Travellers to Central and South America BEWARE of dealing with Journey Latin America, the specialised travel agent in Chiswick, London.

I've had a really disgusting experience with Travel Agent Journey Latin America where they exceeded the law of the UK on more than a few counts in selling a ticket.
This purchase was also the best example of appalling, degrading, embarassing, incompetent, lazy, insulting and low-class customer service that you could come across when buying a ticket. JLA advertise reasonable fares to Latin America in the big newspapers and magazines - my fare was published in a Rough Guide travel guide and was a flight-pass consisting of five air flights.

The introduction that I had was fine and very professional from the operator Sueli who described the ticket as at a slightly higher price than in the guidebook and gave me a sales reference to call back for this. I did this so as to purchase the ticket, giving my credit-card number to another operator who told me that she could help me as Sueli was not working on that day. I paid and that was fine.

Sueli phoned me up a few days after this to speak about my ticket. She told me that she would go ahead with the purchase as agreed but did not know that I had already paid for this ticket and arranged for it to be sent. I told her this, as I was told before this that my card had been debited and payment had been made. She said that this had not happened and then refused to give me an apology for this error, claiming that she had not been informed about this. At this point, she wanted me to fax identification details to her rather than giving these when I collected the ticket for some unknown reason. I needed these tickets and so went ahead with the sale, faxing photocopies of ID as I was told was required for the sale of this ticket. At this point I was slightly releieved that the ticket I was relying on was to be available as the operator Sueli seemed as thought she was quite affected in some way and certainly seemed to be someone who should not be working in any customer service role.

I arranged to collect the tickets on the morning that my flight left to Dubai, there not being enough time for these to be posted to where I was staying in Scotland. Driving through the night, I made it to the JLA Chiswick offices at the arranged time which left me a reasonable amount of time to get to the airport. I should have been able to walk in and pick up a pre-paid ticket. Instead I waited fourty minutes for Sueli to appear and have the ticket printed on that day (Unbelievable!) without an apology despite my telling this strange woman that I had to catch a flight. She was exceptinonally casual and smiled when I told her I was in a hurry. Understandably, I lost my patience and raised my voice.

After waiting further, she then decided, suddenly to lump a new £50 insurance charge to these pre-paid tickets which, as agreed, already included all insurance, tax and country entry fees. I was getting late for my flight and Sueli refused to hand over my tickets as arranged without my now paying this extra charge. There was nothing I could do. Hurriedly I said that I would only pay this in order to get the tickets and that I thought this to be illegal. Then Sueli told me that she would not accept a cheque with a £100 banker's card though I told her, as I would speak to a kindergarten child, that this is legal tender in this country though I knew that JLA accept cheques in any case. Finally, nearly an hour after I got there, I got the ticket and perspired heavily through thick traffic on the way to the airport and made it on time.

This was against the contract law of the UK and also probably against the law which regulates services operating and advertising. I could not afford legal representation on my return from six months travel for such a small amount but what was a large chunk from my very tight travel budget at that time. ABTA and ATOL only sugested I speak directly tt the agents as they could only help in very specific situations. It was appropriate to go to court myself in this situation I believe but in the end I took £20 or so offered by JLA as some kind of compensation without an apology. They said that they had no record of any such error and so insulted me more, giving me money to hold my mouth (I guess) whilst making it out as if there was nothing for which they should even apologise.

Avoid JLA all costs is my advice. Despite the low prices and the big adverts and the free magazines that they send out. They don't have the backing anyway that the major student agents and some other operators who sell at roughly the same prices or less would have internationally, as I found out in Latin America when checking my itinerary with the airlines.

I just wanted to say I agree with the previous posters comments.
I approached JLA for a trip to Bolivia and Peru.
From my initial contact with them, I found the company to be ill-informed, rude, expensive and incompetent!
I phoned and emailed several times to get prices and on numerous occasions my enquiries were ignored: leaving me to chase them up.
When I finally did get a quote out of them it was far more expensive than other travel agents I’d approached (even though JLA are supposed to be the ‘experts’)… so I decided not to bother with them.
However, I then found they were the only company who could book me a Lima/Cusco ticket in the UK – so against my better judgement I purchased this flight with them.
I was quoted a price of £75 per ticket. But when my credit card statement turned up, I’d actually been billed for £119. I phoned up to complain and was only then told that the £75 fee did not include taxes or a £30 admin fee (because I had not booked my intercontinental flight with them).
When I complained I was offered no apology and no compensation. I finally got hold of the manager who told me it was ‘my problem’.
This is only a brief summary of my problems with JLA! I’d say more, if it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t want to waste my time writing about it.
To sum up then - I’d avoid JLA at all costs.
In all my travelling, I’ve come across no other company whose service has been SO BAD!!

I have no experience of JLA but would recommend a travel agency in London that specialises in travel to Latin America and has never let me down......

They are called South American Experience and consist of a small team of about 8 who have all lived in Latin America at some point. You can expect a wealth of information and advice whether you just want a flight or a multitude of flights, transfers.

South American Experience,
47 Causton Street,
Pimlico,
London SW1P 4AT
Tel: 020 79765511
Fax: 020 7976 6808

http://www.southamericanexperience.co.uk

I have to admit that South American Experience were very good to me. I wanted a flight from Caracas to Havana and they found me one half the amount quoted by anybody else, and it wasn't with Cubana! They also got me a Cuban Tourist Card at very short notice - went out of their way to help me, so five stars for them.
I haven't had problems with JLA, in fact when I bought a ticket to Lima with them a couple of years ago, I then found the same flight cheaper elsewhere - called them to tell them this, and they refunded me the difference.
but I would recommend calling around. last summer I got fantastic deals through STA travel (as an under 26 yr old) which even the airlines concerned were denying existed.

Journey Latin America received an email on the 1st April 2002 containing the text from the posting by GMC (above), from a person whom we have no record of having dealt with at any time since 1993. He/she names a member of staff who has not worked at JLA for over 2 years.

Some of the information in the complaint rings true - we are based in Chiswick, we did employ a flights consultant of this name.

The accusation that we had no record of a previous or concurrent booking could be explained by our being given a different passenger name the second time he/she called us (this happens frequently).

It is true to say that we accept cheques, but a guarantee card is normally only sufficient for transactions up to £100. We need to allow 9 days clearance time for cheques above £100.

We also accept credit cards without surcharge, and will either post tickets (if there is sufficient time) or make them available for collection at our office.

We could investigate this complaint in much more detail if we had received formal notification. As it is, the events appear to have taken place at least 2 years ago, and the complainant to be anonymous.

webmaster@journeylatinamerica.co.uk

[This message was edited by JLA Webmaster on April 02, 2002 at 09:08 AM.]