We leave tomorrow on a trip booked through go-today.com. Before booking I researched this company on the internet and found only<BR>positive comments but our experience has been anything but and we haven't even left.<BR>First our flight was a mess even after numerous e-mails and faxes. Every e-mail contact required 2 because they never answered the 1st one. We only got 1 hotel voucher instead of the 2 we should have received. I have spent too much time cleaning up after this company's mistakes. If we were not experienced travelers we would<BR>have entered travel hell tomorrow. As it is I<BR>can only hope that the trip will be better<BR>than the service from go-today.com.

Wow! Thanks for the warning. I have been looking at this company for an<BR>upcoming trip and yours is the first negative I've seen but I haven't seen<BR>mass numbers of positive comments. Could you post after you return and let<BR>us all know how your trip turned out?

We are off to the airport and everything seems to be in order for our long awaited chance to introduce our 3 teens to London and Paris. This board has been great and I will try to repay the favor with a trip report on our return. I will include any response I receive from my latest e-mail outlining<BR>all my problems with go-today.com. I could have posted after the first or even second major problem with them but<BR>I waited until the fourth major one to post all my woes to this board. I think any company deserves a second chance but<BR>I have been so disappointed with their service that I'm mad and I won't take it any more. Since it has always taken 2<BR>e-mails to get 1 response from them I really don't expect an apology and certainly not any compensation for all of the extra time I've had to spend cleaning up their mistakes but if I do happen to hear from them I will post what their response is. Once again a big thank you to all who have helped with my multitude of questions. Sonya<BR>

As someone who has had some big travel screw-ups, this post certainly isn't an attempt to minimize Sonya's problems with go-today. Few things compare to the stress and frustration of having trip plans messed up.<BR><BR>I just want to say, on balance, that I've booked with go-today twice and never had any problems. A co-worker that I recommended use them has taken two trips through them and had no problems. All of our trips were fly/drive to Great Britain so perhaps it was the simplicity of our itineraries that made the difference.

I agree with Mel that I've only had positive experiences with Go-Today.com. The only thing I didn't like is that for their London & Paris trip, they provide the transportation between the cities (Eurostar), but not the train station transfers. You have to provide your own transportation from the London hotel to Waterloo station and from Gare du Nord to the Paris hotel. For those not familiar with traveling and logistics, this would cause some confusion. Luckily I thoroughly looked over our tickets well in advance and we mapped out our plan. I hope Sonya doesn't have this surprise…

I have used Go-Today.com 3 times and will use them in the future. They provide a decent service for the price. And I think that is the key, because their price is so low, they are unable to provide quick service. I, too, noticed that it takes two or more emails to get a response from them.<BR><BR>However, they have been very helpful in booking special request - ie. we flew out of different cities and met in Phili, before going across the Atlantic; and arranging the hotel at the end of our stay in the UK instead of the beginning, etc.<BR><BR>Sonya, I hope everything works out well for you. I look forward to reading your post once you return.<BR><BR>John

I am leaving for my second trip through go-today today (Rome). The first one I had absolutely no problem (they even upgraded the hotel because the one we'd chosen was full) and this one has been fine (they even changed our flight so it could be a direct flight and we could fly with friends who booked a couple weeks after us). As far as getting in touch with them, I've always gotten a response right away and I've used their 'live chat' feature often (where a immediate response is required). <BR><BR>I'm sorry you've had so much trouble with them. I wonder if it's with the same person (maybe someone new?) Regardless, it's a stinky way to start your vacation...

Sonya, I'm sorry you've had so many screw-ups with planning your trip. It must be frustrating for you. For what it's worth, I've used go-today.com twice with no problems whatsoever. For the price of the packages, I didn't expect to get individualized attention, but I found them to be courteous over the phone, and prompt in replying to my email inquiries. I hope everything works out well for you. Let us know.

Hi<BR>Thanks to those of you who responded with positive experiences.<BR>It doesn't take away from Sonya's bad time,but made me feel better as I am likely to book a London trip with Go-Today--I just hope it is not literally too good to be true.

I am also leaving tomorrow on a trip thru Go-Today. We had a great experience with them while booking, very responsive and helped us to meet in Dallas to fly to Paris together. But I must say that after 9/11 we have had nothing but problems. Dayne's flight on delta was cancelled and they didn't contact us we luckily caught it. Then they claimed they emailed me- why would I get all other emails but not theirs? Because of their mistake Dayne and I not only fly seperately to Paris but he gets in 5 hours before me! We asked for compensation of any kind but were not responded to. <BR><BR>I'm not sure if I would use them again but will post a full trip report once i'm home.

Sonya,<BR>I'm sorry your plans with go-today.com have been unsatisfactory. I hope they have it all straighten out and you and your family will enjoy your vacation.<BR><BR>We've used go-today.com twice and all has gone smooth... e-mails were answered promptly, phone conversations with them were helpfulm etc. Perhaps, as Wendy mentioned, problems have occured after 9/11 (our trips were before). I plan to use them in the future and will be looking for your post when you return.

We are back from our trip and this is just a short follow-up. Waiting for us was a brief e-mail from go-today.com which blamed all of our problems with air tickets on US Airways. Go-today claims that the tickets we received from them were the correct tickets and that US Airways actually had both bookings in their system. However, on the day before we left (Christmas Day) I<BR>spent over 30 minutes on the phone with a US Air supervisor and he had no record of the correct booking. The flight we were on to London was completely full and the last flight of the night so that if we had missed our first connection the seats would probably have been given away since the airline would have assumed we were not in transit to our final connection. We live 4 hours (5 with time change) from the airport and would have missed our connection if I had not made so many calls to try to straighten out the air travel. The booking in the US Air system was for a flight that left 4 hours earlier than what showed on our tickets. This is not a great experience for Christmas Day. By the way the brief e-mail from go-today did not include an apology. I could never in good faith recommend any company that I had so many problems with. The hotel was fine and the tranfer from the hotel to the airport was also. The tranfer from the airport to the hotel was not<BR>great. There was a large group of people waiting when we arrived at the designated spot and it took almost 4 hours to reach our hotel after the flight landed. I had tried to get go-today to delete the transfers from our package as we could have managed on our own but they would not and since we had paid for the transfers already we elected to use them. Big mistake. They use Hotel Link who obviously was severely under staffed for the large number of people they had to deliver. The driver also had to search for 2 of the hotels as he was unsure of the location since they had changed names. I had seen complaints about Hotel Link on other boards and should have assumed after our other problem that we should strike out on our own. The main problem seems to be the transfer from the airport to the hotel when there are no time constraints on when they must deliver you. Thanks for letting me vent. We had a wonderful vacation but I can't say that go-today.com contributed to it in any fashion. Sonya

You know, everytime I read about an unsatisfactory experience with a company, I also read the contrasting positive experiences--sometimes I even contribute to the plus side myself.<BR>But it occurs to me that the key to a company isn't how it behaves when all goes well, but what happens when something goes wrong. I don't think any company can be 100% perfect, not when human beings are involved, but if they don't handle or resolve the problems quickly, politely, and effectively, I think therein lies the problem.<BR>Sonya, I'm glad the trip itself was enjoyable.

Elaine <BR> I so agree with you. We had a recent problem with Thomsons holidays. They are a massive company and well thought of by many but they showed themselves up by being completely disinterested in our complaint and the letter we got was obviously a standard reply to complaints(this in itself is disgraceful)One of the complaints we had was that the advertised entertainment on board the flight was non-existent. At least if I'd have known I would have taken a personal CD player with me.there was no apology. The flight itself was freezing and so uncomfortable. The stewardesses only had blankets to give to the children, again no apology.Their rep at our resort hotel was only there to enjoy himself and was useless.<BR>I was not demanding any compensation , just an explanation and a decent apology. <BR>We recently had problems with another company( not a holiday one) and were quite impressed with how the management responded to that and therefore feel confident in using them again.<BR>So, yes Elaine, it is how a company responds when things don't go as planned that makes the difference!

I have used go-today for a Paris trip and I did have a problem with our Hotel transportation being scheduled at the same time as our flight was to leave. It didnt help matters that we didn notice this till we were checking out. Anyway, of course, we missed our flight home and AirFrance would not allow me to exchange for another flight---they insisted I buy 2 new tickets. After an eternity of working on the AirFrance ticket agent, I finally had to threaten him that I wasnt going to purchase 2 new tickets, and that "I would just have to stay in his country for the rest of my life." He paused, looked at me; sighed and said, "Well sir, I do not think we can have that...." (lol)and reluctantly allowed us to pay a $150 exchange fee for each ticket. Go-today was sorry for the mixup and took care of everything without a hassle. I will definately book with them again. <BR>-Bob<BR>

sigh. How sad that a wonderfully customer-focused company like biztravel.com couldn't make it. They gave rebates when flights were late or delayed over an hour, or when hotels failed to honor a reservation. Needless to say, I never had a problem with travel booked through them, and was compensated for late flights. I've made all my own arrangements ever since. So far, so good. Knock wood.

We went to Scotland through Go-today and everything was perfect. I'd use them again; of course the fact that Scotland is such a beautiful place to visit and the Scots are delightful helped. We were upgraded to a terrific hotel because our first choice was full. We chatted online, talked on the phone, and all in all they seemed to be real pros.

Diane I think you hit the nail on the head when you commented on how sad it was that a company with unusually excellent customer service couldnt make it commercially.<BR><BR>I think we all have to take some of the rap for that.<BR><BR>Good customer service does cost more. You might think it doesnt cost much to make an apology in a letter, and in that you would be right, but it takes the right staff to respond intelligently and appropriately to complaints. <BR><BR>Getting the best staff into a company's customer service department costs a lot more than paying minimal wages and hiring any moronic person off the streets who has little command of manners, grammar and courtesy.<BR><BR>I do believe that because we, the customer, ultimately care more about cost of product than about level of cutomer service, the companies are forced to compete much more strongly on a price basis and therefore squeeze costs in their Customer Service departments.<BR><BR>That's not an excuse by any means.<BR><BR>We SHOULD get excellent prices AND excellent quality product AND excellent quality aervice without paying more.<BR><BR>But in sad reality, despite the ratio of negative experiences, a company which offers low prices will continue to thrive.<BR><BR>Wendy, I am sorry you had such an unsatisfactory response from Thomson, because I work for them, and it's always sad to read about cases when my company has failed to impress. <BR><BR>As I do work for them (though in the Systems dept) it's not appropriate for me to comment, however all I will say is that if you are not satisfied with your initial response from them, write again.<BR><BR>THis is my strategy when I need to complain to any company as I get the feeling that the first response is always templated and the real responses get written when a customer refuses to accept the first one! I have no idea if this is true!<BR><BR>The only information I have picked up about complaints to Thomson in my life here is that our complaint ratio (the % of customers travelling with us who make a complaint) is well under 1% and compared very very favourably with same figures for the other main tour operators in UK who are all significantly nearer to 2%. <BR><BR>I fully agree that any company can make mistakes, and that their level of service shows best in the way they deal with these, which is why when a company impresses me, I am happy to recommend it and when a company doesn't I will always write and discuss it with them.<BR><BR>Anyway, sorry Sonya to hear of your experiences with go today.

Just realizing that I never got back regarding how the Paris trip ended up playing out with Go Today.<BR><BR>To say the least we were not happy with the arrangements they made. The trip was fantastic but really Go-Today caused us quite a few hassles.<BR><BR>As I had written before Dayne and I had completely different flights. Our tickets both said Air France but his ended up being Delta (a partner) all the way to Paris. Poor Dayne! This was a horrible flight, small seats, bad food, the works! Delta's fault yes, but again Go had said we were booked on Air France (my flight was great!)<BR><BR>When I got into Paris however my transfer bus was not there. I looked around for about 20 mins and then called- finally they said it was on its way. 2 other ladies had joined me in the wait by this time. When the driver pulled up it was a small mini van and the addition of the 3 of us made it very full! The driver said that he thought we were in the other terminal.<BR><BR>Again the transfers were late and over booked when they came to take us to the airport. Dayne was again booked on Delta which had expereinced snow in their main terminus in Atlanta (?) and had cancelled many flights- including his! Delta put him up for the night and got him on a flight the next day. Again Go could not have controlled this but originally he should have been on the Air France flight with me.<BR><BR>All in all I am still undecided if I would use Go Today again. They never really tried to help or when we emailed them upon arriving home they never even apologized for the hassels they had caused. Delta did provide Dayne with a $450 voucher which he promptly turned in to pay for our airfare to Florida this month.

topping for Arnie.