Jan End
I was looking for a perfect destination to celebrate my first wedding anniversary. I shortlisted a few and and Dalhousie being one of them.
2nd Feb 2013
While roaming in the malls I filled a simple promotional coupon.
3rd Feb 2013
The morning started with a call,
Hello Sir I'm calling from Sterling Holidays, we had a lucky draw and your coupon came out and we are offering you a 2n/3d coupon and a few more free coupons as part of our promotional program for that you have to come to our office, go through a 45 mins presentation. Can we book a time slot for you?
I was like.... Ok madam, but can you please call after a couple of hours...
During next 3 hours I received two more such calls one each from Club Mahindra and Awesome Holidays.... As it was Sunday and we had nothing to do so we decided to go and pass time.... well a big mistake..
Presentation 1 - Sterling Holidays.... the 45 mins presentation stretched to 1.5 hrs and we had to pursuade them to finish it and let us go with our free coupons.... they finally let us...
Presentation 2 - Club Mahindra... the response I got was, Sorry Sir we wont be able to entertain you now as our target is achieved however fill this form and please collect your coupons after 30 mins....
We were like... THANK GOD....
Presentation 3 - Awesome Holidays ... we were a little tired and in no mood to go through the presentation however we tried to cut them short where ever we can so that we can leave at the earliest.... they started with 20 yr plan.... we didn't show any interest... then shift to a 5 year holiday plan which can be converted to 20 yr plan on maturity.... still no interest... and when we were about to leave they throw a lucrative deal... pay amount X and get a package for 3n/4d holiday anywhere in North India in any of our selected resorts under MAP plan + to and fro travel in 2nd AC in train (if required then we will book a tatkal ticket for you) or by Volvo bus. Package is valid for 1 year... we showed a little interest but still no.... ok...then 2 year validity... we cited the reason that it is still too costly..... they gave us 10% discount.. we said its still higher... they mentioned that take it in your wife's name and we can extend discount to 16%. We finally said yes....
and YES THAT WAS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE
During our discussion we also mentioned that we are planning to go to Dalhousie and most probably will use this coupon against that and they said that its fine. We paid the amount and finally left their office hoping for the best....
Hoping that now we don't have to worry about our trip..... well we couldn't be any more wrong...
We left their office with some hopes that were supposed to be crushed later....
10th Feb 2013
I send a mail to their reservation team with my tour itinerary.
No Response for 10 days..... After a few calls they finally awake and responded on 20th Feb asking for passenger details for reservations.
And then the horrible period beings, my numerous mails afterwards went unanswered. My numerous calls got same response as Sir, whats your package details, what do you need, sir this is not possible, we dont provide this, we dont provide that.... I have to keep on saying same thing again and again and pushing them to talk to the agent who sold that package to us on that fateful day....
We are suppose to leave on 16th April and by 14th April we didn't have a bloody clue where we will be staying or how we will be traveling...
When you call and raise your voice a little bit (I literally mean to raise the voice, not being abusive) the lady sitting there disconnects the call and switch offs the phone.
So finally on 15th we've finally received the details about our journey, as discussed during first meeting we were expecting nothing less than a 2nd AC Reservation ticket (unfortunately not possible at that time) or Volvo. But what we got... a 3rd Class AC bus to Pathankot (about 80kms from Dalhausie). The saving grace was the resort that they've booked. It was quite good. Even worse was our return journey. We were told catch the bus from a dhaba, 10 kms out of Phatankot and that too in late night at around 11.30. The bus was even worse, so called AC bus but it had windows open... people were smoking and well....
So ultimately the ordeal ended. During entire trip we ended up spending almost 2x amount of money to the trip that can be comfortably done if we plan entire trip on our own in about 1.5x.
Terrible experience dealing with not so AWESOME HOLIDAYS
I was looking for a perfect destination to celebrate my first wedding anniversary. I shortlisted a few and and Dalhousie being one of them.
2nd Feb 2013
While roaming in the malls I filled a simple promotional coupon.
3rd Feb 2013
The morning started with a call,
Hello Sir I'm calling from Sterling Holidays, we had a lucky draw and your coupon came out and we are offering you a 2n/3d coupon and a few more free coupons as part of our promotional program for that you have to come to our office, go through a 45 mins presentation. Can we book a time slot for you?
I was like.... Ok madam, but can you please call after a couple of hours...
During next 3 hours I received two more such calls one each from Club Mahindra and Awesome Holidays.... As it was Sunday and we had nothing to do so we decided to go and pass time.... well a big mistake..
Presentation 1 - Sterling Holidays.... the 45 mins presentation stretched to 1.5 hrs and we had to pursuade them to finish it and let us go with our free coupons.... they finally let us...
Presentation 2 - Club Mahindra... the response I got was, Sorry Sir we wont be able to entertain you now as our target is achieved however fill this form and please collect your coupons after 30 mins....
We were like... THANK GOD....
Presentation 3 - Awesome Holidays ... we were a little tired and in no mood to go through the presentation however we tried to cut them short where ever we can so that we can leave at the earliest.... they started with 20 yr plan.... we didn't show any interest... then shift to a 5 year holiday plan which can be converted to 20 yr plan on maturity.... still no interest... and when we were about to leave they throw a lucrative deal... pay amount X and get a package for 3n/4d holiday anywhere in North India in any of our selected resorts under MAP plan + to and fro travel in 2nd AC in train (if required then we will book a tatkal ticket for you) or by Volvo bus. Package is valid for 1 year... we showed a little interest but still no.... ok...then 2 year validity... we cited the reason that it is still too costly..... they gave us 10% discount.. we said its still higher... they mentioned that take it in your wife's name and we can extend discount to 16%. We finally said yes....
and YES THAT WAS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE
During our discussion we also mentioned that we are planning to go to Dalhousie and most probably will use this coupon against that and they said that its fine. We paid the amount and finally left their office hoping for the best....
Hoping that now we don't have to worry about our trip..... well we couldn't be any more wrong...
We left their office with some hopes that were supposed to be crushed later....
10th Feb 2013
I send a mail to their reservation team with my tour itinerary.
No Response for 10 days..... After a few calls they finally awake and responded on 20th Feb asking for passenger details for reservations.
And then the horrible period beings, my numerous mails afterwards went unanswered. My numerous calls got same response as Sir, whats your package details, what do you need, sir this is not possible, we dont provide this, we dont provide that.... I have to keep on saying same thing again and again and pushing them to talk to the agent who sold that package to us on that fateful day....
We are suppose to leave on 16th April and by 14th April we didn't have a bloody clue where we will be staying or how we will be traveling...
When you call and raise your voice a little bit (I literally mean to raise the voice, not being abusive) the lady sitting there disconnects the call and switch offs the phone.
So finally on 15th we've finally received the details about our journey, as discussed during first meeting we were expecting nothing less than a 2nd AC Reservation ticket (unfortunately not possible at that time) or Volvo. But what we got... a 3rd Class AC bus to Pathankot (about 80kms from Dalhausie). The saving grace was the resort that they've booked. It was quite good. Even worse was our return journey. We were told catch the bus from a dhaba, 10 kms out of Phatankot and that too in late night at around 11.30. The bus was even worse, so called AC bus but it had windows open... people were smoking and well....
So ultimately the ordeal ended. During entire trip we ended up spending almost 2x amount of money to the trip that can be comfortably done if we plan entire trip on our own in about 1.5x.
Terrible experience dealing with not so AWESOME HOLIDAYS
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