Flynote sent me a Google form asking me how was my experience with them and would I recommend them to my friends and family. My answer- Not even if I am paid for it!
Here is my experience with booking a recent Maldives trip with them. The agents we were talking to are Varshita and Prapanch.
1. Agent said Brennia Kottefaru was available, we asked her thrice before paying booking amount, we even said other agencies we are talking to are saying it's fully booked, are you sure it's available? She said yes, so we went ahead and paid the booking amount. Then after 3 days she came back saying no it's not available, we will manage another hotel. 5 days of our time wasted where we could have gotten a better property and good rate from other agencies we were talking to, especially at 1.5 months prior to booking dates.
2. Gave offer for Joy Island, told us there are complimentary daily snorkelling trips in our package before we finalised on that resort and confirmed. I asked her to give it in writing many times and I even said my research says snorkelling trips are not included please confirm it and give in writing before we finalise this resort but she said we have premium all inclusive and it is included. I have screenshots of all these conversations. And then of course after we paid the whole amount she said snorkelling is not included. By this time 10 more days had passed and it was impossible for us to book anything else at such 11th hour! This might be a small amount for you Flynote but for us it's a substantial chunk of money and the experience we had while booking was beyond frustrating. And if you cater to only elite people please mention so on your website so we won't be in a delusion that you will give us a good service .
After fighting a lot they gave us $160 reimbursement for 'not being able to give us brennia' in writing but on calls they said you can get 1 snorkelling trip for 4 people in $160 so we will give you that.
I don't know how they even arrived at that number. Because 1 snorkelling trip per person costs $95 + tax at Joy. Your agents said we can negotiate the price at the hotel but it was non negotiable. When we called them from Maldives they refused to help in any way. There are soooo many other things but I don't want to spend so much time on you and your service anymore.
3. I had specifically asked before booking Joy if the room had uninterrupted sea view as that was the reason we had chosen Maldives as a destination to start with and your agent promised it was uninterrupted. I even showed her my research and the map and marked the sand islands in front of our rooms blocking the view, she said they are part of lagoon and won't block the view. All these are such lies. When in reality there were indeed many sand islands blocking the view. Again I have screenshots to prove this conversation.
So in summary,
I think your agents lie through their teeth and promise things till we make payment and when we ask to give in writing come up with 1000 excuses. I think this is a norm with Flynote and I don't want any of my friends to be misguided and scammed by you just because your agents need to reach their targets. So no, I will not recommend it to anyone.
