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Canary Islands. Private Arranged Tours expected up front payments? How have other arrangers handled this?


mauimary
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We are currently working on arranging some private tours with a couple of tour companies in the Canary Islands. I have written to these companies and one of them directed us to their booking pages.

 

We are planning to get a group from our Roll Call together and arrange a private tour for apx eight. It is directing us to make a complete payment up front for the entire group. We do not personally know any one else and only have some familiarity from the active posters. We are not comfortable doing this. We don't mind a down payment to hold our group or a credit card hold at worst but do not want responsibility for everyone.

 

In the past we had a price and it was divided among the participants in the group who have all paid their share at the conclusion of the tour. We have done this many times and have never had issues nor been asked for pre payment. This particular company has many great reviews but we are frustrated with the payment policy the way it appears. We have written back to owner for clarification.

 

How have others handled this situation if and when they have encountered it. Please share your experiences with us.

 

Thanks

Mauimary

 

 

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I don't want to reveal which company it is as I don't want to flame them.

 

I'm primarily interested in how others have handled this? We have never had to do this in the past. I'm sure they are no doubt being cautious in order to protect themselves from cancellation.

 

 

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Dont do it. I am out 140 euros from 2 separate companies in gran canaria and la palma. Only use ones that you can pay end of tour. You will not be reimbursed if something happens. I had 2 tours cancelled by guide and still not reimbursed. Never had this happen, only in canaries.

 

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Not much you can do other than what you have already done (ask the company if they will change their policy for your group). But to be honest, the whole reason they have the policy is probably because of too many past experiences with roll call groups where some members of the group flaked out, the remaining members of the group just shrugged their shoulders, and the tour operator, guide, and driver all lost money. If the company is really highly rated, they can afford to be picky about their customers and drive away groups that are unwilling to commit financially.

 

You can always look for another company that is willing to take the risk with a shared group booking without requiring full pre-payment.

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Thank you for your replies. Jeans...We will not do it. Hawkeyes.. I agree your suspicions are probably right as this company has failed to even give me a response to my email with some further questions. I am disappointed in the failure to even come back with a response. They have so many great reviews on Trip Advisor and I got the idea to consult them off of a CC Trip Review by a couple that posts many detailed reviews of their many cruises.

 

On top of it all the price quoted was more than double for us to bring them a group of eight for a private tour vs eight random cruisers going to webpage and clicking on a scheduled group tour. We would have no control of who signed up or even know who that are. They want payment immediately. We are not a fan of doing it this way as we like to have our group get off of the ship together. We do not want to wait for a random group of folks we do not know to get off and accumulate together. There is no way we are going to put up payment for a whole private tour group ahead of time. If this was for a family of eight or eight traveling together it would be a different story. We are not sure why our costs for a private group of eight were so much more?

 

In conclusion this pretty much goes against our successful way of booking our own private group tours and for the amount of trouble involved with doing business with them is just not going to work. Will definitely look for another tour company that is easier to work with.

Edited by mauimary
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I wanted to come back and say that the tour company involved did finally get back to me to answer additional questions. Due to the fact a private arranged tour is twice the cost of just going to the website and signing up with a random group tour we have decided this will not be a good fit for us and decided to pursue other tour companies that would be easier to plan our private tour with.

 

Mauimary

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I wanted to come back and say that the tour company involved did finally get back to me to answer additional questions. Due to the fact a private arranged tour is twice the cost of just going to the website and signing up with a random group tour we have decided this will not be a good fit for us and decided to pursue other tour companies that would be easier to plan our private tour with.

 

Mauimary

 

We used tripgrancanaria and tenerifeprivatetours

 

both tours were great and we paid in cash end of tour

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  • 3 months later...
  • 5 months later...

We(group of ten) paid upfront, but had absolutely no issues, as the tour and guide were very good. I had the same feelings, but the company and reviews were all excellent and in the top two on trip advisor and great reviews on CC. The one to the volcano with lunch outside was outstanding...

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