Hi Marty,
I recently went on the IT Sailtrek tour in Egypt (April 1st). When I originally booked, I wanted to go on the Felucca Journey, but was told by the London office that the tour was booked up until the end of May. Because of this, is booked the Sailtrek instead, but when I got to Egypt, found that the Felucca Journey was not at all full and that in fact, the Sailtrek tour travelled with the FJ tour because the numbers combined made only 15.
I explained all this to my tour leader who could not have been more helpful. She arranged for me to transfer to the FJ so I could continue with the rest of the group and everything worked out fine. But I was disconcerted to note that the next tour that came in also had a small number of FJ travellers than 15 (I stayed a few extra days in Cairo as I had trouble changing my flights). I am planning on touring again with the IT as soon as possible as I thought it a fantastic experience, but my question is, if the tour I want is booked out- and any tour I have enquired about I have been told 'it is nearly booked out'- should I book an alternative one or - wait to see if there are cancellations? Do you get a lot of last-minute cancellations?
Booking problems
Re: Booking problems
I had a similar experience on a recent trip to Jordan. I was trying to decide which of two trips (can't remember exact names - Jordan Connection and Jordan insight maybe?) to take and was advised by London office that the Connection tour was full, so I booked the other. While I have no regrets about the tour I took, we ended up joining the other tour and even combined we were only 9 people. I can't see any advantage to IT in advising tours are full but it seems it is a common happening?
Re: Booking problems
Hi
Sorry to hear that you received what turned out to be incorrect information from our London office.
The reason for the spurious information given to you is actually due to the way trips are loaded onto our reservations computer. It's a technical anomally.
In order to offer maximum choice to our travellers some trips are identical except for the start or end point. This is the case with the Jordan Connection and the Jordan Insight. They are the same tour, but with Connection travellers starting in Cairo and Insight travellers starting in Amman. In our computer we have to register them as one tour. This means that sometimes one trip will show full and the other have lots of space, and our staff have to switch seats over to the other trip. Doesn't sound too high tech eh?
It is a situation that we have been working with for quite some time and hope to resovlve very soon. Incidents that you note actually don't happen often because our Rez Staff are usually well aware of the potential glitch in the system.
Sorry that you were both "victims". Don't let it put you off booking other trips.
Yours
John Burgess
Head of Operations