Author:
Date of purchase: 14 may 2015 Written: 27 june 2015 |
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Travel agency: My Travel (Kyiv) Service type: экскурсионный тур |
My Travel company ruined my vacation with their lies, besides, 400 euros just went down the drain.
Now about everything in order.
After the May holidays, I found out that from May 30 to June 14, 2015 I will have a vacation, and I planned an important personal tourist trip to Berlin from June 10 to 14 - I bought plane tickets, paid for a hotel (My Travel has absolutely nothing to do with it ). Then I saw on the Accord-Tour website the "Weekend to the Baltics" tour from May 30 to June 4, for a very ridiculous price (something around 3800 UAH with a visa), I have never been to the Baltics, and thought that it was it would be very cool to first go to the Baltic States, and then fly to Berlin. The only question that arose was with a Schengen visa for Germany - it was quite obvious that if I did not get a Schengen visa to travel to Berlin before traveling to the Baltic states, then after returning from the tour, I would not have time to issue it in 5 days (the Germans write at least 5 working days + 2 days to the visa center).
With all this, on May 14, 2015, I came to the travel agent "Accord-Tour" - the travel company "My Travel". The conversation was as follows - I really want to go on a tour of the Baltics, but a trip to Berlin, fully paid for at the time of contacting the travel agency, is a priority for me. Therefore, I am ready to buy a tour to the Baltics, but only on condition that I receive a multivisa, or my passport will be returned to me before May 21, 2015, and then I will have time to apply for Schengen at the German embassy before leaving for the Baltics.
At the same time, he once again stressed that if there is at least some risk, then you warn me - it’s better not to start anything right away, I can’t lose my trip to Berlin.
However, the travel agency assured that the probability of obtaining an Estonian multi-visa is very high (before that, I had up to 10 Schengen in my passport over the past 3 years, including the Spanish multi), of course they cannot guarantee what decision the consulate will make, but they will ask very much . Then I asked if they could at least guarantee that they would submit my documents to the Estonian embassy no later than May 15, so that if the multivisa was refused, I would have the opportunity, having received my passport back on the 21-22, even before leaving for the Baltic states deal with the design of the German Schengen. I was promised that they would submit the documents within the specified time. I also suggested that the travel agency present my bookings in Germany (air ticket and paid hotel) to the Estonian embassy, so that the embassy would take them into account when deciding on the type of visa (single entry, double entry or multi), but the travel agency refused, saying that they they never do that. As a result, I was assured that I had nothing to worry about, that there was a high probability of obtaining a multivisa, or I would get my passport back, and I had the idiocy to trust, give my passport and pay for the tour ...
Certain suspicions arose on May 18, when I called the My Travel travel agency to ask if my documents had already been submitted to the embassy, in response I heard something inarticulately uncertain, they say, yes, and I was advised not to worry for anything, everything will be in order .
I saw my passport again only on May 30, 2015, already in Lviv, in terminal "A", on the bus next to the tour. And there was a one-time Estonian Schengen... In fairness, it should be said that the fact that the Schengen is one-time - I was notified by phone on May 28, while saying that I could get my passport only in Lviv, on the bus. When I reminded the representative (he is also the director) of the travel agency about our agreements, he said that nothing worked out, and it was not his fault that the tour operator applied for a visa directly for the tour. Then I offered the travel agency itself to somehow rectify the situation, for example, to assist me in obtaining a German Schengen (after all, travel agencies have much more opportunities in this regard, including the terms of consideration, than ordinary citizens), but I was assured that this impossible, unless I buy a tour to Germany from them. At the same time, the director of the travel agency "My Travel" said that in the German visa center (he found out!) There is an accelerated procedure for an additional fee, for 3 days to obtain a visa, and suggested that I do it myself.
Result: I submitted documents to the German Visa Application Center on June 5, of course, there is no accelerated procedure for an additional payment, and, of course, I did not manage to receive a visa either on June 10 or even on June 14. As a result, the trip to Berlin was disrupted, important personal plans and 400 euros were lost...
It is obvious that I will never use the services of "My Travel" again and do not advise anyone - they cannot be trusted, for the sake of their profit they are ready to make deliberately unrealizable promises.
Of course, if I knew at least 1% about the risk of not going to Berlin, I would never have gone on an adventure with buying this Baltic tour, no matter how good it was.
It is clear that the travel agency cannot guarantee a multi-visa, but it is simply OBLIGED to warn the client that he will receive his passport only on the bus, that the visa documents will be submitted all together, immediately before the tour, and if another trip is more important to the client, then from this one he it is better to refuse, because there is a reasonable risk. This is what those travel agencies do that primarily value their reputation, but not My Travel.