My Costa Rica Reviews 

Antwoord van My Costa Rica

10 jul 2020

Hola Iryna!
Thank you so much for writing this review! We are so sorry to hear that you have had to delay your return home due to COVID-19, but it has been an absolute pleasure working with you both despite these challenging times. A lot of things are a bit up in the air right now with your return flight home and last minute changes in plans - that is why it is helpful to have someone who is in country should you need them for any reason. We pride ourselves on the service we offer our guests - from planning custom 20 day multi-destination trips and all the support before arrival and during their stay. We appreciate the time you took to write this kind review. :)
Pura Vida,
Jason Bateman
My Costa Rica (Costa Rica.Org)

Antwoord van My Costa Rica

12 nov 2020

(11/12 Update)

Dear Candie,

First of all we apologize for having reached out to you again, it was never our intention to bother you - but rather part of our continual efforts to reach a mutually agreeable resolution for your cancelled trip. We respect your wishes and will certainly cease all communication per your request, although please be aware that you can contact us at anytime if can be of any service whatsoever. Throughout the pandemic we have never closed our office and have always been available to our guests despite having a reduced staff. Our every intention is to do the best we can for our clients and we feel that this is evident in the over 900 positive reviews we have received from some of the 15,000 guests that we've helped since we began operations in 2004.

We are also very sorry to hear about the continued hardship you are experiencing due to COVID, the pandemic has affected so many people across so many industries and we are hopeful that things will return closer to normal someday soon. It is understandable that people are hesitant about traveling right now and that is why we have given our guests the option to reschedule their trips any time through May 2022. In your case, we offered the same consideration - first a full credit valid for up to two years and finally we came to an agreement that you would prefer a 50% refund of your deposit in the amount of $435 instead. Part of that resolution that we came to entailed that you would then update the negative reviews you had been posted online to reflect that we had reached an agreement that you were satisfied with. We politely reached out yesterday when we realized that that had not been done, despite having refunded the agreed amount to you immediately. We take our clients' satisfaction very seriously and we contacted you to see if there was anything else we could do to make things right and even offered you a full refund so that you would amend the reviews to reflect our resolution and make them less critical of our agency.

If this year has taught us anything, it's that life can be unpredictable and things can happen that are beyond all of our control. Now more than ever it's important to have some sort of travel insurance to help protect you should your investment need to cancel your trip for whatever reason. In fact, Costa Rica now requires it for entry into the country as described on the Tourism Board's Official Site. Travel agents perform a service when they plan vacations, make reservations and later cancel them per clients' request. As outlined in our client agreement, the 25% deposits that we collect to book our trips are non refundable as they represent the services provided and the costs incurred in maintaining a full time staff and office. While we can make every attempt to help our guests by offering to reschedule their trips if they feel uncomfortable about traveling, ultimately people need to understand that there is work involved in vacation planning and that travel insurance should be purchased to protect their investments. Although we always send information to our guests about possible companies they can use to purchase travel insurance that would protect their trips and are very clear as to what our Payment and Cancellation Policies are, perhaps we need to try to emphasize how important this is. We apologize if we did not make this clearer to you and if we let you down in anyway.

Sincerely,
Jason Bateman
General Manager
My Costa Rica
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(Original Response)

Dear Candie,

We hope this finds you well in these challenging times that we are all facing with the COVID pandemic. I'm glad that we have reached a satisfactory resolution to your cancelled trip.   We are very sorry that you feel that you have not received the best customer service from our agency, we have always been available for you and have done our best to find a satisfactory resolution to your trip cancellation.  Part of that resolution that we offered originally was a  FULL 100% CREDIT of the deposit you made to plan your trip, valid for over 1 year from the time of your cancellation.  We have since extended the validity of these credits giving our guest even more time to reprogram their trips and enjoy Costa Rica at a later date. 

Our main interest is for all of our clients to experience our beautiful country at some point, and that is why we have gone above and beyond our Payment & Cancellation Policies and are giving our guests an option to reschedule their trips.  However, we can understand that the global situation that we are going through due to COVID-19 can make one uneasy about traveling right now, so instead of the credit for a future trip we agreed upon a 50% REFUND of your deposit.

We are a local Costa Rican travel agency with a full team of travel professionals that specialize in planning in custom vacation packages for our guests - offering 24/7 phone support before, during and after their trips.  There is a lot of work that goes into planning, booking, cancelling and then rescheduling a clients vacation - yet we charge NO FEE for our services, earning only a commission for making bookings.  While nobody could have predicted COVID-19, we try to inform our guests about the inherent risks of travel and always recommend purchasing some sort of travel insurance to protect their investments. As outlined in our Client Agreement, the 25% deposits we collect to plan and book our vacation packages are generally non refundable, as they cover the salaries and office expenses required to provide these vacation planning services.

On behalf of all of our team, we hope to be of assistance to help you plan your trip to Costa Rica at some point.  So many people in this peaceful paradise depend on tourism for their livelihoods and we are all here waiting for you whenever you feel comfortable to travel again.    

Thank you for working with us to find a mutually agreeable resolution to your cancelled trip.

Jason Bateman
General Manager
My Costa Rica (CostaRica.Org)