In the beginning, I believed we would use them for all of our leisure travel needs. With my…read moreexperience, I would rather book things myself.
*AMERICAN EXPRESS MEMBERS - FYI if you're having issues, Amex can not help you. Amex has no access to Altours booking information. That was the main reasons I booked with Altour. I thought they had a better connection to Amex. It seems like the only Amex perk with Altour is that you can book with your Amex points
My fiancé and I were planning our honeymoon after our France wedding for September of this year. We had an agent help us with the flights, hotels and activities for our France and Italy month long honeymoon.
Here's the short summary of my experience
Pros
- Very responsive
- Passionate
- Knowledgeable about the areas we were going to travel to
- Has attention to detail
Cons
- Does not give you a clear plan on how the booking process of the trip will be handled
- Not concise with emails, will send multiple emails at the same time regarding the same subject
- Not transparent in all the booking options
I think there was a miss in our communication style. I don't know if we were just matched up with the wrong agent (for us) or if this how they all work.
I was having frustrations with team due to what I deemed, overwhelming/confusing emails. For example, on way day I received 8 separate emails (no back and forth with me) regarding the different hotels and locations. I wish we were given at least a skeleton of our schedule. A clear break down of the dates/locations all in one clear email or pdf. Instead, we were given a wishy washy itinerary that completely changed when we didn't want to do one activity suggested.
I had to make my own itinerary to keep track the locations, dates and budgets. I had to make sure we were keeping within our budget, because I had no clue where we were in that regard.
I will be honest, I did lack a timely responsiveness on my end. I was overwhelmed.
Unfortunately, we had to push our wedding to next year due to the shift in the economy.
The most frustrating part was that our flights purchased by the agent were non refundable. Why would a travel agency book this way after 2020? Did we all not learn our lesson. Plus, these tickets weren't cheap. They totaled over $9,000. We weren't given or told about the refundable options prior to booking. I will give them credit, in small print the confirmation does state that the tickets are non refundable. I should have caught that.
Now we are stuck with about $9,000 worth of delta credits that are good until end of 2023.
My biggest issue was the communication style.
1 - I should have been told prior to booking if the tickets were refundable. My dumb self assumed that booking with a experienced travel agent, the tickets that were being booked were refundable.
2 - When I called to express my frustrations/get clarity on the airline tickets, I was also told that no insurance was purchased for them. I was told, that in her process the insurance would be purchased towards the end of booking everything (flights, hotels and activities). I understand that even with insurance, with non refundable tickets we would still be in the same situation. However, what if something horrible (health-wise) happened and we needed to cancel? Also, how would I know your process if you didn't tell me?
3 - I wish there was a clear set itinerary, prior to be given options to hotels. For example, we had a general itinerary and we were given multiple options for hotels for basically a month trip. I respond with my choices and also told them I didn't want to do a spa portion of the trip. Because of that, the whole trip was rearranged. Since everything was in separate emails exchanges, it was extremely hard to track everything.
There were a lot of details, but it wasn't clear. The communication was messy.
I do want to acknowledge that she did spend many hours on planning for the trip. I completely understand there frustrations of us delaying the trip. If we had a better experience, we would have been happy to use her for when rebook. However, it has not been a good experience for us.
Overall, if I had a simple vacation planned (one or two weeks) I would use them. I would not use them again for month long trip. I would also double check everything thing they are booking!
