Bad Travel Agent in India for New Delhi - Agra trip

Navina Patel booked our travel for New Delhi & Agra vacation. Initially she booked us to visit Taj Mahal on Friday. We knew Taj is closed on that day, so we elected to rearrange our plans to visiting Taj on Saturday via Navina. We arrived into New Delhi on Thursday on time, found the Travel Agency driver who was excellent and the only saving grace for this trip. The driver stated in New Delhi that it will take us 5.5 hours to arrive into Agra i.e. ETA into Agra was 4:00 pm with one lunch stop.

The Guide in Agra did not call us. Driver had to call the Guide and pick him up. After all the marketing spill from the Guide (who was another disaster), he tells us that we will visit Taj tomorrow - what an idiot - he being the Guide does not know that the Taj closes on Friday and we had to manage his incompetency - we then proceeded to check into the hotel (at 3:45 pm), where we find out the Taj has been closed for 4 hours in the afternoon due to a dignitary visiting from from another country. We arrived in front of Taj at 4:45 pm with 1.25 hours to spare before official closing time and about a 1000 people waiting at the South gate entrance. At this point our Guide tells us that due to a rule that had passed that week prevented him from entering into the Taj with us. Needless to say we were quite frustrated by the this time. We entered the Taj about closing time and by the time we saw the tombs, it was pitch dark. This was our Taj trip!

When we spoke with Navina Patel at the Travel Agency, she was very rude, unprofessional, did not provide any discounts for the mess up, and asked us to provide our complaint in writing with no promises of what she will do with the information. She made it seem like she had done a huge favor for us by booking our travel. She clearly has never spoken with her driver to know that time it takes to drive from New Delhi to Agra. She raised her voice with me when we provided our feedback.

I WILL NEVER RECOMMEND DESTINATION HOLIDAYS FOR ANY TRAVEL.

Comment On This

Dear All

I am writing on behalf of the Management team of Destination Holidays-Gurgaon ,India and in respond to the Complaints posted by the couple based in the US...

We clearly "DENY" the allegations and the details mentioned there...We do apologise if the clients felt that the verbal conversation made by our partners were "LOUD"!!BUT....The Travel Arrangements were confirmed only after they were shared,discussed with them by Ms.Navina (not Patel!!) and their family member here in India/Mumbai.

-Their Travel to Agra was confirmed by them as per below details & COMMUNICATION SHARED.

-last minute hotel arrangements were made (during busy season here in India)/the cost for their extra trip to Mathura (from Agra) which they took without informing our office as well as their extra trip to Gurgaon us was also waved off . During siteseing tours in India , no tour operator takes the clients for dinner etc.after the scheduled itinarary till late night,As a special favour even that service was provided to them at no extra cost and the driver stood back till early hours!

UNQUOTE:

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From: Yogesh Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:24 PM

> To: Navina

> Hi

>

> Thanks for the update. I also had a request for an itinerary and

> bookings for a package for my sis. She wishes to have a trip to Agra to

> see the Taj Mahal and in addition spend one day in Delhi sight seeing.

> They are totally 3 of them

> residents of the United States are down in Mumbai for their vacation.

>

> They wish to do a 3N/4D trip for the above towards the end of next week.

> Saturday they would ideally like to spend at our cousins in Delhi so

> Agra has to happen before that and ideally they should be on their

> flight back to mumbai on sunday. If you can work out an itinerary. They

> will need the following:

>

> - Air Tickets to and fro Mumbai to Delhi

> - Airport transfers at Delhi

> - Car for a road trip to Agra and back

> - One night stay at Agra in a decent accomodation. Clean sanitation is

> the primary requirement

> - Car at Delhi for local travel and sight seeing

>

> Kindly work out the same at the earliest and share with me.

Next mail�

Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:50 PM

Subject: Re: FW: Change of address/Tel -update.

>

>

> The 2 options for dates are either from Feb 7-10 (ideal) else Feb 8-11

> (2nd option).

>

We Recommended

Kindly advise if the following travel plan is ok so that I can go ahead

> and give you the cost accordingly.

>

> 7 feb flight bom to delhi S2 106 07FEB BOMDEL 0650 0845.delhi

> site seeing same day.(pls advise if they will go to their

> hotel/accommodation in delhi first and then go for site seeing.pls

> advise the address in delhi too)

>

> 8 feb : delhi to agra /over night at agra

>

> 9 feb : back to delhi...( 2 full days in Agra for site seeing)

> 10 feb: flight delhi to Bombay S2 105 10FEB DELBOM 1555 1750

Reply�..was

Subject: Re: trip to delhi/agra

Hi

This seems fine. Except for 2 changes. They would do the agra trip on THURSDAY immediately after they land and come back to delhi on fri. Sight

seeing wld happen on SATURDAY. The agra hotel budget is fine. Pl ensure it

is a good hotel with decent choice of veg n non veg food. The return

flt on sun is at the moment at 1550 hrs. Is thre an earlier option?

Say around 1300hrs?

Leme know the final total cost. Incase of any clarifications just call

me as I will not be accessing emails often.

TKS

We replied

>

>

> Dear SIR

Please find below the details

7 feb arrival by S2 106 07FEB BOMDEL 0650 0845. Pickup from the airport and drive straight to Agra..overnight at Agra.

(Agra is normally a one day trip and the guests had half a day with them to visit the Taj)

8 feb Drive back to Delhi

9 feb.. Delhi site seeing

10 feb drop at domestic airport. Deptt by IT 212 10FEB DELBLR 1510 1740

12feb deptt from Bangalore to Bombay by IT 104 12FEB BLRBOM 0900 1030