Springboard Vacations
Beware of this travel agency / tour operato

Unfortunately for us, our travel agent used Springboard to book our vacation to Australia. The most critical problem was the booking of the 'Day and Night Rainforest and Wildlife Tour' from Axio Adventures, because the error could have been life-threatening. When we discussed the travel plans with our agent, we identified Daintree National Park as the destination. There were emails between the agent and us that specifically discussed the altitude of Daintree and the requirement that we not be taken more than 1,000 feet above sea level on November 6 (because we were scuba diving the day before). The agent led us to believe that the selected tour would be of Daintree National Park. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the guide picked us up at our hotel in Cairns that we learned of the critical mistake. The tour we had been booked on did not go to Daintree, but instead went to the Atherton Tablelands, with an altitude of over 3,600 feet above sea level. We had specifically told our agent that Atherton was not a suitable destination, yet this was the tour that was booked for us.

The next problem was related to the Kangaroo Island portion of our trip. Based on communication from our agent stating that the flights between Adelaide and Kangaroo Island were not included in the tour we purchased, we bought tickets for the 7:40am arrival in Kingscote. Upon receiving the vouchers in Adelaide, we discovered that the package did include flights, and that Exceptional KI (the Kangaroo Island tour operator) was expecting our arrival at 10:05am. After about 6 phone calls to Springboards local operator, Exceptional KI, and the airline, we discovered that a 2nd set of reservations had been made for us but were never paid for, despite Springboard having charged us for them.

After our return to the US we sent a letter of compliant to Springboard, which refunded our duplicate airfare charges saying it had been a "misunderstanding." Regarding the tour mistake, they said that the booker "had simply misclicked" and refunded us $50 of a $250 per person for this potentially life threatening "mistake."

Company: Springboard Vacations
Country: USA
State: California
City: Los Angeles
Site: springboardvacations.com

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