SUB: Cheating by Thomas Cook.
Ref: Summer 2018 Japanese Extravaganza – Tour Date : May 20, 2018
To clearly highlight what we feel and how we have been Cheated by Thomas Cook, I am sending you the details hoping that at CEO level something will be achieved.
1.Pre-sales : My pre-booking experience was horrific (so was with most other co-travelers).
After taking my money, your staff just disappeared. Never bothered to call or get in touch. I was the one who then called for Visa application. The visa was delivered on the last day before travel along with itinerary, hotel details and Insurance.
The reasons given were all lies. The person like Santosh (AVP South) or his staff did not even know how many people from Bangalore are on this tour. They kept telling me that Japan Consulate requires passports of all people together traveling in the group. I knew that only two more people were with us from Bangalore. But I was made to believe that there are many more and that delay in visa processing is due to some people not giving the passports on time. Complete Lie. Looks like lying is Thomas Cook culture. When we met the other couple from Bangalore, we were shocked to know that they had submitted their documents well in advance.
I kept asking the contact details of co-passengers with us from Bangalore. Your persons kept giving excuses for not giving us the details. Maybe trying to prevent us from knowing the facts and catching them in their act of lying.
During our pre-booking discussions we were told that this tour is a Premium Category tour and all hotels, bus etc will be 4*+ nothing less. I made it clear to the junior level executive Vishwanath, that I do not use hotels less than 5* so if the hotels are 3* or similar then I do not want to go. I was assured that ALL HOTELS were 4*+ and above. I also wanted to upgrade my air ticket to Business Class, but your people failed to do this. They lied to me again that they cannot make even seat booking and book me premium seats as well. Again lying thru their teeth.
I had made it clear in the pre-booking survey about all this, but I thought I should write to you again, wasting my time, since you are CEO and is responsible for the cheating of your customers.
2.Ticketing: We have to say that your people (UN-trained) have no clue about ticketing. The sales people act and are postman. They put the blame on Operations and back office. Maybe this is by design and management culture of Thomas Cook.
Our ticket routing was so bad that even a fresher with some decent training can do a better job. While going we had a huge lay-over at Singapore (7 hours). This was unwarranted as there were better connection possible.
While returning we were giiven a flight at 11.25PM on May 30th when many others got a flight at 11.25AM. Both were via singapore and had on ward connections to various cities in India. We were put up in the hotel without Lunch.
The connection to Bangalore from Singapore was also very poor. Less than the std 2.50 hours. Only one thing can be concluded : PATHETIC MANAGEMENT AND TRAINING WITH NO CARE FOR CUSTOMERS TIME AND COMFORT.
3.On-Tour: Bad. Very Bad.
Many of the group members have already written mails about this. You must have surely got copies of the same.
Hotels at three locations were very sub-standard. Infact they were like bag-packers lodges. This against assurance of 4*+ hotels to be provided. THIS IS NOTHING ELSE BUT CHEATING under IPC 420.
All other hotels except at Narita were less than 4*+ category hotels.
Bus : Not very good. Without wifi, rest-room and small seats. Any premium category tour, is provided with better buses with at least wifi. But then this is too much to expect from Thomas Cook, whose mission statement is Cheat people.
Meals : Your Itinerary indicated JYP 2500 per person will be given to us to have meal of our choice. Not done. Only JYP 2000 given once. What happened to other amount. We were not told about any change of plans and looks like Thomas Cook has pocketed our JYP 3000.00 per head.. Again cheating by Thomas Cook.
Breakfast : Do you know what is American Breakfast? This is what was to be provided. However sometimes breakfast provided was not good for even animals. Again Cheating by Thomas Cook.
Itinerary: You must have received mails about this from others in the group tour. To emphasize again, the itinerary was so poorly designed that we spent more than twice the amount of time in bus than doing site-seeing. Do you as CEO bother to look at these things or just only bothered about how to fool people and increase your stock value?
Local Guide: I feel there can be improvement in the quality of people provided for premium tours. We have seen much better / polished guides when using other service providers. But to expect this from Thomas Cook is asking for too much. The whole premise is to cheat people and make quick bucks.
We have paid a huge amount of money : Rs 275000.00 per person for this tour. Thomas Cook has no right to charge us this amount when they have not provided us with good hotels, meals, breakfast, bus, ticketing and itinerary.
We feel, ThomasCook should refund us Rs 30,000.00 per head for all the trouble that we were put thru, the agony that we had to go thru and for ruining our planned holiday plus JYP 3000.00 that we were supposed to get on tour, which have been stolen by Thomas Cook.
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