Blacklisted travel agencies

Just returned with my husband from a tour to Sri Lanka, organized by the travel agency "Azbuka Travel", located in St. Petersburg. Tourists, if you do not want troubles during your vacation, then do not contact this travel agency ever. With their attitude towards customers, the number of mistakes and changes made at the last moment to the tour, which no one bothered to report, the employees of this travel agency cross out all the desire to contact them at least once again. I'll start in order:

1. I purchased a tour to Sri Lanka for 8 nights / 9 days with a three-day excursion program and a vacation on the ocean + I additionally paid for an extension for another 4 days of vacation at the sea. The duration of the trip under the contract should have been from March 24, 2012 to April 05, 2012 and should have been 12 nights / 13 days.

2. About five days before the start of the tour, I started calling the travel agency to find out when it would be possible to get hotel vouchers, insurance and plane tickets.

The only manager who deals with this direction is Elena Yuryevna (I never found out her last name). When I called the office, they answered me all day that Elena Yuryevna was not there, so that I called her mobile, but her mobile was either turned off, or she simply did not pick it up. Those. it was practically impossible to get through to her, and the office staff did not give consultations. When I finally got through to her three days before the start of the trip, she assured me that everything would be in order and that all the documents would be handed out on the eve of the trip on March 23, 2012.

3. On Friday, March 23 at 4 pm (I remind you that we were supposed to fly away on March 24 at 11.45 am), some Marina called me on my mobile, introducing herself as an employee of a travel agency, and said that due to problems with the air carrier, my tour was postponed APPROXIMATELY for 4 days and besides, it is also REDUCED by 2-3 days.

I was shocked and rushed to call the tour company back to double-check this information, but as always in the office no one knew anything, and the manager Elena Yuryevna did not answer the mobile phone. In the evening after work, I rushed to the tour company to try to find out at least something.

4. When I arrived there, fortunately for me, Elena Yurievna was there and began to explain to me that the air carrier "Svit Avia", which the whole group was supposed to fly, had some financial difficulties, and that the travel agency was looking for other airlines, and because for this, all the dates of the trip are postponed, and she offered me a trip from March 28, 2012, but on the condition that the duration of the stay at sea should be reduced by 2 nights, because. They do not have return tickets for the dates I need. I had nowhere to go, I had to sign an additional agreement to the contract for the duration of the trip from March 28, 2012 to April 7, 2012 (i.e.

for 10 nights / 11 days) with a refund within 3 banking days of money for 2 days of additional rest, which I had previously paid (they refused to give out in cash, they said to wait for receipts to the account indicated by me).

5. Another surprise was the information that due to the postponement of the trip, the hotel is changing and the excursion program is being reduced. She said about the hotel that, supposedly, there were a lot of bad reviews from tourists (the *** The Nature hotel in Tangalle was originally planned) and this despite the fact that when I bought a tour I was given 5 pages of reviews to read, in which, of course, there were only positive reviews), but she assured that the new LAGOON PARADISE BEACH RESORT hotel has a **** category and that it is much better than the previously announced one (I will write a separate review about this hotel, because

there were also enough unpleasant surprises), but, according to tourists, it has very bad dinners, and that she advises me to refuse half board, which I decided not to refuse in advance, but to navigate the area. Why the visit to the elephant nursery disappeared from the excursion program remained a mystery.

Thus, on Friday, March 23, I was given only insurance for the new travel dates and a voucher for hotel accommodation. To my question "When will there be certainty with tickets and when will I know the time of departure?quot; the manager replied that tickets would be sent to everyone by e-mail no earlier than Monday, March 26, because. neither on Saturday nor on Sunday the tour company does not work!!!!

6. Neither on Monday, March 26, nor on Tuesday, March 27, nothing came to the e-mail, on the phone, as always, the answer was one "Call the manager on mobile", the manager's mobile was unavailable.

I had to go on the evening of March 27 in the evening after work again to the tour company and find out whether we are still flying or something is changing again. The manager, who did not appear at the office before 17.00, printed out an electronic ticket and said that this time everything was definitely fine.

And we naive believed that the unpleasant surprises ended there.

7. Only at Pulkovo, when checking in for the flight, the whole group found out that we were flying not with one transfer through Dubai (as indicated in the electronic tickets), but who did. Of the 19 people, 4 people had a second transfer in the Maldives (where they spent almost 12 hours at the airport), 14 people - through the Indian airport in India.

Right at the reception desk, we tried once again to get through to Elena Yuryevna, whose phone, as always, did not answer. They got through to her only after sobbing and hysteria cut off all the phones in the office of the tour company, and apparently her colleagues passed on to her the information that the group had another problem. To all this, she said that “today she took a sick leave, so she couldn’t check her mail and was not aware that the tickets were changed again at the last moment.”

8. In general, one way or another, but we still got to Colombo, we were met there by the host. The manager asked me to give him vouchers for staying at the hotel, and then another surprise awaited me - it turned out that my voucher contains the type of food "Breakfast", and not "Breakfast + dinner" as I had previously paid for. I was told that I should find out this question on my own with my tour company, because. the receiving party is not aware of my payments.

And once again I tried to call Elena Yuryevna, whose phone this time was not just disconnected, but in general "The subscriber was not served." The office said that apparently the day before she talked so much on her mobile about our departure, that her mobile had run out of money and she was not available, but they promised to give her information, and advised her to verbally say that the manager "just made a little mistake when printing out vouchers". To my question, "How do you imagine it - I show a voucher in the hotel, in which "BB" is written in black and white, and in words I say that I have paid for "HB" will they immediately and unconditionally believe me? I was told that they would try to convey information to Elena Yuryevna, who was inaccessible to tourists. Apparently they still passed it on, because. two days later, confirmation of the paid dinners came to the host office.

On this, my adventures with the tour company seemed to have ended, apart from the fact that the refund promised to me within 3 days has not yet taken place (I will now do this upon my return from the trip), but they continued from other tourists of our group, many of whom also wanted to write their reviews upon their return. As far as I understood, that almost everyone was surprised by the fact that a few days before leaving Sri Lanka, the host reported that they had not paid for the last day (and for someone from the group and the last two days) of their stay at the hotel and asked our tourists on the spot to pay.

To the fair indignation of tourists that they had everything paid for and they could present documents, it was said that no information had been received from our tour company, so they would have to pay again, and upon arrival they advised them to deal with the tour company themselves and return their funds .

10. The conclusions that a group of 19 people made - never again contact the Azbuka Travel tour company.

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