Craig your expert safari planner & private guide
Southern African Tours
- Office In:
- Size:
- 5-10 employees (Founded in 2008)
- Member Of:
- SATSA & CTT
- Tour Types:
- Custom mid-range tours that can start every day
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $79 to $129 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
for a custom tour
Your request will be sent directly to the operator
If preferred, you can contact the operator directly
Reviews
GH
Email Curtiss D. | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Appears not to be a trustworthy tour operator
I booked a ZAR 144k tour with this agency and unfortunately had to cancel due visas issues beyond our control . I paid a deposit of ZAR 78k and the operator advised that they could only refund ZAR 50k , deducting various penalties and their own admin fees. This was happening in summer 2023. I even agreed that they repay in installment of ZAR 10k as they were raising some cash flow issues. For the last 6 months they haven’t paid anything !! They always come with an excuse as to why they have not paid me yet….This has become a nightmare!
I would caution anyone to deal with this agency as I believe they are simply not trustworthy
Reply from Southern African Tours
Posted on May 12, 20249th June – We received a email from Curtiss stating the trip cannot happen as his wife’s Visa was denied – This was 15 days prior to tour starting and the client had received vouchers as we made an acceptation to assist with the Visa even though we had only received 50% of the tour payment price and we had flight tickets organised.
22nd May - Curtiss asked for his tour to be brought forward to 24th June – The whole trip then needed to be rebooked.
Original Tour was supposed to start on 4th July.
Bianca went well out of her way, changing bookings at the last moment, sending receipts for her wife's visa, basically being there at all hours for every wish and whim required by Curtiss. Many, many hours of work was put into it.
The bottom line is we cannot retrieve the deposit paid to our suppliers at the very last moment. I told Curtiss earlier on, well prior to his arrival date that he should take out a travel insurance which would have covered his deposit in many unfortunate eventualities.
Its sad that such an ethical and hardworking tour operator deserves to get a bad review for a situation where our terms and conditions are quite clear. We had also promised to pay him a compensation in instalment's as and when funds where available.