provide my e-mail address on line and invite you to contact me direct to sort any misunderstandings out, so as you can see we try to get it right, would a "dodgy company" do this ?, however, when I see destructive and mindless posts like your, especially when you are at fault (and yes I do have a full audit trail of exactly what happened) I am loath to even want to help.
A last word to put the record straight, our telephone recording of your conversation clearly shows that you hung up on us... not the other way around.
Hi John thank you for getting back to me and resolving my issue. Many thanks
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Edited by
Indianewbie
2010-07-20 20:46:37
Hi Indianewbie,
My colleague did the correct thing and passed your e-mail to me to respond to, which I have responded to, I think a 2 hr window for a full response is rather tight.
The flow for an on-line booking is as follows....
You select the flights & price you require and click book, we offer a link for you to read our T&C which you have to ackn in a tick box that you have read and agreed to. A booking is then generated via our airline supplier provider (costs incurred by us). We then charge your card for the agreed value. When charging your card the charge was declined by your bank, we then contacted you to advise this at which stage you advised that you had changed your mind. You used a service and agreed the T&C's , a change of mind does not constitute a waiver of cancellation fees.
You have made some allegations against Tickets to India in a public arena that are simply not true, and this is unfair. If we make an error I am more than happy to put my hand up and admit it, and sort it out, in this instance we have made no error, you have committed to something and then have simply changed your mind.
My colleague did the correct thing and passed your e-mail to me to respond to, which I have responded to, I think a 2 hr window for a full response is rather tight.
The flow for an on-line booking is as follows....
You select the flights & price you require and click book, we offer a link for you to read our T&C which you have to ackn in a tick box that you have read and agreed to. A booking is then generated via our airline supplier provider (costs incurred by us). We then charge your card for the agreed value. When charging your card the charge was declined by your bank, we then contacted you to advise this at which stage you advised that you had changed your mind. You used a service and agreed the T&C's , a change of mind does not constitute a waiver of cancellation fees.
You have made some allegations against Tickets to India in a public arena that are simply not true, and this is unfair. If we make an error I am more than happy to put my hand up and admit it, and sort it out, in this instance we have made no error, you have committed to something and then have simply changed your mind.
I notice that Indianewbie has now edited both posts to remove details of the complaint, but also added a note to say that the matter has now been resolved. 
David
David
Ah yes tickets to india. Or as they are known on my credit card statement - my vacations.
Understand that my partner, first time to india, first tickets she booked herself and very worried about things going wrong.
Possibly the rudest people i have ever had the misfortune of talking to. Rude, obnoxious, they shout. Unable to clearly explain themselves to you or why things have not been emailed. So quick to take your money. This is just a taster of what i am considering to be sent to atol, abta and Virgin.
Sure the prices seem good but don't forget those hidden charges. A name change is £75 while virgin will only charge £30. £45 extra just to ad(d) in one letter in a name was missed. FYI - they can't spell Indian names. But hey that was our fault and I'll accept that.
But it's their attitude which annoys the hell out of me. Booked my ticket and was told that the e-ticket would come straight away. . . no it didn't. Kept phoning them for the whole weekend. Has it been booked - 'i don't know why it hasn't come through, i will send it straight away'. This is after two days of badgering them and losing my temper. Yes you can and please do check your phone logs cause i would love to use them as evidence. Escalated the problem to the supervisor. 'We are doing it now and it will be with you soon'. Okay - i say - but can you guarantee it does and if not will you give me a refund? 'sir it will be with you soon!'. 'we cannot guarantee'. Why not? 'We can not give a refund'. Why not? They took my money so quickly on a promise of instant tickets. By this point i'm getting angry especially with the reply 'do you trust me?'. Simple answer for tickets to India - eh - no. Then i understand why they have such poor customer relations, the manager; arrogant, rude and obnoxious. Who told me that if i wanted a refund it would cost me £200 even though they hadn't given me my tickets. What a joke. Then he hits me with 'it can take upto 72 hours to get you ticket to you!' Why did no one tell me this from the start. Why did it escalate to this. By the way, it took longer.
I confirmed with Virgin direct instead who said they had booked my ticket but didn't know why it was taking them so long to send to us. Funny hey.
Then the dreaded name change, literally one letter missing, but i'll accept that one as our fault and i accepted to pay the £75. Yet it still took them 2 weeks to do it after constant chasing. Why so long? Why did we have to chase? And why so expensive?
Then the best one, promised 46kg luggage 2 piece. Spoke to Virgin and they said we are only entitled to 23kg 1 piece. Strange but i do know that travel agents can sometimes offer more having used people like Southall travel.
Asked tickets to india to confirm, just send an email saying that both passengers are entitled to 46kg, as the ticket does not clearly show this, and i'd be happy just to keep my mrs happy. Promised and email after getting shouted by their rep, who also told me to confirm directly with the airline then asked why i kept phong virgin direct? Still haven't got one and waiting. Said she would phone back, as usual, in 5 minutes. Don't make promises you can't keep!
As you can guess my wife's upset and I've given up fighting now. but trust me if anything does mysteriously go wrong with my booking or they have in fact lied about the luggage then i will take them to small claims.
It's a massive shame, if they just worked on their customer service skills and were a bit more empathic, then i'm sure they would be a really good company. Also, being a fellow Indian (born in the UK) it annoys me as it typifies why people hate talking to Asian call centres, they just don't understand the British culture and manner.
Also, about the above response 'people only say things when they want to complain'. First things you learn in business, treat someone well and they'll tell a couple or few people. Treat them badly and they'll tell ten. Also, now we have the internet they want to warn decent people not to fall into the same trap. It's not a crime. But i really do wonder if tickets to india are operating with morales. Could be a watchdog special if enough people keep posting.
If you need help organising a customer service session then i'm more then happy to help. By the way i could have named names so people could be weary of certain reps but i'm not a horrible person, i just want things done right and politely. Plus this seems to be a company problem not individual one.
Also, any chance of getting copies of all my recorded conversations. I have a phone log with how much time was spent and a very good friend who can detect audio fraud. . . just in case the recordings are altered. But i shouldn't have to worry about that. . . should I?
Understand that my partner, first time to india, first tickets she booked herself and very worried about things going wrong.
Possibly the rudest people i have ever had the misfortune of talking to. Rude, obnoxious, they shout. Unable to clearly explain themselves to you or why things have not been emailed. So quick to take your money. This is just a taster of what i am considering to be sent to atol, abta and Virgin.
Sure the prices seem good but don't forget those hidden charges. A name change is £75 while virgin will only charge £30. £45 extra just to ad(d) in one letter in a name was missed. FYI - they can't spell Indian names. But hey that was our fault and I'll accept that.
But it's their attitude which annoys the hell out of me. Booked my ticket and was told that the e-ticket would come straight away. . . no it didn't. Kept phoning them for the whole weekend. Has it been booked - 'i don't know why it hasn't come through, i will send it straight away'. This is after two days of badgering them and losing my temper. Yes you can and please do check your phone logs cause i would love to use them as evidence. Escalated the problem to the supervisor. 'We are doing it now and it will be with you soon'. Okay - i say - but can you guarantee it does and if not will you give me a refund? 'sir it will be with you soon!'. 'we cannot guarantee'. Why not? 'We can not give a refund'. Why not? They took my money so quickly on a promise of instant tickets. By this point i'm getting angry especially with the reply 'do you trust me?'. Simple answer for tickets to India - eh - no. Then i understand why they have such poor customer relations, the manager; arrogant, rude and obnoxious. Who told me that if i wanted a refund it would cost me £200 even though they hadn't given me my tickets. What a joke. Then he hits me with 'it can take upto 72 hours to get you ticket to you!' Why did no one tell me this from the start. Why did it escalate to this. By the way, it took longer.
I confirmed with Virgin direct instead who said they had booked my ticket but didn't know why it was taking them so long to send to us. Funny hey.
Then the dreaded name change, literally one letter missing, but i'll accept that one as our fault and i accepted to pay the £75. Yet it still took them 2 weeks to do it after constant chasing. Why so long? Why did we have to chase? And why so expensive?
Then the best one, promised 46kg luggage 2 piece. Spoke to Virgin and they said we are only entitled to 23kg 1 piece. Strange but i do know that travel agents can sometimes offer more having used people like Southall travel.
Asked tickets to india to confirm, just send an email saying that both passengers are entitled to 46kg, as the ticket does not clearly show this, and i'd be happy just to keep my mrs happy. Promised and email after getting shouted by their rep, who also told me to confirm directly with the airline then asked why i kept phong virgin direct? Still haven't got one and waiting. Said she would phone back, as usual, in 5 minutes. Don't make promises you can't keep!
As you can guess my wife's upset and I've given up fighting now. but trust me if anything does mysteriously go wrong with my booking or they have in fact lied about the luggage then i will take them to small claims.
It's a massive shame, if they just worked on their customer service skills and were a bit more empathic, then i'm sure they would be a really good company. Also, being a fellow Indian (born in the UK) it annoys me as it typifies why people hate talking to Asian call centres, they just don't understand the British culture and manner.
Also, about the above response 'people only say things when they want to complain'. First things you learn in business, treat someone well and they'll tell a couple or few people. Treat them badly and they'll tell ten. Also, now we have the internet they want to warn decent people not to fall into the same trap. It's not a crime. But i really do wonder if tickets to india are operating with morales. Could be a watchdog special if enough people keep posting.
If you need help organising a customer service session then i'm more then happy to help. By the way i could have named names so people could be weary of certain reps but i'm not a horrible person, i just want things done right and politely. Plus this seems to be a company problem not individual one.
Also, any chance of getting copies of all my recorded conversations. I have a phone log with how much time was spent and a very good friend who can detect audio fraud. . . just in case the recordings are altered. But i shouldn't have to worry about that. . . should I?
Don't bother with Abta as I'm pretty sure they're not members. Since 25 November 2009 Virgin luggage allowance to India is 1 x 23 kgs in economy and 2 x 23 kgs in premium economy.
I know it's a bit late but why did you just not book direct with Virgin?
I know it's a bit late but why did you just not book direct with Virgin?
I wanted to but there are other asian agents that are good like indra and southall.
My mum phoned them up after watching one of the indian channels. They were only £15 cheaper then the ones my mum went for. told her to go with them but my mrs said go for the cheaper as we were making a saving. Not her fault and once we get the phone records we can prove that they were wrong. Although, they probably won't like to admit it.
My mum phoned them up after watching one of the indian channels. They were only £15 cheaper then the ones my mum went for. told her to go with them but my mrs said go for the cheaper as we were making a saving. Not her fault and once we get the phone records we can prove that they were wrong. Although, they probably won't like to admit it.
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