spudxxx

I booked The Best of South Africa tour with A Touch of Class Tours/ TS Travel in Woodland Hills, California. Their brochure states ?MAXIMUM 16 to a tour guarantees plenty of vacant seats?? The actual number of people on my tour was 21 people. We experienced arrival and departure delays, on occasion had little time at various stops and at times, stops were omitted. I contacted Thompsons Travel, the booking agent in South Africa. Thompsons informed me it is their practice to work through the agency that booked with them, in this instance A Touch of Class Tours. A less than satisfactory holiday. Paid a substantial amount of money for an oversubscribed tour. This tour was totally misrepresented. The group was too large. Word of warning to all you travelers out there ? Do not use A Touch of Class Tours in Woodland Hills, California or Thompsons Travel of South Africa.

Kavey

In UK customer complaints on an inclusive tour package of this nature MUST be handled by the agent that took the booking - the responsibility to the customer is theirs - it's up to them to then liaise (and recoup compensation from, if paid out) with the tour operator.
If the tour was sold with the spec of 16 max in the group you should be able to claim compensation on grounds of inaccurate discription.
Whether they made the mistake or were simply passing on information that they were given by the tour operator which the operator then reneged on is not for you to have to quibble over.
Do you have travel ombudsman type organisation or citizen's advice bureau you can contact for legal advice on this issue?
Best of luck and thanks for the warning.

spudxxx

I have tried contacting several organizations, but unfortunately, no one has gotten involved. Tried contacting organizations that issue the agents license, but they only act as mediators. The agent has stated he is not responsible for any errors, omissions or misquotes in his brochure.

traci_local_in_sa

Companies so underestimate the power of word of mouth when responding to complaints! I'm surprised about Thompsons Tours - I've used them (albeit direct dealings) before and did not have any problems. What a pity that you did not have the holiday you dreamed of.

LizFrazier

This type of thing happened to us and I too complained to the U.S. travel company. They sent a fax to the Tanzania provider to ask about the discrepancies. The Tanzania group said that I complained during the trip and they didn't want me to ever travel with them again. Duh!
So since the Tanzania group wouldn't agree they had erred, we only could sue. The travel company was in a southern state and it just was too difficult to do from out of state. Rather than post here trashing them, I wait until someone asks about them and then I steer them elsewhere. Since they are a rather small outfit, only one other person has posted here asking about them.
Part of it was the fault of the U.S. company, but it was really the Tanzania group and I'm not sure that connection exists anymore. Cost us a bunch of money for them to find out about it, and I thought a reputable company would have made it up to us. Oh yes, they offered us a $500 credit on any future trip that we had them book for us. Duh!