North India Highlights, 24/01/12 - 08/02/12

Hello Dom,

I can advise that on the North India Highlights departing on the 24th January, you are the only person currently booked. However, this tour does run in conjunction with the Nepal & India (GINI) and the Rajasthan at a Glance (GIRG), so in total including yourself, there are 6 people confirmed to travel.

These 3 tours are very popular though, so we expect more passengers to book over the coming months.

Many Thanks.

Stuart

Thanks very much for the info, much appreciated. I do have another question, though - why did the ImTrav website, and the agent I booked the tour with, tell me there were only two places remaining on the tour, if I'm the only one who's booked on it?

Thanks in advance!

Hello Dom,

I believe the reason for this is that the North India Highlights (GINH) previously operated with 4 other tours, which has now changed to just 2 tours, GINI and GIRG. The two other tours that it ran with also have good numbers and would have made up the remaining group. This would have led to you being told that there were only 2 spaces left when you booked, which was accurate at the time.

So now we have the GINH operating with the GINI and GIRG, and the other two tours, The Road to Delhi (GIRD) and the Jewels of the North (GIJN) running separately.

I hope this helps explain it :)

Many Thanks

Aha, and thus is the mystery solved. Thanks for letting me know.
As someone who's travelled with ImTrav before on a number of occasions (this trip to India will be my fourth tour with you), I am of course aware that some tours overlap and people join or leave at different times.
That said, if I'm being totally honest, I think having both the ImTrav and Gecko's website showing less than 4 places remaining on the GINH "dates and prices" page, and the agent I booked with telling me the same information, is verging on sharp practice at best. At worst, it comes over like you're deliberately being disingenuous. The fact is, there weren't less than 4 places on my tour at all, there were no bookings. Surely you'd agree this is misleading? I'm not suggesting it's intentional, but would it have been so hard to say "there's no-one else booked on your tour as yet"?
As a solo traveller, one of my main criteria in choosing a tour is seeing how many others are booked on it - I prefer to travel with a larger group as, in my experience, it makes for a better tour. That's why I booked this particular tour to India, and not another one - because your website, as well as Gecko's website and your agent, led me to believe that there were already 12 people booked on it.
I now find that, as it stands, I'm the only person on that tour, and it looks like I'll be spending the first two days of my tour in Delhi on my own before meeting up with the other 5 people who've booked on adjoining tours. Not, I have to say, the start to the tour I had in mind.
Doubtless your response will be that you're confident that other people will book on to the tour as we get nearer to the time. That may very well be the case, but as I say, I booked this tour thinking it was nearly full. I thought I was making an informed decision as to which tour to go on, but sadly this was not the case.
I have to say, as a loyal customer, I find the way this has been handled to be pretty disappointing. Maybe this is something ImTrav can be more up-front with in future?

Hello Dom,

I'm sorry you feel misled but can assure you that this is the opposite of our intention. We have to keep to a maximum group size so the number of spaces left is dependent on the number of passengers booked across all its constituent tours, not just individual tours - otherwise we'd risk overbooking, which also wouldn't be fair. We don't like to see passengers disappointed however so will email you to discuss further.

Many Thanks