Whitsett Travel

Shailesh Dongre _{on Google}

Jun 13th, 2013

Tour Company: Alaska Vacation Store OR Whitsett Travel 330 E. 4th Avenue, Suite 203, Anchorage, AK 99501
Tour Operator: Wigi Tozzi 1(877)MY ALASKA (692-5275)
Travel Dates: June 30 – July 6 2013
Experience Title: WORST EXPERIENCE DUE TO TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE
This was by far the worst tour company I have ever dealt with. The owner of AlaskaVacationStore – Wigi Tozzi – lacks courtesy, etiquette, customer service and professionalism. He has no idea what ‘customer satisfaction’ means.
I am really surprised the way this company operates and how they still manage to be in business??
Experience Details: Made first enquiry call to Wigi and thought of him to be trustworthy tour operator. He sent impressive tour details and quoted a very high price. Even then, I fell for the plan and trusted him – BIG MISTAKE. As soon as I took the bait and made the commitment, his communication style changed from excellent to I-do-not-care attitude towards me. All communications were always one sided…initiated by me… never once did I get a call back from Wigi… Usually the vendor calls customer for payment, but in this case, surprisingly, I had to call him 10 times so that he can accept my payment and finalize the bookings. Due to the high price quoted by Wigi, I had to cut bear watching tour from my itinerary to save myself some money, at the end of the planning Wigi increased the quoted price anyways siting hotel unavailability and other reasons. He completed bookings very late in June even when I said YES in March. His strategy was to make me wait for 2 months, so that at the last moment he can increase price and I’ll have no option but to say yes to whatever price and hotel changes he offers me. Terrible and shameless way to make money out of your clients!
This has been by far the worst experience for me. AlaskaVacationStore works purely on commission basis and doesn’t care what their customers wants. Wigi Tozzi is by far the worst tour operator I have ever done business with. He lacks courtesy, formal communication skills, ethics, and flexibility. He made me pick high priced hotels as part of the package and later charged the extra price to me.
In our trip, we could not take the Talkeetna Air Taxi due to bad weather and I asked Wigi for refund. After 2 months of numerous frustration filled phone calls and emails, he finally refunded the amount.
I work in service industry myself and after coming back from my Alaska vacation, at least 8-10 of my American co-workers, managers and friends made serious inquiries about AlasaVacationStore and I honestly told them – NOT TO DO BUSINESS WITH WIGI. 4 months of terrible customer service experience!!