Vantage Deluxe World Travel

Thank you for bringing Ms*** concerns to our attention. The passenger called on 08/24/15, and made a priority booking, a journey departing within days. Vantage requires full payment at the time of booking for a priority booking. Accordingly, the passenger gave her credit card
which was processed for payment. The passenger was advised of the visa requirements for the journey and mentioned she would call back to update her passport details. Then the passenger called on 08/25/15, to cancel the booking because she didn't have a valid passport. Her reservation was, hence, put in pending cancelation status, so that our cancelation team may call her to finalize the cancelation. Once the cancelation is complete, any refunds due to the passenger from Vantage will be processed within days, as is the procedure

It is certainly regrettable that Mr. *** *** and his traveling companion, Ms*** *** were not able to complete their Vantage journey, Exotic India and the Sacred Ganges with a pre-extension in Nepal, due to having only a single entry Visa into India. We note in our
Tour Participation Agreement that passengers are required to obtain any necessary visas for their journeysAlso, noted in our Tour Participation Agreement is that Vantage is not responsible for any losses resulting from invalid passports or visas. In addition, the passengers online accounts for their journeys specifically noted the need for a multiple entry visa into India when doing the Nepal extension. Furthermore, Ms*** *** emailed us asking what they need to do to obtain visas, at which point we advised them to use our recommended visa provider. The visa provider’s website, specifically catered to Vantage, has very specific step by step instructions on how to fill out the visa application, page by page. On the portion that asks about single or multiple entry visa, the instructions specifically direct one to select a multiple entry visa. Even if the passengers wanted to obtain the visa on their own, without the help of a visa service provider, they could have taken advantage of the instructions for the visa application offered through the visa service provider Vantage recommends. Finally, prior to departure, the tour director emailed all passengers advising that all passengers on the Nepal extension would need a multiple entry visa. Mr*** *** mentioned that they sent a copy of their visas to the tour director to check whether the visas were correct; however, it is not the tour director’s responsibility to check visas or confirm any given passenger can enter India as he is not an immigration officer. That decision, even if a passenger has a valid visa, is at the discretion of an immigration officer at the place of entry. We certainly regret the inconvenience the passengers experienced and the out of pocket expenses they incurred to get back home, added to the fact that they could not complete their journey in India. However, Vantage made multiple efforts to advise the passengers of the necessary visas needed for the journey and it is, hence, not the responsibility of Vantage to refund the passengers

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # ***
As stated in my Revdex.com submittal, I require that Vantage Travel reimburse me the full amount they deducted from my account. Then I will accept their position. While their response sounds promising, the fact is that they again require days to make the correction, which coincidentally is the time that they claimed they would respond before and didn't. I therefore withhold any acceptance of their response until it is completed by their returning the funds. Doesn't anyone besides me wonder why it takes days in these times of electronics to do this?
Regards,
*** ***

The passenger actually did not submit any reasons on why she is rejecting the response provided to her Once again, while we do our best to maintain the number of passengers advertised on a journey, occasionally, we may slightly exceed that amount as stated in out Tour Participation Agreement

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # ***.
Vantage advertises - people GUARANTEED Please explain why they use this word As by reading their response it seems a meaningless deceptive advertisement if they can just ignore the word GUARANTEED !!! How do I proceed to get their A+ rating no taken away if they don't honor the word "GUARANTEED ?
Regards,
*** ***

Thank you for bringing to our attention the concerns of Ms*** We regret to hear she was disappointed with the booking process and/or the number of passenger who were on the journey- namely exceeding that which was advertised Also, there seems to be confusion on
overbooking as opposed to the number of passengers advertised on the tourTo clarify to the passenger, overbooking refers to a process by which, more passengers than the tour’s allotment are booked, since a certain percentage of passengers historically cancel their reservations The overbooked passengers, hence, fill up the spots that would have otherwise gone emptyTherefore, when *** advised and confirmed that the passenger was not on an overbooked trip, he was speaking to the fact that she would not have to risk being cancelled to make space due to an overbookingWe hope the passenger understands that inventory is very fluid in the industry Entire groups of passengers may reserve or cancel a trip at any given point during the day The issue in the difference between the actual number of passengers advertised for a journey as opposed to the actual number present is slightly different We certainly do our best to adhere to the number of passengers advertised. However, there are times when it is necessary to either cancel a departure date due to lack of participation or merge two departure dates. For these rare cases, we do note in our Tour Participation Agreement that while we advertise small group travel, we reserve the right to occasionally exceed that amount. The passenger’s frustration is understandable, and we are sorry for any inconvenience she experienced. Our product development team was confident that the added number of passengers would not negatively affect the quality of the journey. We hope the above clarification is helpful and that she will give Vantage another chance to arrange her future travel plans

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does satisfy my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint #***I understand that by choosing to accept the business response that my complaint will be closed as resolved.
Regards,
*** ***

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # ***.
We were truly dumbfounded and amazed to read Vantage's response to our complaint. Not only did they gloss over some of the very important issues but they completely misstated the events that occurred. First off, they apologized for not getting back to me promptly since they "certainly want to make sure to follow up and address our passengers' concerns". Does this sound like a sincere desire to do that: direct mailings to the corporate office, on 11/20/and the 2nd on 12/11/17, addressed to *** *** himself; direct emails to *** Malatzsky on 1/8/and 1/17/18, the head of customer service, following a personal phone conversation with him on 1/8/with a promise that I'd hear back from him in a couple of days; survey responses sent to customer service with a promise from Vantage to respond within 10-days (sent on 11/2/17, 11/19/and 11/20/17), not to mention numerous phone calls to customer service in general? It's very obvious that Vantage not only didn't have a credible response but felt the best way of handling this was to do absolutely nothing until it's hand was forced with this complaint. As I mentioned previously, we can document all of this except the phone calls and I have sent copies of all of the emails to Mr *** already. Secondly, their revisionist history of how many people got off and when was also inaccurate. There were approximately passengers aboard the ship: most were with Vantage and the rest with Roads Scholars. The bus of lucky losers that left for the airport on 11/3/17, numbered about with about half from the Roads Scholars group. Vantage says only passengers were booked on early morning flights and that simply isn't the case. We don't know how many but a lot disembarked on Thur, 11/1, and said they were spending the night in a hotel for early morning flights. Admittedly, some may have been from the Roads Scholar group but I know there were numerous others from Vantage. We were initially supposed to be part of that group until we were told that reservation had been rescinded with no further explanation. However, and I stress this once again, Mrs *** told me she and her friend called Vantage directly when they found out they were staying the extra day in the airport, like we were just relegated to, and complained. Somehow, their request to leave on an early morning flight and spend the night in a hotel was accommodated based simply on her complaint and nothing else. When I immediately returned to my room and checked the airlines, found there was availability on early morning flights and then called Vantage customer service yet again, I was told the supervisor said "no more changes". There was no explanation of the blatant discrimination or preferential treatment being given, just a flat out no. How can any decent travel company justify this? No wonder Vantage's response was so inaccurate and lame: there is no possible explanation for such blatantly preferential and discriminatory treatment among passengers. The third issue, the itinerary change, was again glossed over without being addressed. There were no port issues, no weather issues, no anything issues. The fact that the master itinerary we received in our cabins on the day of departure never shows it as a stop despite the fact that Vantage does indicates that Vantage dropped the ball with it's customers. As I mentioned before, a refund would be nice but that doesn't seem likely after yet another lame explanation which really didn't clarify anything either. Even their own onboard rep, *** ***, had no idea and no explanation so their version which they hope "clarifies" my concerns does absolutely nothing to enlighten or explain this major disappointment. We thank the Revdex.com for it's efforts in helping to mediate this complaint since Vantage never would have responded at all without your intervention. As you can tell, it's pretty obvious through Vantage's replies that they know they were terribly remiss in their actions, some of which are indefensible. Vantage states that they look forward to welcoming us back on another journey soon. Tell me, who in their right mind would ever pay good money like that again to be treated so shabbily? We can't speak for others but we can say with certainty that it won't be us. Thank you
Regards,
*** ***

We regret the response has not satisfied the client. Again, Vantage will be reimbursing Mr*** *** and Ms*** *** in full for the total monies applied to their respective reservationsThis has already been approved and submitted to our accounting team to process. Refunds do not occur instantaneously as our accounting team has various other tasks to perform and will process the clients' request in the order it was received. As there was a misunderstanding in the time frame of the cancellation, we have requested the refund to be expedited. We will do our best to process the refund as soon as possible

Thank you for bringing the concerns of Ms*** to our attention. We are sorry that her previous request to be removed from the mailing list was not carried out properly. She has now been permanently removed from our mailing list. The client needs to allow 6-weeks to see the
literature completely stop arriving as there may still be some in queue at our printers. We thank Ms*** for her patience in advance

We are sorry for the disappointment the passengers experienced as the initial date of the departure had to be cancelled since the vessel will be in repairsUnfortunately, the only other options available were to postpone this journey to next year, apply the money towards another journey with a $
per person credit, or cancel it completely with a full refundWe contacted the passengers on November 1, 2016, regarding the changed date of the journeyThe passengers opted to cancel the journey; hence, we will be fully refunding them their monies on the reservationAs stated in our Tour Participation Agreement, all refunds from Vantage will be refunded within days back in the method used for paymentFurthermore, we are sorry that their expenses spent to arrange flights on their own are non-refundable by VantageAs recommended in our terms and conditions, we advise passengers not to book air tickets with high penalty charges in case of changesWe do understand the passengers' disappointment with the moved journey date and regret the postponed journey date did not work for themThe passengers were refunded in full, in the amount of $2258, on 11/23/16, back to their checking account

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # ***.
Regards,
*** ***

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # ***.
After no communication from Vantage Travel in over weeks since our trip was cancelled through NO FAULT OF OURS, we have now checked our bank account and *** card and have noted the partial receipt of the requested refund of $12,HOWEVER, we also requested an additional $cash that we have lost on the purchase of our *** airfare E ticket, *** Confirmation Number *** (the original cost of the non-refundable round-trip ticket, to and from *** *** and ***, ** was $1,as the *** *** *** Cruise trip included travel from *** *** to ***, *** and a return to *** Due to this, we had to pay for our own airfare to get to/from *** as we live in the ***, ** areaFurthermore, when Vantage cancelled our *** trip, we then contacted *** to cancel our to/from *** air trip, and were told it will cost us $of re-booking fees to use the $*** credit that we have remaining from this ticket.) While we are not asking for the entire $1018.40, we are asking for the $it will cost us to re-use this *** ticket All of this information and documentation pertaining to the requested $cash refund was submitted to a Mr*** *** at Vantage Travel on July 6th, Therefore, while we do acknowledge receipt of the $12,partial refund, we are still NOT SATISFIED with Vantage Travel's response to this entire situation thus far It also remains a mystery to us why Vantage Travel DID NOT TELL US IMMEDIATELY WHEN WE ORIGINALLY BOOKED THIS TRIP IN OCTOBER, THAT THERE WAS NO CABIN FOR US We would have been more amenable and flexible then to consider another date for this trip, BUT THEY WILLFULLY HELD ON TO ALL OF OUR MONEY AND LED US ON FOR OVER MONTHS, INCLUDING SENDING US TICKETS, ITINERARIES, BROCHURES, LUGGAGE TAGS, ETCTHEN CANCELLED OUR TRIP TELLING US WE WERE PICKED BECAUSE WE WERE THE LAST ONES TO BOOK THE TRIP For a company in the travel service industry, and to treat their REPEAT (this would have been our 7th trip with vantage) customers this way spells a major customer dissatisfaction movement that will eventually bring them downI intend to write a personal letter to Mr*** ***, President and CEO of Vantage Travel to complain how we have been treated and we have already been telling all of our friends and acquaintances about this entire situation
Regards,
*** ***

We regret to hear that any of our promotional materials caused Mr& Mrs*** an inconvenience. We can certainly permanently remove their names from our mailing list; however, in order to do so, we will need their correct name and mailing address where they are receiving our promotional
materials or their cr. Without either, we have no way of correctly identifying them in our database. We were not able to identify them with the name and address that they provided to the Revdex.com

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does satisfy my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint #***I understand that by choosing to accept the business response that my complaint will be closed as resolved.
Regards,
*** ***

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does satisfy my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint #***I understand that by choosing to accept the business response that my complaint will be closed as resolved.
Regards,
*** ***

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # ***Please add your rejection comments below.
Regards,
*** ***

Thank you for bringing to our attention the concerns of Mr& Mrs***. We are sincerely sorry that any Vantage literature has gone out to their daughter *** *** as a client being referred by them. We have permanently removed *** from our mailing list. This has also
been brought to the attention of our marketing and circulation team to ensure it no longer occurs. Please allow 6-weeks for the catalogs to stop arriving as there may already be catalogs in queue from our third party printers. We thank Mr& Mrs*** for bringing the matter to our attention and giving us the opportunity to resolve it

Revdex.com:
Yesterday (Aug) I spoke with *** at VantageThe main purpose of his call seemed to be to tell me that I should not have filed a Revdex.com complaint because Vantage had done nothing wrongAt the end of the call he stated that my money would be refunded ($14,137.00)This has not happenedI suspect they will try to drag this out, which makes no sense to meThey charged me instantly with a keystroke--they can refund the same way.
*** ***

We regret to hear that the passengers were not pleased with our response. Again, we apologize to the passengers with regards to the delay in responding to their concerns. Vantage is only responsible for its own passengers on the ship. As Ms*** stated, there were other non-Vantage passengers on the ship, and their flights arrangements have nothing to do with Vantage. As already stated, due to availability, only two passengers from the Vantage group were booked on an early morning flight. At that point, all flights were already rebooked and no more changes were possible. As explained already, we agree that any changes to the itinerary should be communicated effectively. We are sorry for the passengers’ disappointment but hope they can appreciate Vantage’s efforts made during the ship’s delayed arrival into port