Are Voyage Prive trustworthy?

Caro200

I have booked to go to Taba Heights Hyatt Regency through Voyage Prive. It is a 'all-inclusive plus' package and the holiday it turns out is with Longwood travel.

My confirmation from Longwood states 'half-board' and 3 weeks have passed and many emails to both companies to get a new confirmation email with 'all-inclusive plus' on it. That is what I have paid for and by golly that is what I want confirmation of but so far NOTHING!!! How hard can it be??? Luckily the holiday is not until JUly so still time to get this email confirmation. But all hassle which you don't need.

Would not recommend Voyage Prive to anyone, better to book direct, or in this case through Longwood, who say they have contacted VP but with no result. GRRRR.:(

solarpanel

I have reported VP to ABTA. If anyone uses them, check every thing they say has happened. If you book a flight and expect to check in after getting tickets, do so online before the day. I did and was told that check in was invalid. If I had turned up at the airport and checked in I would not have been allowed to fly.
My compalint to VP was ignored I contacted ABTA. This stirred an executive ( no less) to tell me how sorry they were. They are changing processes etc. I would ahve liked a reply from the CEO who ignored my personal letter.
Believe them if you will.

You are not a member as they claim, you are an inconvenience, no amount of "sorry" saves a ruined holiday

CJChana

They 'accidentally' cancelled the return leg of my flight from Santorini back to London without telling me. I only found out the night before I was due to fly back when I tried to check in.

After calling them, the customer rep agreed they had messed up and promised I would get a call at the earliest the next day....but nothing...leaving me stranded without flight and hotel. Fortunately I was able to get the last few spaces on a flight leaving the same day (at the cost of an additional 400 Euros).

I have only received a very generic reply from them so far saying "Association of British Travel Agents allows members 28 days from the date of receiving client correspondence in which to issue our response." I have enough evidence that they screwed up so I'm leaving it with ABTA.

My advice... use them for ideas, book yourself!

martindow

This is their feedback page

http://www.feefo.com/GB/en/reviews/Voyage-Prive/?id=165236

Quite a lot of red warnings - several from people disappointed by the quality of supposed 4* or 5* hotels.

cannaman

No, they are not.


They take a very large deposit at the time of booking and demand 30% cancellation fees even when they are making major changes to the package holiday they offered! They accept no responsibility and offer no online information on their cancellation policies or processes. Do not deal with them, they also employ social media manipulators to boost their online image - all those glowing reports and testimonials come from paid trolls

Willow1111

Please read this letter of complaint i wrote to VP regarding a trip to Greece which they took over a month to respond too, before basically telling us to "sod off". Zero compensation was given. If only I'd had more time I would have made more of a fuss about it all. :-(

Dear Voyage Prive,
My mother and I live on the opposite sides of the world, both working in executive positions in organisation development and media / marketing respectively. We both work internationally and considered ourselves savvy world travellers. Due to extremely busy workloads we decided to let Voyage Prive hand-pick a luxury holiday for us to spend our ‘one’ week together.
The Voyage Prive ads are very appealing, with glorious photos. We bought into the concept of Voyage Prive for the:
• Promise of quality
• Hand-picked luxury offers
• Exclusive prices and discounts of up to 70%
• Member services team available 7 days per week
• A hotel that offers a relaxing environment and chic, elegantly designed rooms.
• Photos of breath taking views.
Our trip to Santorini was £2,061 for flights and 7 nights (even with the 69% discount), by no means cheap, but we thought we would stretch our budgets for what was promised to be a wonderful holiday.
Alas our nightmare holiday began on arrival.
Your promise: Member services team available 7 days per week??
When we arrived it was immediately apparent that this was not our concept of luxury. We arrived Sunday evening and after travelling on trains, buses and aeroplane we were ready for luxury to begin… only to find that we had to lift our suitcases up and down a number of sets of stairs to get to the room. There was no one to help.
Relief did not arrive as we entered the room, from the very first glance we knew we had been misled. The room was by no means “chic or elegant”, rather “tiny and basic”.
We began calling a number of different contact numbers listed for Voyage Prive. No one answered any of our calls, although we were calling within the operating hours. We immediately went and spoke to the lady at the reception of the hotel, however she was unable to help us and directed us back to Voyage Prive. So we stayed our first night in a dingy little room and thought we would try again first thing in the morning.
We finally got through to Voyage Prive the following morning, and after many phone calls across the following days - calls that were both costly and wasteful of holiday time and energy - it became clear that Voyage Prive were not going to offer a solution. We were instructed to ‘Speak to the manager’ of the hotel and to negotiate ourselves. The elusive manager never seemed to be about, however there was a different lady at the front desk that we spoke to a number of times (Angela).
This raised an interesting issue, when booking through Voyage Prive who is really accountable here? What role does Voyage Prive play? Who is their client, ‘us’ or the Hotel? In the end we, ‘the customer’ were played off between the Hotel and Voyage Prive, neither party wanting to have responsibility over our misfortune. 3 days in and numerous phone calls, conversations, emails later with no appropriate solution we had to take it upon ourselves to move hotels before the holiday was all but over.
Let’s look into some of the details…we have photos of course as evidence.
Voyage Prive promise: “Handpicked luxury”, “Chic, elegantly designed rooms”.
We ask, who did the handpicking and what is your criteria for luxury? Clearly not our concept of luxury…. In fact we would consider this Hotel a basic family run hotel – with skeleton staff who double up for several tasks. Much like Faulty Towers, the single front desk clerk is the travel agent, the checking in/out clerk, the room service.
• Does luxury mean: carry your own bags up and down stairs to your room?
• Does luxury mean: we cannot have a kettle for tea in our room?
• Does luxury mean: the room is so small that there is not enough space to walk around the end of the bed; in fact you need to climb over one of the beds to access the door.
• Does luxury mean: there is no room for two bedside tables with lamps… only one. One person must read in the dark.
• Does luxury mean: a safety deposit box that has been ripped from the wall… exposing rusted paint work, and enabling it to be carried out the door?
• Does luxury mean: a bathroom that is so small it measures just larger than our suitcase?
• Does Chic & elegant mean a bathroom with dated/ broken fittings, a basin with just a hole in the sink … no mesh or plug cover, a shower curtain broken off the wall? With no closed area for the shower we found that this tiny space was flooded with water after a shower.
• Does Chic and Elegant meant that our personal amenities then had to sit on the water covered floor?
• Does Chic and Elegant mean a toilet with a sign that read: ‘no paper to be placed in the bowl’… Something that all luxury hotels (even in Greece) manage these days! The toilet was even complete with a constant dripping of water to keep you awake at night.
• Does luxury mean: a ‘rattling’ bar fridge that are also leaked water during the night, all over the floor on our first night.
• Does luxury mean: a dated air-conditioner that ramps up like an aeroplane that creates a further instrument of music in our attempt to sleep through the night.
This by no means matches our concept of luxury and has destroyed our opinion of Voyage Prive’s travel selections. We would like to know:
• Who selects your luxury properties?
• What are your criteria?
• What are your quality control processes?
• How many of your other offerings are also to this standard?
After extreme dissatisfaction with Voyage Prive and the Hotel, we decided we had already lost nearly 3 days of our one week holiday, so set about to find an alternative – what we thought we had paid for. We found this a few hundred meters down the street and our luxury Hotel addressed all our needs and expectations…it was the first hotel we looked into. It was delightful – hats off to Belonias Villa, they were impeccable.
A room at least 3 times larger, ample clothing wardrobes (not a single, stale cupboard with 2 drawers) with most expansive lounge and kitchen area – yes we could have tea in our room, and we could sit comfortably with our lap tops, and even lie on the 2 couches with coffee tables.
A beautifully modern bathroom including toilet that had no problem handling paper, modern glass sided shower with both rain head and hand holding shower heads. Basins that allowed room for products; Large Towel rails and even small hand towel rails.
A modern air-conditioner and large fan, a large balcony with seated area overlooking pool and beach front. All in all beautifully fitted out with modern and artistic flair. We could go on…
The staff was professional, well educated, and of a high calibre (as you would expect) and we were treated as very special guests. The standard of the restaurant was superb and breakfasts were a delight even including homemade preserves.
The fittings and atmosphere of the Hotel was far superior and at a level that we are accustomed, and had expected from Voyage Prive.
Interestingly the price was also very similar and this gives further rise to another concern…. Voyage Prive advertises up to 70% discount???? Yet we were able to get absolute luxury for a similar price ‘off the street’.
So I ask: What is the point of using Voyage Prive? What value does Voyage Prive bring? How much have we been ripped off?
We are asking you for one last time… we would like a fair deal.
The room was quote at €181 per night, reduced from €493 – which is €1,267. We would like this amount to be refunded. We feel that this is fair even though we had to find another hotel last minute which cost us €210 per night off the street. We feel we have been completely misled by the advertisement (including pictures of Thira, not Kamari beach), the description and have been solely disappointed with the resolution management.
Should our concerns not be addressed this last time we will have to resort to further actions, as follows:
We will complain to Abta, AITO, ask for a refund from the credit card company and finally, (I refer you back to the start of this email), we will deploy my skills in seeding this review across the internet far and wide. The digital world will soon hear about our holiday malaise and our “Beware! Beware! Warnings”.
Shame on you Voyage Prive, you advertised a dream and you delivered a step up from a backpackers. Even worse you nearly ruined our 1 week holiday together.
Nb. Photos have been included.

CB49

Has anyone had a problem cancelling their holiday with Voyage Prive BEFORE they received the Booking Confirmation? Their Terms & Conditions say a binding contract comes into existence when they send out the Booking Confirmation* but even though I cancelled before I received this, they still say I have to pay nearly £1,000 to cancel a £1,300 holiday.
Thank for your help.

* Where you book any arrangements other than a flight inclusive tour operator package online, a confirmation of your booking will be sent to you automatically using the e-mail address provided. A binding contract between you and the accommodation provider, tour operator or VPUK, as applicable, will come into existence when we send out this confirmation.

libertysurf

I see the company is no longer listed in feefo. Why not?