In this morning's Atlanta Journal Constitution, and in the reporter's own blog, is a story of a honeymoon gone bad. Ultimately, the client was made whole financially by the supplier, and YTB feels that shows how hard the "agent" worked for the client. Well, had the client booked with a legitimate travel agent, much of this would have been avoided.
- Rather than help a bride through the web, a real agent woudl have handled it.
- A real agent would have been checking on the status of the resort opening.
- A real agent would have made sure the replacement accomodations were equivalent.
- A real agent would have handled it while they were on property.
There are so many service failures involved I don't even know where to begin.
ReplyDeleteI think the most horrific part of this is that the rta took no responsibility for this at all. He had his wife call the hotel?? WTF is that? He blamed the whole thing on Travel Impressions?
The new hotel arrangements should have been made before the couple arrived, and the "agent" should have known how vastly different the two hotels are. I don't know why TI offered a refund. The refund should have come from the RTA who clearly failed to properly care for the client. I hope, at the very least, that TI recalled the commission.
Scratch Travel Impressions off my list of vendors. I won't do business with then because of their ties to YTB. Shame on Travel Impressions!
ReplyDeleteIMO, Travel Impressions should NOT have refunded the money. It should have come from YTB and the
"agent."
Sounds like TI did it to save face and look good in their hometown newspaper.
ReplyDeleteI can see refunding the land portion, but the air is the air and why should TI be penalized and DL be rewarded?
The fault lies squarely on the agent. With a new build, you MUST keep tabs (and not necessarily vendor tabs, but hotel direct tabs) on the construction. The client should have been warned weeks in advance that the agent's professional (not amatuer) opinion was that the resort might not be open. At least then you stand a chance for a favor from DL. But to let them fly knowing it is not open and then having them shuttled to the no-tel motel is exactly why these YTB people should not be in the business.
This couple now feels animosity to ALL agents because of one of the untrained agent wannabees that YTB puts out to the field. There are over 100000 of them!!!
And what is their host's response. Our agent did a great job because the client got all their money back. Well no thanks to you or the agent--TI only refunded the money when the press came calling. YTB you should be ashamed of yourself. What should have been one of the happiest trips of this couple's life is now a horrific memory thanks to you and Mr. MacVair, the retired guy just looking for a little coin.
TI's headquarters isn't even in Atlanta. I think it's in PA.
ReplyDeleteYTB should have stepped up and taken responsibility for this mess. If they had a MANDITORY training progam and didn't allow anyone with a freaking pulse to call themselves a travel agent stuff like this wouldn't happen. Had MacVair done his job, researched the hotel and traveled a bit himself, he would have known how vastly different these two hotels are. And rather than taking responsibility he blamed TI for the whole thing. Nice!
What is even more scary is this big recruiting push by YTB to line their pockets so they can pay their legal bills. YTB is again unleashing masses of untrained, uneducated "agents" on the consumer. Bet we see a lot more of this happening.
ReplyDeleteTravel Impressions should follow the lead of Royal Caribbean and others and stop doing business with YTB. Given their lack of training and business ethics it's only a matter of time before another YTBer exposes them to more liability.
ReplyDeleteI have worked with TI for years and from time to time there has been an issue with a resort suddenly not opening or in fact, closing for one of several reasons (hurricane damage being the most frequent). I have never had a problem reaccomodating my clients - why? Because as a TRAVEL PROFESSIONAL (a real one) I know what to do and how to go about it. I can assure you that with just one, perhaps two phone conversations with TI, my clients would have been appropriately reaccomodated. I do note one issue here, however, the above price is very low for a 5 or 6 Star resort in PUJ in anything but the lowest room category and I have to wonder what was going on here? The other issue is that the client booked herself on a link to TIs booking engine - who got the e-mail notification of change? The client or the so-called YTB Agent? Did this Bride buy TIs insurance? As for the air - they flew and so I am not sure that should have been refunded under any circumstances.....
ReplyDeleteReal CTA in MD
I think it's funny that all these so-called professionals proclaim that had they been the booking agent this couple would not have experienced such problems.
ReplyDeleteAbout 4 years back my husband and I went to Jamaica. We stayed at Sandal's in Ocho Rios. The resort was wonderful as was our vacation until the hurricane! Due to the hurricane the airport sustained damage and ultimately delays. On our day of departure we were told that our flight was leaving as scheduled and were sent to the airport. After spending about 12 hours in the airport the airline (Air Jamaica) finally admitted that we would not be flying out and shuttled all of us to the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort. This resort was filthy, who knows what splattered all over the walls in our room! It was disgusting to say the least. For three days we were given the run around from the airline; being told to meet in the lobby with our bags each morning only to be told there was no way we were going to get on a flight that day. We had no idea when we would be returning home and since my mother was watching our kids we ended up running up a $1000 phone bill with all the collect calls trying to update her on our status.
During this time I tried continuously to contact the travel agency that booked this trip for us to see if they could offer some assistance. The international number provided would not go through? Needless to say I was never able to reach anyone! When we finally got home I called the agency and asked if there was anything they could do to help us get some sort of reimbursement for the phone expenses we incurred. I felt that the airline should be held accountable since they are the ones who kept giving misinformation about our return. Had they just told us up-front that we would not be flying home until 3 days later I could have relayed that information in one phone call. I did finally get some restitution from the airline but only due to my own efforts. The travel agency did nothing to help!
In my experience there is no benefit in booking through a TTA. They aren't there when you need them anyway.
Looks like you don't know how to select a good agent. You are probably best to continue to work online.
ReplyDeleteSorry you got a stinker--you should have purchased insurance (it was hurricane season you know) and your expenses would have been handled. I assume you are talking about Ivan in 2004.
I am surprised you ended up at the HI Sunspree, and I am surprised at the condition as well, but I also had people at several Sandals resorts on the island and it was well known that the airport was shut down and the severity of the storm. Sandals was allowing all clients to remain there until the airport was reopened and the flights were CONFIRMED at no charge. You see, they had no other guests coming in.
Now if you insisted that you were different than the other few hundred thousand people in the same situation and refused to listen to reports and went to the airport, I might understand it.
We were told by the hotel to proceed to the airport, at that point it was reopened. Quite frankly I am insulted that you would insinuate we were not intelligent enough to confirm our flight before leaving. Trust me I would have preferred to stay at Sandals. The problem was with Air Jamaica. They were unable to handle the backlog and to make matters worse the plane we were supposed to be on was delayed at another airport and when it finally arrived, 10 hours or so later, there was some sort of mechanical problem, at which point they bussed us to HI Sunspree.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever personally stayed at this resort? Apparently not because if you had you would not be surprised at the condition. We asked to be returned to Sandals and were told that was not an option, you see they did have guests coming in at this point.
For 3 days we got the runaround from the airline. It was a mess. We tried to book with another airline but as you can imagine they were overbooked as well.
My point is that during this whole ordeal I was never once able to get through to the travel agency for assistance. As far as my ability to select a good agent you may be right! A good travel agent is very hard to find, that's why I book on-line.
I was not saying you did not reconfirm your flights, Sandlas was not transfering people to the airport until the flights were confirmed as operating.
ReplyDeleteSunspree is not the caliper of Sandals but the condition you describe does surprise me. It is a decent clean budget property that many families enjoy.
And you also need to realize that there is a big difference between botching up a honeymoon like this RTA did and having to deal with a Cat 5 hurricane that pummeled the island. The former was 99% (except the lost bags) preventable. The latter, not so much!