When dreams of a cheap holiday turn your long-awaited vacation into a nightmare/quinta vip travel
quintavipmagduru
The truth is, many organizations promising “early reservation discounts” at incredibly low prices are actually causing people nightmares they won't be likely to forget soon. The Turkish Association of Travel Agents (TÜRSAB) says: “For a hotel that normally costs TL 200 a day to price rooms at TL 50 a day for early reservations doesn't make sense. Even those agents who are offering the best prices on early reservations in the market are not able to do better than 40 percent off normal prices.”
Some are doctors, some are military officers, some are businessmen, others might be retired police officers; what they all have in common is bad experiences on the path to trying to get cheap or unbelievable prices on holidays. Many of these stories start with the filling out of a form at a stand at a mall that offers “free holiday opportunities.” When the unsurprising news arrives -- “Congratulations, you've won a free holiday!” -- the person is invited to a hotel to go and pick up their tickets. Those who actually make it this far are generally asked to pay a membership fee to the agent before they receive their free holiday. In exchange for this membership fee, they are promised a free holiday at a five-star hotel, with the only monetary requirement being that they pay for their meals while there. After some flexible “bargaining” happens, the reservations are then made at the desired hotel. Inevitably, when the day for the holiday in question actually arrives, those who paid their cash “membership fees” experience crushing disappointment.
Reaching the travel agencies
With his honeymoon plans in shambles, newlywed Abdullah Çelik tried to call the company that had promised him his holiday. He was not, however, able to get through to anyone. Recalls Çelik: “When I wrote about my experience on a special website called www.sikayetvar.com, they called the company in question. The agency said they would reimburse me if I would delete my complaint about them. But even that turned out to be a lie.”
Dr. Serap Barlas has a slightly different story. She was walking along a beach with a friend when they encountered an agency promising free holidays. Barlas headed over to the promotion salon, where company representatives tried to persuade her to pay incredibly low prices -- again, only the food being figured into the costs -- for a five-star luxury hotel. Barlas noted that all this took place in an atmosphere where there was loud music that did not allow people to speak with one another. Barlas admits: “To pay just TL 50 for a hotel that was normally TL 200 a night was an attractive offer, so I let them charge TL 4,800 to my credit card for a two-week holiday at the Kaya İzmir Thermal & Convention in İzmir's Balçova district. The next day, though, I called one of the hotels listed in the magazine they had shown us and asked about the Quinta VIP Travel company. They told me, ‘We've never heard of such a company.' And so, when I noticed that none of those hotels were on the website of the travel agency, I called. They told me, ‘You could stay in a three-star hotel.' I asked for my money back, and they gave me nothing. I have applied to the consumer complaint board. Some of my German friends lost TL 10,000 to that company.”
As for retired police officer Cevdet Lal, he says he was tricked by the promise of a free holiday by people staffing a Quinta VIP Travel stand at an Ankara mall. Lal says: “I paid TL 2,350 for a total of eight weeks over three years at a Cyprus hotel. When I learned about the many complaints that have already been made about this company, I wanted to cancel the whole thing. I was led on for months, and though I got some of my money back, I still haven't gotten all of it back.”
Kemal Karaaslan, a businessman from Konya, paid TL 2,250 to Quinta VIP Travel to enable him to take holidays over a three-year period and headed off to Antalya with his family to the hotel where he thought they had reservations. Karaaslan said: “Since we thought we were basically going on a free holiday, we even took some of our relatives along. Then we realized that the hotel had never been paid anything by the company. We left right away, but we still owed the hotel TL 1,800.”
Sgt. Gani G. also struck a deal for 10 days at a hotel in Antalya but, as he explains, he called the hotel the day before his holiday was supposed to start only to find out that any agreements he had had with his travel agent had been canceled and that his reservations were invalid. Gani G. was unable to get back any of the TL 3,000 he had paid the company.
Ahmet Ö. from Konya notes that he was tricked the same way and says he has already filed a legal case against Quinta VIP Travel with the prosecutor's office, though he notes that after writing a detailed complaint on the website sikayetvar.com, he was threatened and insulted by representatives of the company.
Quinta VIP Travel representative Esra Özge told Today's Zaman that refund installment schedules have been made for all people who have filed such complaints. Özge also stated that the aggrieved clients had in fact made illegal, false statements and claims, although she was unable to answer how so many people would make the same complaints across so many different cities and at different times.
Don't look only at prices
TÜRSAB board member Sinan Haliç notes that people should look at more than just prices when making travel plans, warning that serious problems could arise otherwise. He stated: “Early reservations are a trade matter. I cannot speak for the entire sector, of course, but the sort of unusual deal you might be able to find could be something like a 60 percent discount available for a very limited time. However, normally, early reservation discounts range between 20 and 40 percent, depending on the hotel. When a consumer finds an extraordinary offer, he or she ought to be suspicious from the start. Be aware that you aren't the only one on the lookout for deals, or the only smart one. And after all, spending TL 50 a night for a hotel that normally charges TL 200 just doesn't make too much sense.”
Here is some advice Haliç has for those planning a holiday to avoid being scammed:
*Check to see whether or not your travel agency is a member of TÜRSAB.
*There are many satellite sites on the Internet that are actually not good or respected but appear to be normal agencies. Do not just trust the Internet; do some research on the agency's past or whether or not people recommend it.
*TÜRSAB members are required to give customers a travel insurance package when the customer is purchasing a holiday package, so if the agency is not a TÜRSAB member, it will not offer this.
*Beware of extraordinary prices and stay away from “free” holidays.
*Don't forget that when making travel plans, cheap prices are not the answer to everything and that travel gives you experiences you will hold onto your entire life.