Jeffrey Semple
2/5
Met with Scott McGlynn to organise two tours with a short break in between. The first with Trafalgar through Italy, Switzerland and a couple of days in Paris then onto an Insight tour of Britain. Between the two tours there were 2 days/nights in London. Leading up to the tours starting Scott never responded to my emailed enquiries but still expected my response to his emailed enquiries. Both tours ( between 20 June to 15 July) went to plan but one of the days in London, between tours, turned into a nightmare. The hotel I had supposedly been booked into did not have a booking in my name for 3 July. There was no HTWH voucher for the booking and the booking reference was a HTWH internal number (of no relevance to the hotel's records). So I was in London with no booked place to stay. Only alternative was to book into a hotel close by, which I did. Straight away I informed Scott via email. (As it turned out there was no HTWH voucher for the second day in London but the other Hotel had a record of my booking). On 5 July Scott undertook to investigate and get back to me in "24 to 48 hours". After follow ups over several weeks, and finding out Scott was on holidays in early September, I sought resolution of the issue and refund of the extra payment from the Principal of the business. At that point, after more than 2 months of investigation, what had happened to the original booking was not known. I was provided with another providers booking reference numbers for the 2 nights in London. Those numbers would have been useful if they had been included as confirming vouchers when I first found out I did not have a nights accommodation on 3 July, not in mid September. The extra payment for he night's accommodation was made quickly even though issue was still being investigated.
A note for seniors when travelling. If possible, make sure any extra accommodation and transfers are booked with the tour provider. This makes possible you have porterage (no lumping your bags around) and transport to other points or the airport are covered. Final note I had travelled quite a bit previously but this was the first time I used an agent.
