good to know

Alfa-Travel (hereinafter referred to as A-T)... We met this "nice" company at the end of November 2010, six months before the trip. We won one of the prizes in a lottery held by A-T representatives in public places in St. Petersburg. And in order to receive a prize, you need to come to the office, which is on Tchaikovsky Street, for a presentation of a family club holiday organized by this travel agency. My family is 4 people. Me, wife, two children aged 10 and 8. And we just planned a trip to Spain for the end of May or the beginning of June 2011. In a word, luck itself went into the hands and it was a sin to refuse the smile of fate. At the presentation, the managers amicably and colorfully outlined our future vacation and, of course, made up the budget for the trip. 4 star hotel! In the city of Santa Susanna, not far from Barcelona! Round-trip tickets for the whole family (St. Petersburg-Barcelona-St. Petersburg) for only 1200 euros! Blimey!

Also, airlines often have seasonal discounts, and then A-T will be happy to sell us these tickets at prices that are, well, simply ridiculous! Do you need visas? You are welcome ! Everything for our beloved customers! It became more and more obvious that the organization of a fabulous vacation for my family was in the most reliable hands. And these are the hands of managers of a glorious travel agency. It remains to find out the amount of payment for a two-week stay in a 4-star hotel of our choice. God, what a miracle! Today is a day that happens once in a lifetime. We won a free weekly stay for two in a hotel apartment! Wow! How lucky we got here! Well, it happens! Now only minor formalities would be settled - to sign an agreement and pay for hotel accommodation. Pay, of course, only the rest of the amount in addition to the free happy week.

One condition: you must pay today, as the last day of the presentation has come. And tomorrow it will be too late, no discounts and gifts will work. (Somewhat reminiscent of the fairy tale about Pinocchio. Remember, there was also this: “today is the last night when you can bury money in the field of miracles in ...” I think everyone knows the continuation of the phrase). The contract was signed, the requested amount was paid. They began to wait for an official invitation from the hotel, as a confirmation of readiness to receive us.

The first "bell" rang at the beginning of March 2011, when the manager Marina, who dealt with our contract, said that the transfer at the resort had risen in price, instead of 110 it became 180 euros. These guys are weird, I think. According to the information I collected on the Internet, it became clear that the transfer can be safely refused. The train from Barcelona to Santa Susanna runs every half an hour and its route runs along the picturesque Mediterranean coast.

The cost of an adult ticket is 3-4 euros. And getting to the railway station is not difficult at all, especially since there is some knowledge of the English language. Well, let them raise the cost of the transfer to their health. Such proximity to Barcelona allowed me to imagine the brightest prospects for interesting independent trips to one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

All the euphoria about the future vacation disappeared in the second half of March, when Marina sent an invitation to the hotel. The fact is that it was ... from another resort. Only the name was the same. 120 km from Barcelona, ​​3 stars instead of 4, no railway. And this meant that you couldn’t refuse a transfer, that you didn’t really travel to Barcelona, ​​that excursions would be rare and expensive. And the most unpleasant thing was that the mood changed radically to the expectation of the next surprises. This is what happened a little later.

In the meantime, it was necessary to quickly decide what to do - to take (or beat through the court) their money for accommodation, or hope for a chance. Marina declared what was happening an unfortunate misunderstanding, declared the complete impossibility of replacing the hotel with the one specified in the contract. Our holidays with my wife are already scheduled, the children are waiting for a trip to the sea. Starting over is risky. We decided not to raise a scandal. Perhaps in vain. Such things should be punished.

The next letter (e-mail) from A-T contained an offer for air tickets. A-T offered tickets for a CHARTER flight St. Petersburg-Barcelona-St. Petersburg for 2000 euros. In case someone does not know, I give the definition: “Charter flights are those that are not included in the main schedule. These are single flights. A distinctive feature and significant advantage of a charter flight is that the ticket price for a charter flight is two to three times lower than for a regular flight.

"I called A-T, asked a question on the topic "Where are the promised tickets for 1200 euros?quot;. Received, as expected, a laconic answer: “If you don’t like it, buy it yourself!” Of course not satisfied! Of course, myself! We go to the official website of the German airline LuftHansa (not a cheap company). We select the dates and times of the desired flights (St. Petersburg-Barcelona-St. Petersburg) round trip with an hour landing in Germany, indicating the number of passengers and their age groups. We get the final amount. You can pay right now and print your tickets if you have a VISA card with enough money. Not ? No problem, let's do it differently. We call the booking agency. The nearest one to my house is Soleans. By phone, we ask you to book the desired tickets, we promise to come and redeem them within an hour. That's it. An hour later I hold tickets for Lufthansa flights in my hands and realize that their cost is 20 thousand rubles.

less than the cost of "cheap" charter tickets from A-T.

Now it's up to visas. Shouldn't you call A-T? I remember that the service for their design for clients was joyfully announced during the presentation a few months ago. He is already sorting out a certain sports excitement - how much will they call there? And there is! 3800 rub. for each. Schengen. Finnish. And again the laconic “Not satisfied - do it yourself!” sounds. We are no longer surprised by this. Of course not satisfied! Of course, by yourself! It won't be any big deal. It is necessary to come to the visa center (for example, on Stremyannaya street) and submit application forms, passports and insurance. Pay there. There is no queue at all. A week later, you have to come again and pick up the finished documents. There is no queue again. What happened? About 2200 rubles. for one visa together with minimum insurances. Let someone explain for what kind of work A-T wants 1600 rubles on top. for each visa? For my family, the overpayment is 6400.

Or maybe all travel agencies do this? Let's check? We call the first at random from the directory. When asked about the cost of obtaining a visa, we get a clear answer: “We do it for our clients at the price of a visa center.”

In order to somehow mitigate the situation with “misunderstandings about the hotel”, our A-T manager named Marina agreed with the host to reduce the cost of the transfer to 110 euros. Say, an exception has been made for our family. Thanks Marina. This was, of course, good news. And what a coincidence - later, at the resort, from conversations with other families from other Russian cities, it became known that they paid the same 110, not 180 euros for the transfer.

So, there is only one item left that causes positive emotions at the mention of the name of the company A-T - a week of free accommodation won in the lottery.

Vague doubts forced me to try on my own or through some agency to request an invoice for payment in this particular hotel, in this particular type of apartment (type T-1) and precisely during these periods of stay. The "Amount Payable" on the invoice received completed the overall drawing on the theme of "divorce from A-T." It became clear that the money I paid a few months ago for accommodation was not an additional payment to the week won, but the full (100%) advance amount. Probably it’s not worth explaining what the mood of any person becomes when he realizes that he allowed someone to “hang noodles on their ears”.

In conclusion, I want to draw a general outline of the relationship between the resort and the travel agency. When A-T managers tell potential clients about “we have your personal guide working there” and “we have very good apartments there”, they are, to put it mildly, very cunning. There is nothing like "we" there.

Or rather, a working guide and apartments have nothing to do with A-T. Part of the hotel is owned by MTS (Multi Travel Club), registered in the Canary Islands. All working guides and managers of the MTS company are its full-time employees. MTS signed contracts for the supply of tourists with 300 travel agencies in Russia, including A-T. MTS really allocates free weeks to create more favorable conditions for increasing the flow of Russian tourists. And the A-T company is just impudently selling these weeks. When preparing a vacation, I wish everyone to remember the old wisdom about free cheese and more often ask the question “What the hell is a button accordion for a goat?”.

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