Had a really bad experience with TicketsToIndia / My Vacations group. I had booked the tickets on Kingfisher Airlines Lon - Del-Lon and the Outbound journey was completed in March and Kingfisher stopped operations before the return journey in August. They did not call me to tell me this has happened and to share the next steps. what good is 15 years of experience in the industry if you can't share such key information?

I called the customer services team and they asked me to email the refunds team, which I did and then send a chaser a couple of days later. I did get a response saying the refunds were not being processed at the moment as IATA was not settling payments. I appreciated the response.

IATA opened a 3 week window and were offering refunds for customers. I called the my vacations staff asking if they had already applied for a refund or whether they will be doing that soon? The staff said (rudely), "you will need to wait", I asked how long, they said they did not know. I am expecting a refund of £500. I really don't know if I'm going to get anything !!!

In situations like this, the customer is left clueless, sharing of information is very crucial, but My Vacations staff seem to carry a very 'can't care less, tough luck' attitude.

I know this review will probably not be published but If you can read this - Please "Do NOT book with them".

Apologies to any customer that feels we did not support them during the difficult period when Kingfisher cancelled their flights.

This was a very difficult period and like you, we were not 100% sure what was happening with Kingfisher and what would happen in the future. We could only act upon the information and commercial policy that we were receiving from the airline and at the time it was "do not cancel passengers bookings, we will be operating". The difficulty for us was if we did cancel and re-book passengers prior to a flight officially being cancelled, Kingfisher were refusing to refund, also if they were able to offer a re-route or another Kingfisher service they would not refund in the case of a new ticket being purchased. It was a catch 22 situation.

Please remember that we, as agents, are at the mercy of the rules, regulations and commercial policy set down by the airline and other suppliers.

The Kingfisher saga was very unprecedented, they have not gone into administration and even today still operate domestic flights within India so normal scheduled airline failure insurance did not apply. Likewise as we the agent have not defaulted, ATOL & the CAA rules do not apply.

For a long period we were waiting for IATA to come to a reasonable conclusion with Kingfisher as to next steps and in particular what would happen with refunds. Luckily Kingfisher had a very large bond with IATA and IATA have agreed with Kingfisher that passengers will be refunded from this bond.

We have submitted over 500 refunds via IATA and we are currently waiting for IATA / Kingfisher to approve these and advise how much will be refunded.

I can not discuss an individual case in a forum like this but please do contact me on john@ticketstoindia.co.uk and I will look into individual cases off line. If we are able to secure you a refund you have our assurances that we will do so and refund you for the portion of your ticket that was unused.

Tirelesstraveller, I have already invited you via other forums to contact me direct to investigate your individual case. Making unqualified comments regarding accreditation and the authenticity of reviews on our site is not fair.

I can assure you that we hold all the appropriate licences in the UK via the Civil Aviation Authority to operate as a retail travel agent, we are also members of the Advantage Travel Group. We take our business, reputation and responsibilities very seriously. If we did not we wouldn't have been in business for 15 years now arranging travel for over 80,000 passengers per year. I can also guarantee you that every review shown on our website is 100% genuine.

If anyone has an issue with Tickets to India I am more than happy to investigate and if required put right any wrongs. Contact me on john@ticketstoindia.co.uk

I'm pleased to see that John from TicketstoIndia has offered a public apology. Its now three months since the Kingfisher fiasco and still nothing has happened. John's response on "TripAdvisor" is the first communication from his company that they have taken some steps to obtain refunds. It a shame that they haven't communicated this fact directly to the 500 individuals concerned. I contacted John some two months ago, and spoke on the phone, and this is the first I have heard back since then.

I stand by my comments about the questionable validity of the customer reviews on the website. There are no critical or negative reviews published (including my own). This is why the Tripadvisor forum plays such a important role. Its the only place where you can cut through the hype to obtain a more balanced view of a travel providers product and performance.

I just received the very first direct communication from TTI, an automated email explaining the details of all the dates and events / steps that have taken place in the past. The email was also informative on what happens next - it said TTI is expecting to recieve the refund amounts in the June billing cycle and that 4th week of June will be appropriate etime to expect some news.

This is a considerable improvement form the way this was being dealt with in the past. Thank you Trip advisor for providing a real customers forum with an impact..

I hope TTI will take appropriate actions to improcess procedures and will follow thi up with more communication. I will continue to pursure this post and will keep everyone updated on the positive and negative aspects of how the situation is handelled going forward.

I booked my tickets online and got the confirmation. I contacted airlines for some changes which they confirmed by e-mail. Very next day received an email from http://ticketstoindia.co.uk that my tickets has been canelled and I am liable for admin charges.

This is the 1st company in my knowledge asking for copy of your credit card (front and back) ? This is an illegal practice. My sincere advice is to stay away from this company.

I finally got my refund although this was £300 when I had paid a total of £980 for the return tickets.

John from TTI seems to be the only one concerned about this outrage (against TTI on this forum) and has been really helpful in sharing information and reswponding to questions.

TTI said they did not charge admin fee on the refund.

it is the first time i have used tickets to india to book my holiday in march. booking was fine but i had to change the return date. this is where i got stuck and had a bitter experience with customer service. i have asked for a date change and the lady over the phone changed the dates, charger £150 and i thought thats done but later after 2 hrs she called back and said i can't change dates as tickets are valid only for three months. i have asked her to keep original return date and refund the money. Instead she cancelled the whole reservation. I have lost return flight and need to book a new flight...what a mess. now i am taking to airlines whether they can reinstate my ticket. lessons learned for me are never ever use ticketstoindia if you are uncertain or need to change the date

satya

Dear Reader,

As you can see, the majority of comments on this thread relate to the unfortunate collapse of Kingfisher Airlines back in 2012. As you can see, our colleague John addressed these comments in full in his response at that time (see below) and we are happy to say that all customers who were waiting on refunds did eventually receive them.

Despite the collapse of Kingfisher and indeed other such challenges in the intervening years, we are pleased to advise that Tickets to India remains in business for both existing and new customers and we would encourage prospective customers to check out more up to date reviews on both this and other review websites.

Kind regards,

Nick Clout

Customer Services Manager - Tickets to India