*NOTE THIS IS NOT TO DEGRADE any of the coupon site or the travel agency. This is just a recap and opinion and FEELINGS of MY EXPERIENCE which I think can help a lot of people who had/have undergone (or ARE undergoing) this experience with the said sites. I was able to book my flights, accommodations, tours and everything in the end and I will fly on October17-19. I will make a separate blog post for POST-vacation to see if everything really has gone smoothly. I am not telling you to bash or boycott these people, just BE WARY AND TAKE LOTS OF CAUTION*

In case you wanna skip the whole post, here are the RELIABLE CONTACT NUMBERS

*With updated Metrodeal new hotline number*
ENSEMBLE E-TRAVEL AGENCY
DARYL (for PALAWAN DEALS)
E-mail: ppsdeal2@gmail.com
Celphone: +63 9174886388
Landline: 5469083
OTHER Person people have been able to contact
Joey Regis +639174246558
+639174886386

BANTAYAN DEALS
E-mail: bantayandeal2@gmail.com

METRODEAL
Landline: 8858848
MetroDeal Inc.
27F (Regus) Tower 2 The Enterprise Centre
6766 Ayala Avenue cor. Paseo De Roxas
Makati City

I feel so STRESSED AND HURT the past weeks.

Okay sorry how very callous of me to start my post with these kinds of words. But I haven’t endured this kind of stress and axiety with any other TRAVEL AGENCIES in my whole years of…. almost adulthood. My parents have been the ones arranging flights for me but I am sure that they have never encountered such horrendous service in their entire life. And we thought travel agencies were service-oriented. We didn’t demand leopard skins or a red carpet treatment, we just wanted BASIC customer service. Listen to the customer, reply to the customer ASAP, respect the customer and be a cheery dude.

Okay so let’s go into detail about this.

Am sure that everyone must be acquainted with coupon sites already which I think is an ingenious thing. The stores, establishments and agencies put up this limited offer and people would react impulsively to this because they would all think, “if i don’t buy this now, I may never get the chance!”. These services are also PRE-PAID so they immediately earn money without even doing anything. Smart eh? I mean look at this travel deal we bought, it’s worth almost 10 thousand pesos and around 3 thousand bought the coupons. Do the math and they’ve instantly hit GOLD! Such was the case of our deal in Metrodeal and Ensemble E-travel.

Metrodeal is an established coupon site here in the Philippine as one of the first few coupon sites. My friend recommended it to me because of its great deals on food and services. When the offer for 2 people to go to Puerto Prinsesa for 3 days 2 nights including airfare, accommodations, tours and breakfasta for only 10 thousad pesos, my friends and I jumped at the chance and boight the great deal. It’s my dream to go to Palawan coz I believed that it was better than Boracay because there was less people. I researched the hotel, Kookaburra Lodge and it rained with GREAT reciews so I told my friends, all systems go! Let’s do this thing!

This happened last July 2011. Here’s a screenshot of the offer.

Note the terms and conditions, it said that they would immediately call you after the deal has ended. Note again that it did say subject to availability on SOME DATES but does not mention that you can actually go to only if you pay an additional fee so we all assumed that all flights WHEN AVAILABLE ONLY (meaning if it isn’t available on October20, then there aren’t flights at all) would have the same price. NOTHING SAID DEPENDS ON PROMO PRICE. It’s vague and discreet. Why didn’t we notice this? So guys always READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS VERY CAREFULLY. If you feel like there’s something wrong, don’t push through with it and find another deal.

Note also that I actually didn’t check on the travel agency. BIG MISTAKE. I assumed that all travel agencies would function well since booking a flight actually takes less time now especially local flights since you don’t even need passport details. Again DON’T ASSUME. ALWAYS MAKE SURE OF EVERY DETAIL. It was a mistake to assume that Metrodeal and Ensemble actually had GOOD COMMUNICATION. I was only alarmed after 2 weeks when my friend kept on wondering why hasn’t Ensemble contact us yet. So I did my part and emailed them our voucher details.

Tik tok tik tok… a day has passed… two… three… four… (hey did they really get my email?)… five… six… seven…

HOW DOES A TRAVEL AGENCY TAKE 7 DAYS TO RESPOND?

I got scared thinking maybe Metrodeal or Ensemble scammed us. I looked again at Metrodeal making sure it was a legit site (well of course it was, they had HUNDREDS of deals!) and then I searched for Ensemble’s site. Their site didn’t look professional and actually shady and they had TONS of numbers which I tried to call to NO AVAIL. No one was answering and one number was even WRONG. I then googled and did my own research about the company and I saw SCAMS, COMPLAINTS, ANGRY WORDS written all over the forums. I called up Kookaburra Lodge just to ask if Ensemble really did make reservations with them before and if they were legit, I finally got their cel number from them and the landline number from a blog I found. I tried that but again NOBODY WAS RESPONDING. I emailed Metrodeal and they replied back an email that only told Ensemble to please handle our matters immediately. Knowing that I couldn’t actually just depend on an email that might be left unanswered once again. I kept on calling and trying Ensemble directly. I NEEDED to speak to someone. I tried for 50 FRIGGING MINUTES CALLING THEIR DARN PHONES and gave up so I just sent them TWENTY texts inquiring our situation. By the good grace of the Lord, THEY FINALLY REPLIED (via text) and then I replied FOUR TIMES AGAIN just so that I can get a reply. What are they thinking? Are they not getting our texts? The good thing was I got a reply from the e-mail afterwards. After feeling harassed, stressed and frazzled. I knew that we had to call them immediately because flights were probably running out and we had to really book in advance.

His excuse was that they lacked manpower and the phone lines kept crashing because of the number of calls. They were going to add more people and more lines. Well THIS ISN’T MY PROBLEM. They should have expected this to happen when they put up that good deal/voucher on Metrodeal. They should have anticipated and added more lines to their communication. They should have REVIEWED OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT (and to think i’m not a business major but I do know that CONTINGENCY PLANS MUST BE MET) and fixed this problem BEFORE SERVING TO THE CUSTOMER. I know that no company is perfect, heck nobody is. But to not look like they prepared at all? YOU BE THE JUDGE.

Um…. where did all the other information go in their original voucher? This is the email one they sent us.

What contained in their e-mail frustrated me even more because the dates that I asked weeks before WAS NOT APPLICABLE but we could go if we add a thousand pesos to it. Promo wasn’t applicable on those days but we can still go. Now wait a minute, nothing was said about promo fares or anything. My friend whose brother was a lawyer was even encouraging us to file a lawsuit against them because of misinformation and lack of legitimacy (im not sure if Ensemble is listed in the Department of Tourism) because of their service (I read also from blogs that some actually have tried to file, I am not sure what happened to these). I emailed Ensemble about this concern and they mentioned that it was MISCOMMUNICATION WITH METRODEAL, Metrodeal didn’t put that fine print there in the promo. But AGAIN this shouldn’t have been our problem, this should have been theirs.

My benefit of the doubt and my desire to see Palawan at all costs made me lose heart in arguing over this so we just made a compromise and settled for October 17-19. I have to give it to the one that I was talking to though because he was able to settle our flight in one night (which made me wonder, WHY COULDN’T THEY HAVE DONE THIS FRIGGING SOONER?). He told us that he will e-mail us our itinerary, flight details, accommodation details (travel docket in short) by September. One month after. I felt more at ease now because I was able to talk to a real person this time and he seemed efficient anyway. This is DARYL (not sure if Darryl) from Ensemble and he sounded nice.

So there… one week passed… two… three… four… FIVE… SIX…

It was already October 2 and since our flight’s on October 17, I started panicking a little and decided to call them again. Same problem. My friend told me that she saw new deals that they were servicing (THEY EVEN TOOK MORE JOBS, CAN THEY HANDLE IT?) and saw that they added more cel phone numbers. So they did fulfill their promise of adding more lines. GOOD JOB. But were they answering? UH… NO. Even Daryl wasn’t replying to my calls or texts. I was also using two other cell phones and trying out ALL the available cell phone numbers they had. FINALLY I got in using their landline. I asked to speak to Daryl because he knew our problems unfortunately he wasn’t there. I can’t remember what the guy said but he transferred me to a guy named Kurt/Kirt. Now this is where I blew my fuse because when I inquired about my problem, KURT/KIRT seemed like he had absolutely NO IDEA what I was talking about. He just kept on telling me that he will email me this week (it was a Wednesday when I called I think) and if I don’t hear from them this week, I should call next week (next week meaning, uh just 7 days away from our flight, OH GREAT) again. He didn’t sound ACCOMMODATING OR FRIENDLY AT ALL. I can see him shrugging his shoulders in the phone, not even caring for the customer, didn’t even sound like he was making an effort to view our package or emailing us, it’s as if his shift was done and I was just a liability. I was HURT AND EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED AT THIS but I kept calm. I waited again but of course to no reply and I tried Daryl once more the next day and THANKFULLY HE PICKED UP. Now he was appalled and confused as to why our travel docket wasn’t made yet so he told me that he would finish it tonight (AGAIN, it is not my problem that the people in the agency didn’t seem to know about my deal with my the agency. How was I supposed that only one guy knew about my problem????). He was able to make it even though it was around 9pm already (bless his soul for staying up late), but when I saw the travel document that the agency sent,

“As we are the only e-Travel Company in the Philippines available 24 HOURS and who derives 100% of its business from the travel market industry, you are important to us. ”

I almost spat my drink out and almost wanted to cry uncontrollably. 24 hours, me being important to them. I can’t help but laugh at the irony of it all.

There were some curious things though, they changed our accommodations when a big part of why I wanted the deal in the first place was a good hotel and also they had lots of typos and mistakes in their travel docket. I emailed Daryl about this and he obliged and found a way to comply with my requests. He was really nice and everything. The only problem I had was with the optional Underground river tour which I wanted to cancel (we didn’t pay the fees yet so I thought we could cancel it ahead of time) but he texted that there would be cancellation fees. I was… WE HAVEN’T PAID YET, HOW COULD THERE BE CANCELLATION FEES? Well i again gave the benefit of the doubt and maybe he thought I was talking about canceling the whole trip which wasn’t what I meant. Good thing in the end it was all sorted out 5 days before our departure.

So my friends, would you have been stressed if you were in my place? Maybe. I know I certainly was stressed from all the confusion, the extremely HARD-TO-CONTACT agency but we were able to pull through. If Ensemble had more people like Daryl and can be contacted easily, I wouldn’t have no problem at all. If they had more Kurt/Kirts, then I’d really be fuming! I just want to tell the people who availed of vouchers by Ensemble that

THEY ARE NOT A SCAM AGENCY. THEY REPLY. JUST FRIGGING TRY AND TRY AGAIN. DON’T LOSE HOPE! CONTACT THEM UNTIL THEY REPLY!

It’s just so frustrating that Metrodeal also doesn’t answer on their landlines. And frustrating that Ensemble’s offices are in Cebu. I suggest going to the office directly would be the most efficient way but it’s in Cebu… aww man…

Here are the contact numbers that I was able to reach through. I’m not sure with the others. I also got this number from another blog site. If you have any problems with contacting them, I would contact Daryl and tell him about it.

*With updated Metrodeal new hotline number*
ENSEMBLE E-TRAVEL AGENCY
DARYL (for PALAWAN DEALS)
E-mail: ppsdeal2@gmail.com
Celphone: +63 9174886388
Landline: 5469083
OTHER Person people have been able to contact
Joey Regis +639174246558
+639174886386

BANTAYAN DEALS
E-mail: bantayandeal2@gmail.com

METRODEAL
Landline: 8858848
MetroDeal Inc.
27F (Regus) Tower 2 The Enterprise Centre
6766 Ayala Avenue cor. Paseo De Roxas
Makati City

If you have any other difficulties, please contact me or them. PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS. A GOOD DEAL DOESN’T MEAN IT’S AN EFFICIENT DEAL. AND ALSO GOOD LUCK!!!! Pls spread!