babsarella

I've lurked off and on for several years when seeking information for trip planning, but I do feel compelled now to make an account and say that my review of Great Value Vacations is basically "kill it with fire." The issue is that I have four names on my passport. This caused GREAT CONFUSION with GVV's customer service rep. My travel buddy had a scan of my passport when she made the arrangements for a trip to Ireland. She read my name off exactly the way it appears there and had the lady repeat it back. My friend thought we were square at that point. A little while later, however, I realized they had listed my name incorrectly on all the documents. I told them they needed to fix this, and the supervisor, "Sherri," insisted that my friend made her change the name to the incorrect way. She supposed she could review the recording of the call, and I said please do. Here's an e-mail I sent to my travel buddy after getting off the phone with them for the third time. Changed my specific info for privacy. And...action:

So I am ready to punch Great Value Vacations in the face. Sherri called today and was like, "Reviewed the conversation. It was correct and your friend made us change it. Still $175, please." And I was like, "So what did she say that made the change happen?" And she wouldn't answer me directly for five minutes and then she put me on hold and came back to say, "Oh, we submitted the change to your ticket last night and it's only $50." I said, "How could it be $50 now when it was $175 ten minutes ago??" She said, "Well because I just talked to the air department and Aer Lingus is only charging $50 since we're just switching names." Seriously? So you didn't do any fact finding before you called me? So I asked her what the name currently was, and she kept reversing it back and forth every time, so I asked her to email me the correction, and she was like,
"What's your e-mail address?"
"A B C Delta--"
"A B C and another C?"
"No, A B C D E L T A"
"A B C C H A R L I E?"
NO.

So I got the e-mail and it still looked wrong and she couldn't explain it and was getting irritated, so I said I was going to call Aer Lingus to make sure they have it right on their end. THAT guy said, "They've requested it to be CHARLIE DELTA/ALPHA BRAVO, and it needs to be DELTA/ALPHA BRAVO CHARLIE." So I e-mailed Sherri back with my passport scan, said it had to match that, make it match THAT, and send me your supervisor's contact information.

Then I called Aer Lingus back and asked if they took possession of the ticket if I paid for a premium seat, and the lady said no, so I explained my situation, and she was like, they wanted to charge you how much? She said Aer Lingus only charges when the ticket is being assigned to a different person. They don't charge for corrections. So Sherri was being dishonest. [Sherri had insisted more than once in previous phone discussions that any fees were out of her hands and determined by the airline.] Then she put me on a long hold, came back, and said her super said I'm fine and as long as all four names are on my passport, I'll be able to board the plane. "So don't worry about it, don't pay anything extra."

Sherri never e-mailed me back with her supervisor's information. She did call again, but only to insist that everything was now correct and why was I upset? Getting my boarding pass did take some extra time at the airport, because no, things did not match exactly, but they did finally give me the okay and made a note on my boarding pass for security, et al.

The rest of the trip was fine. All our vouchers were accepted as advertised. The room quality varied a bit among the hotels and even among the rooms (because we had to change a couple of times when it was clear that someone had smoked in our non-smoking room recently). The hotels were indeed out of the way in all instances, but we knew that in advance and planned around it, anticipating a driving tour anyway. We ended up having an excellent trip, but I will never use Great Value Vacations again.