We have booked your offer from Germany with sta travel in Mannheim. And we were really disappointed. We have paied...
Dear Sunita, thanks for your comments. We can see that you did not enjoy your trip but seeing what you have written down it seems that this tour was not the right one for you.
From the first moment in your home country agency (because you did not book through Tourradar and you did not contact us drectly) you did not receive the proper information about the features of the trip and about how to be in touch with us if anything happened. These are independent trips and as there is no travel guide it is crucial to be in touch with us, there are ways of doing that these days: phone, email, cel phone, sms, whatsapp.
-In reference to accommodation, it is clear that hostels don´t have an age limit. But if you are 50 or more years old you must know that hostels are places where young people go and they are likely to party. If you were up for a quieter experience you may had to take the same trip but with the Hotel option, not the hostel. The same goes if you are traveling with suitcases instead of backpacks. If we had a word from your agency about what was your expectations we would have suggested otherwise, but we just got an automatic booking.
-In reference to buses, as told before, this is an independent tour and not a group tour so we use regular public buses. Public buses in Argentina and Chile are, with some small exceptions, very good!
-In reference to bus station transfers we do NOT include transfers from hostels to bus stations, only from and to Airports. As it is explained in Whats Included and whats Not Included. But there is a reason for that: for example, El Calafate bus station is about 10 minutes walk from both Pioneros and Linertador hostel/hotel. Most people like to walk this distance and manage their own times. Moreover, transfers to bus stations have a minumim price of pick up, and it is close to the price of the airport pick up. So it is expensive and you could do it on your own for free, Also, with such long distances, bus times are not exact and arrival is never known. So you arrive late, The driver is not there but has been waiting for you for maybe hours. You are upset and the driver will be as well. Not a good situation for anyone so we do not include transfers to bus stations.
-In reference to the tours, you way book your travel package maybe 6 months in advance, and we give you the generic times of the tours. But closer to the dates, the local tour organizers have to move pick up times to adjust to the quantity of people and hostels and hotels to pick up. So you itinerary is a good guide to know what to expect, but locally some times can change slighlity to adjust to that day specific reality.
Again, this missunderstandings can be easily erased from the first moment if we have a close communication when the 1st unpleasant situation arises.
-In reference to the prices, 2 comments. When you sit down at a restaurant and order a sandwich you pay for the sandwich 5 EUR. You don´t go to the cashier and say: hey, I can get a bread for 1 EUR, I can get lettuce for 0,50 EUR, I can get ham for 1 EUR and mayonaise for nothing. This is not worth! That is becaue you sit there in their tables and chairs, use their lights, people prepared the sandwich for you and a lot of people are involved in your services.
With tours it is similar. We always try to offer the best competitive prices but you have to know that there are many people involved in the making of your trip. From the person that handles your booking at your home, to the people who work at our office and the different people that do the bookings and organize locally. There are also financial costs that are not seen. From the moment you book, we have to pay up front for some services. You pay in Germany, and we have to wait for the money to come to Argentina long after we pay here. There are transference costs and taxes to be paid, and all is included in the price of the "sandwich"
We always try to offer the best prices in all our tours, but we live in a very unstable country where exchange rates are very volatile. In order for you to book we have to give you an actual price. But when you arrive to destination you may think: this tour was expensive or....the opposite: this tour was really cheap. That will depend on our crazy economy.
Of course, you could have come to Argentina and had prepared "your own sandwich". A lot of people do. But in that case you would have to have done all the research of services and timetables on your own, booked all the services or wait until you are here to do it.
To sum up, of course we are sorry that you did not enjoy the trip and we wish it was different. At the moment of booking we should have double checked with the agency in Germany that all conditions were understood. We also wished to have been contacted by you during your trip. If pick up up time in Ushuaia was too early we could have managed that, for example. It was just a call or a whastapp or an email. All our contact info was in every sheet of the vouchers and the itinerary. When the tour end is to late to change anything
Very best and keep healthy in these strange pandemic times!
Cristian
HI Travel Argentina
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