Garlic Holiday — garlic holiday - holiday package not delivered as per itinerary

Address:	Ernakulam, Kerala
Website:	www.andamantourtravel.com

I am writing in reference to how we were cheated and fooled by this company, garlic holidays on our recent trip to andaman which we started on 21st of december. This company is running a scam to first bring the customer on board making false promises, by agreeing to an itinerary, taking the first installment from the customer and later fooling the customer saying the facilities or hotels we selected are not available.

We finalized our trip with their agent miss greeshma (A highly incompetent person), on aug 14th, for our travel starting from 21st of december. We finalized the trip way in advance (Almost 4 months) so that we don’t have to worry about any arrangements closer to the trip and we can relax and enjoy the trip worry free. We were asked to pay 2000 advance to block the itinerary and we did pay the requested amount on the same day. Three days later miss greeshma called and asked for another 20k saying that one of the hotels we had requested (Megapode resort, port blair) needed to be booked paying full amount in advance or else we would not be able to book it. We did as requested and paid 20k. After that we assumed that everything would be taken care off.

Next, i called miss greeshma sometime in november to ask about the status of the bookings, she said she will call me back. After a couple of days, she told me that the hotel we requested in havelock is not available anymore and asked to change our booking to a different hotel, saying that we would get a deluxe room in the new hotel. Reluctantly, we agreed for the change (However out of the two categories of rooms we got the lower one). After another couple of days, she told me the hotel we requested in port blair is not available and asked to change it to a different hotel. This time i did not agree to the same and insisted on the same hotel. We were given a few new hotel names and out of which there was one hotel (Oceanus resort) to which i told a clear no. We also talked to mr. Arun (A highly irresponsible manager) regarding this and we got the same response. To my dismay and surprise when we got the hotel vouchers, we ended up in that same hotel which i had said clear and strict no to again and again. So basically, they took money for a 4-star property and you made us stay in oceanus resort which is a 2-star property. I don’t even want to go into the details of how bad that so called resort was.

We were told on the itinerary that our travel between the island will be on luxury cruise lines namely, makruzz. Out of three trips we got only one on makruzz and the other two were on a local cruise line called bhagya express, which was nothing compared to the other we were promised.

On 5th day of our trip we were supposed to travel back to port blair on a morning cruise, so we could finish visiting some landmarks of port blair. But that would mean giving us a trip on makruzz because they are the morning cruise lines from havelock to port blair.in an attempt to save their money, they gave us a late afternoon bhagya express ferry which brought us to port blair at 6pm in the evening. Due to which a whole day from our trip got wasted.

And last straw was when you threatened us on the first day of the trip, in port blair, that you will not continue our trip if we do not pay you the last payment of 20k. They had the audacity and guts to threaten us after they treated us so badly in terms of the planning of the trip.

So, the scam is that, first agree to whatever hotel the customer requests and, in the end, give only the hotels with which you have a b2b rate. Which we figured out after talking to the hotel people there. They do bulk bookings in these hotels way in advance and eventually direct all customers to these hotels because they have discounted rates here. They were never planning to give us those hotels and so the itinerary was just a joke and a document to fool the customer. And they very well know that as the dates are closer to the trip there is not much a customer can do.

I hold then accountable for all the mishaps which, in turn, spoiled our trip and gave us a lot of mental stress. They changed our hotels, they changed our ferries and wasted a whole day of our trip. We spent so much money on the trips and the last thing we wanted was to get this kind of treatment.

I sent them an email on jan 3rd request a partial refund and i did not get any response from their end. I gave them enough time for an explanation and a refund as guided by consumer forum guidelines. At this point i have no option but to register a complaint about the company.

Thanks and regards,
Rashmi kulkarni