Oct 24, 2018
Updated by parmo002 Dear Sir,
This is in reference to Yatra care response dated 22nd Oct 2018 in respect of my complaint. The point wise submission is as under:
1. As per our finding our team was in contact with you on call and email and assisted you.
Reply by Yatra dated 22/10/2018:
It is really demotivating and demoralizing to point out our customer's assistance when Mr Mehtani was practically on call with Mr Anand Goswami on daily basis during his trip. And issues were addressed and dealt on priority basis but if Mr Mehatni is not happy with our services, we apologize and promise to make improvement within ourselves
Our Response:
The response by Yatra care is not as per our submission. It is totally incorrect to say that we were in contact on daily basis with Mr. Goswami. During our stay at Bali and Singapore, we contacted Mr. Goswami only once on 13/07/2018 when we realized that the tickets of Luge & Skyride and Madame Tussauds were not sent to us. By simply admitting and apologizing on the deficiency of services does not compensate us for the mental agony we faced and depriving us to experience of both these activities by not providing the said tickets before our departure from India, as promised in the itinerary. Had the tickets been provided before leaving India, we would able to do all activities as promised by you in the itinerary.
2. As checked visa was handed over 7 day's prior to travel.
Reply by Yatra dated 22/10/2018:
Regarding VISA, there was some delay in the beginning. But when Operations Manager - Ms Rekha Nair hopped in to take care of Mr Mehtani's VISA's personally, at that point of time the guest was very happy. They were in discussion on daily basis over the call and through the messages. And as already explained many times, we have handed over the VISA's and passport 07 days prior to travel. Screenshot shared dated - October 05, 2018.
Our Response:
Thank God! Yatra Care had admitted that there was some delay in the beginning. As stated in my reply dated 10th Oct 2018, we faced immense agony and mental stress as no one guiding us properly and correctly for the formalities to be completed by us during the initial 7 days of our booking as we had paid the whole amount of the trip in advance and yet the tour operator was unable to guide us regarding the visa procedure. It was only when we sent a harsh email, the right personnel for guiding us regarding visa application process was allotted to us. Our complaint is for the mental stress and agony we faced during the first 7 days of booking which we should be compensated. The reply by Yatra Care is silent on this aspect.
The whole point of booking a trip from a tour operator is that whole planning of the trip is the responsibility of the organising company and the customer does not have to face the trouble of booking various tickets on time at a reasonable price and completing visa formalities. But in this case, all the trouble was faced by us. We had to constantly communicate with Yatra to send the formalities for visa application on time, we had to remind them again and again to send the tickets of activities on time, even after so much pain taken by us, Yatra was deficient in all these services. Who can compensate for this deficiency in services which caused mental stress and agony as our hard earned money was at stake during the initial 7 days of Booking?
3. Hence Singapore flyer and river cruise was part of the sight-seen.
Our Response:
No response received from Yatra care on this aspect. Please refer our submission on 10th Oct 2018 on this aspect.
4. As checked attractions like Fountain of wealth, Suntec city etc were covered by you he next day and at the end, you were made to visit more places in Singapore than promised.
Reply by Yatra dated 22/10/2018:
Regarding Singapore City tour, it was sharing tour with bus coach full of people. As already explained, the attractions of City Tour can be changed or modified and they only have photo-stops. We have checked with supplier also. The City Tour could not consist of only Singapore Flyer or River Cruise only. And we have received no other complaint for any member of the SIN City Tour on that day. Singapore Flyer is the last point where the coach stops for the people to enjoy flyer which was again a photo-stop during the tour.
Furthermore, we have initiated an elaborated investigation for one more time for this specific issue which would take 7-10 days and we shall get back to you on
This specific point.
Our Response:
First of all, there were no photo-stops during the entire city tour except at Singapore flyer and River Boat cruise for which we were charged SGD 55 per person, and a Chocolate shop so as to enable the tourists to buy chocolates. The last stop was at Little India where we had lunch and after lunch our pickup for Sentosa Island was from Little India. The bus did not stop at any other point apart from these mentioned stops. This was also pointed out to Mr Anand through whatsapp chat. Are we supposed to take photographs from a moving bus? If we just wanted photographs we could have downloaded them from the internet. Why spend so much money to go to Singapore and not being able to visit the places in person?
5. . Luge and Sky ride team accepted their miss and offered actual ticket refund and compensation and regarding Madamme Tussads + IOS live with Universal Studios our team offered you the refund as it was difficult to cover places in one day but same was denied.
Reply by Yatra dated 22/10/2018:
This was already accepted and we have approved the refund for Luge & Skyride. It was already advised to the guests that Madamme Tussads can not be covered with Full Day Universal Studios. But since the guest was very insistent that they need tickets, we shared it with them. All these conversations happened at the end of the day. Had we been informed regarding the same during the trip, we would have given the tickets during their tour. The date mentioned by the guest to prove our intentional error is an Open Dated Ticket. It was booked the same day same time when guests asked for the tickets for the next day, opposite to advise given by Anand as the time was not adequate enough to cover both the places. Later on when guest reached there and could not cover activities, the guest realized that Anand was right and the refund was a better option which unfortunately had become null and void now since the tickets were already given to the guests. The refund was offered due to professional courtesy in order to avoid more wastage of time. However, for Luge & Skyride, we will refund the amount of 22 SGD per person.
According to the last conference call with Yatra, Anand and Mr Mehtani, Mr Mehtani repeatedly insisted that major concern was the delay in Visa only and nothing apart from that was important to him. Since VISA was delivered on time and it did not hamper the holiday in any way, this issue is resolved and the guest was happy and satisfied after receiving the VISA. So this is resolved already.
According to us, the only concern which needs to be addressed is point no 4 and will revert according to the time frame given above.
As per now, the approved refund is of SGD 22 X 4 = SGD 88 which will be refunded once Mr Mehtani share his bank account details
We all know there is nothing anyone did intentionally to hamper the experience of the customer and even the customer was been happy until he returned home. Please share the resolution with him and advise the further course of action for us.
Our Response:
You had already accepted that the tickets of Luge & Sky ride are a miss even before my complaint was lodged with the Consumer Forum. I disagree with the contention given in the reply that I realized that Mr Anand was right and the refund was a better option. This is totally wrong as no refund was offered during conversation. If that was so, even then I would refuse the same. I need specific answer from Yatra Care on the followings:
a) Does a tourist plan a vacation to get refund of all activities which are not provided by the tour operator? If a tourist has spent so much money on visiting a foreign country he will try to visit all the attractions he was promised at the time of booking as possible as it is unlikely that he will visit the same country again. It's wrong to put the blame on the customer that he was advised against visiting Madame Tussauds due to shortage of time. Yatra and Reasonable check-in are responsible for landing us in such a situation where we have to chose between visiting a once in a lifetime tourist attraction or taking back the refund for the activity which was deliberately not provided by the tour operator.
b) Can this small amount compensate us for the huge expenditure incurred by us out of our hard earned money by depriving us from these attractions during the Holiday Trip?
c) Do you expect all your tourists to visit a foreign country again and spend huge money to see these left out attractions for the fault of the Tour operator?
d) Why were the tickets of Madame Tussauds not sent to us in advance and whose fault is there in the delay due to which we were ultimately unable to visit the attraction? Is it not obligatory on the part of Tour Operator to send all the tickets as promised in the itinerary before start of the trip from India? This behaviour of the tour operator depicts their intention to save money by not sending all the tickets before the start of the trip as few of their customers might not point out the lapse in services.
e) The ticket of Madame Tussauds sent to us has a purchase date mentioned on it as 27/06/2018 while you are saying the ticket was booked on 13/07/2018 after we pointed out that we haven’t received the ticket. In either case, the fault lies with the tour operator. If the ticket was booked on 27/06/2018 the ticket should have been sent to us well in advance of our tour and if the ticket was booked on 13/07/2018 why the same date is not mentioned on the ticket and was the tour operator not responsible for the delay even after explicitly mentioning tickets of Madame Tussauds in the inclusions package of our trip? The ticket has a validity of 6 months and the ticket is still valid. It’s reasonable to say that the tour operator would not have incurred a loss with respect to these tickets as they would have utilised it with some other guest as we have not used the tickets till now.
f) Is there no delay on your part in sending us the formalities which caused mental stress and agony to us and also is there no delay on your part in providing the tickets of activities which were received by us after reaching Singapore while the same was promised to be sent to us “3-5 days before the start of our trip”?
I don’t understand how you can say that we were happy until we returned home. The bad experiences faced by us abroad can only be overcome by visiting the places which were intentionally deprived to us on our trip by the tour operator.
Regards,
Parmod Kumar Mehtani
Simultaneously I am calling the yatra help line number but no one is there to attend calls for rail booking
Regret the inconvenience you have gone through. Request you to please share the registered email ID along with the transaction date and amount to enable us to assist you.
Thanks, Yatra Care.