Travel Agent Review, Australia & New Zealand, Two-Week Vacation

Review by traveler

Jennifer A.

1.9.2019

General Info

Traveler Review

Which Country (Countries) did you visit on this trip?

New Zealand

Australia

Your overall comments on the trip and the travel company:

My travel companion and I have travelled the world extensively (been on 6 of the 7 continents multiple times) and we hired a travel agency in order to make our busy lives easier while we planned our trip. We usually use travel agents on these kind of trips to ensure we get the most out of them and that things run smoothly. To date that has been the right decision, hence we decided to identify a New Zealand expert, wrongly assuming they would bring more to the table than we could do on our own.. Not only did this travel company not save us time, they cost us time and money and wasted our time whilst we were in New Zealand. As busy professionals in the service industry we are shocked and very disappointed at the level of service we received from a supposed expert. We were so happy when we identified you and were under the assumption that you thoroughly screen agents before recommending them. We are now questioning this process.

We would NEVER recommend this travel company to anyone. It might be we just had a terrible agent, but wrongly or rightly her performance and lack of attention to details reflected on the company. The travel agent that we were assigned could have been a computer. The trip that she "designed" for us seemed as if she simply input our dates and amount per day that we had provided her and the computer spit out a cookie-cutter itinerary. She paid no attention to the detailed information that we provided to her in regards to what we were looking for. In addition, she paid no attention to the holidays (Christmas and New Years) that we were traveling through (gave us a free day on the 25th of December and has us fly on the 26th wasting 2 days; put us in a sleepy town on New Years Eve). Actually, a computer may have been better as our travel agent kept confusing us and our trip with other clients. And, she pushed us into a Bed & Breakfast that was awful and that she had not stayed in, despite having assured us initially that all accommodations were personally vetted and approved.

All of the best things that we did were our ideas and not recommendations of our travel agent.

If you would like further details about all of the errors that they made and the extra cost and inconvenience that they caused, we would be happy to speak with someone from Zicasso over the telephone. (We even emailed our travel agent and others at this travel company during our trip in order to give them the opportunity to make up for their mistakes and they did nothing, simply just provided excuses and again confused us with other clients of theirs. We met other people on our travels that utilized this travel company and our specific travel agent. And, they had the same exact complaints about the cookie cutter nature of their itinerary.)

I think that you should NEVER recommend them to anyone using your services again.

What were the most enjoyable or memorable parts of your trip?

New Zealand is a beautiful country with wonderful things to do and see, friendly people and delicious food. Even the terrible travel agency could not completely ruin that.

If you could take your trip again, what would you do differently?

Utilize the other travel company (we regret not selecting them) or plan the trip alone.

Travel Company Comments:

Thank you for submitting your review. We are disappointed you did not feel your booking experience with us was a positive one as we always strive to provide our clients with the trip of a lifetime, our average client review rating is 4.79* out of 5* over 588 reviews, so naturally we were shocked and extremely dismayed to receive your 1* review.

We are saddened that you feel the consultant, who has over 20 years experience in planning trips to New Zealand, did not provide good service and wasted your time. We collaborated on a fantastic itinerary that was customized based on your preferences and did not reflect any type of "cookie cutter" itinerary you could find elsewhere. Based on your preferences, we planned stays in boutique hotels and small group tours in Auckland, Waiheke Island, Waitomo, Rotorua, Nelson, Abel Tasman National Park, Queenstown, Milford Sound, Mt Cook and Christchurch. Customizing such a trip on your behalf less than three months before your planned departure of mid-December when it would be peak season in New Zealand certainly saw some availability challenges and we outlined the options in Nelson & Queenstown that were left available. In the Nelson area there were only two properties left available for your dates, a B&B or a hotel - as you had requested boutique accommodation as a preference, our consultant recommended the B&B. All of the accommodations we recommend have been vetted by our team and our affiliate office in NZ and we had not received any previous complaints regarding the property in Nelson you were unhappy with. We are truly sorry the Nelson accommodation did not meet your expectations and your interactions with the hosts of the B&B were not favorable with regards to the laundry you wished to be taken care of on Christmas Eve.

With regards to planning your days over the holidays, New Zealand does practically close down on Christmas Day and there are limited activities open. On New Year's Eve, we originally had you scheduled to spend the night in Christchurch which is the South Island's largest city and not what we would describe as a sleepy town. As you made your own flight arrangements, the travel company's consultant was also working around the flights you secured, and we were happy for you that you were ultimately able to spend New Year's Eve in Sydney, which is without a doubt one of the best cities in the world to experiences New Year's Eve.

As you posted this review before speaking with your consultant or this travel company's management to fully share your concerns, we would like to note that once you did report your experience with the Nelson B&B we secured a 100% refund for your stay. Once we were made aware of your other complaints we were also able to address them and provide detailed responses. We understand you did not enjoy the tour from Queenstown - Mt Cook - Christchurch which had been included on your itinerary since the start of the planning process and felt this wasted your time. We apologize the tour did not meet your expectations, the tour was selected so you could experience the country and be able to see New Zealand's highest point - Mt Cook. Due to the late booking we were unable to secure any other hotel in Queenstown besides a property that was located 5 minutes drive outside of the town center, we had advised the property was up the hill from town and you shared you would have appreciated more detailed information regarding the location, we apologize if this was not clear.

Your consultant definitely did not confuse you with other clients, if this came across in any way, we apologize. Thank you for sharing your concerns and feedback with us as it assists us in improving our services for the future. We strive to create trips of a lifetime and could not be more disappointed that we did not meet your expectations. We wish you all the best in your future travels.

Photos