Needed more info than website had

With quality tour guides, land arrangements and itineraries plus value pricing and intensive mail solicitation, it comes as no surprise that Vantage Deluxe World Travel is enjoying popularity.

We took our second trip with Vantage, duplicating the 11-day tour of Iceland described by an ITN reader (June ’05, pg. 73) plus adding a 2-day Greenland extension and were impressed with the quality of our August ’06 tour. . . once we got there. We were much less impressed with their Customer Service.

As explained by Mr. Lewis, CEO, in the Vantage automated telephone message, the demand for Vantage travel has grown so large that trip registrants are asked to get most answers to questions at Vantage’s website.

We had a question about a discrepancy between our final instructions and the travel documents we had received, one which could not be answered at the website. What would ordinarily be a minor issue became increasingly disconcerting as we were unable to obtain a response from Customer Service to phone calls, e-mails and faxes.

Apprehensive that our minor issue might be a “canary in a coal mine” indicator of things worse to come, our adventure travel began well before the actual trip, and it was an uncomfortable, not-reassuring experience.

We have no doubt that Vantage is aware of the problem and, hopefully, is taking steps to correct it. We, however, will help relieve them of our portion of their burden by not traveling with them again, at least until their Customer Service comes back in alignment with the industry standard.

RICHARD RAWSON & CYNTHIA NEUMAN
Sacramento, CA

ITN sent a copy of the above letter to Vantage Deluxe World Travel (90 Canal St., Boston, MA 02114-2031) and received no reply.