I used Expert Travel a couples years ago when planning a trip to Europe. Normally, I wouldn't go…read moreback and make a negative post after this much time has gone by, but while planning my latest trip to Italy, I was reminded over and over how awful my experience was and felt the need to write a review on them.
Let me start out by saying that Ranjiv, one of the owners, was always extremely pleasant and helpful. He is the reason I came to Expert Travel to begin with, since he was a regular customer at the retail location I worked at. So when my time came to plan my next trip to Rome, Paris, and London I called him. I came in and he helped me look up some ticket prices to Rome, but then handed me off to his partner Patrizia because she is actually from Rome. At the time, I thought that was great because I would be getting inside tips from a Rome native on where to stay and go while in the city. It ended up being a nightmare.
I came into the office during the last week of November with plans on leaving for Europe the first week of January. I had the itinerary of dates and cities all set to go, so all she had to do was book flights and hotels matching those dates. After weeks of writing emails with no response, I wrote Sanjiv to complain about her and just ask that he book the trip for me. I quickly got a reply from Patrizia, who was checking his email, telling me that she was busy booking "corporate" trips and there was "no need to complain to Sanjiv about it!!!". I'm guessing mysteriously disappeared before he saw it. She assured me that she was working on it though and not to worry. Well, with one week left before I left she was still "trying to get ahold of her contacts", so after all the hassle, I only ended up purchasing my airfare to and from Europe and my room in just Rome. All the other travel and hotels I booked myself in a last minute rush.
I had the worst flight I've ever experienced on the way there in which the overhead compartment dripped water on my head for all 14 hours of the flight. The flight was completely booked, so I couldn't be moved to another seat and they couldn't fix the dripping. The food also made me sick, which has never happened to me with airplane food before. When I arrived in Rome, my luggage had been lost and they couldn't find it. She obviously chose a top quality airline!
I shook it off and took the subway to the place where I was renting a room. She described it as a "Bed & Breakfast within very close walking distance of the Metro and the Piazza del Popolo". It was raining when I got there and I ended up walking over a mile from the Metro to the "bed and breakfast". What I found when I arrived was a beat up apartment that smelled like a salvation army, owned by a woman who didn't speak English.....oh, and my room was available because the person who stayed there the night before decided to stay an extra night and the owner didn't say no.....so I slept in her 8 year olds room....in a twin bed surrounded by crayon drawings on the wall.....
My lost luggage arrived on my last day in Rome, but I almost missed it because while I was out exploring the city, they tried to deliver it to my apartment and the woman's son said he didn't recognize my name. Had I not shown up right when they were packing up my luggage in the truck to leave, I would have had no luggage for the rest of my trip. The whole experience was by far the biggest travel headache I've ever had. I was so pissed that I couldn't even get myself to write Patrizia and tell her how awful the experience was because I knew her excuses and insincere apologies would only make me angrier.
Everything other hotel and accommodation on my trip I had booked myself was 10 times better than the experiences I had with my travel agent. In these days of easy to use travel websites, travel agents should be as fast, pleasant, and efficient as possible. After all, it's really the customer service and security of knowing that you're getting quality advice that keeps Travel Agents alive. Their recommendations should be a pleasant surprise, not cause trip ruining situations. Between Patrizia's failure to reply to emails or book flights & hotels and her nightmarish recommendations, not only would I never go to Expert Travel again, but I would actually take the time to create this profile for them here on Yelp and spend 20 minutes writing this god-awful experience to ensure that no one else does either.
Sorry Ranjiv, you're partner just cost you a lot of business.