BEWARE FOWLER TOURS

Beware Fowler Tours

I would like to inform fellow-travellers of the perils of using a non-registered tour operator – Fowler Tours, employing unqualified tour guides (together with a cheap Middle Eastern airline – Turkish Airlines).

My wife and daughter booked a pilgrimage to Ireland in August 2018, in order to see the various religious sites and culminating in attendance at a Mass conducted by the Pope. The pilgrimage was organised by Fowler Tours of Cape Town in conjunction with the Southern Cross newspaper. Gail Fowler, owner of the company, booked the tour group of about 18 people on Turkish Airlines. The flight was from Johannesburg to Dublin via Istanbul where there was a 2 hour transit stop. On disembarking in Istanbul my wife and daughter lost contact with the other people in the group. The tour guide was nowhere to be seen and they thus asked for directions to the departure gate for their onward flight to Dublin. This is when the “fun” started – they were told by airport staff that they would need visas to continue their journey. After much time consuming discussion and argument they bought the visas, costing €25each, and proceeded to the departure gate. At the gate they were “bumped off” the flight because they were late at check-in and it was closed. In addition, their seats (for which they had boarding passes) had been allocated to someone else. All this time there was no sign of the tour leader (who is Gail Fowler’s husband and also Editor of the Southern Cross). It was later established that he had no idea two of his group were missing and I suspect he had no idea who was in the group at all. Certainly, no roll-call was ever taken during the tour and on one occasion the tour bus nearly left somebody behind. After much discussion, Turkish Airlines agreed to seat them on the next flight (about 8 hours later) to Dublin – the problem being that they were charged about R17,000 each for the “privilege” which they had to put on their credit cards. This caused problems later when they picked up a rental-car to extend their holiday.

On their return to South Africa, Fowler Tours (who are not members of ASATA) were approached and have denied all responsibility for their plight, saying that it is their fault that they missed the flight. The fact that the tour leader, did not seem to know who was in his group at any one time, is of no concern to them. They also, of course, refuse to recompense my wife and daughter for the additional expense they incurred.

Turkish Airlines also deny any responsibility and refuse to recompense them in any way, despite the fact that they were the cause of the delay in telling them to purchase unnecessary visas. Their argument is that, if you cannot tell them the name of the person who insisted that they buy visas (thus causing the delay), they cannot flaunt their procedures.

The total extra cost for the trip for my wife and daughter was about R18,000 each which could probably have paid business class seats with a reputable Tour Operator and Airline.

NOT Fowler Tours and Turkish Airlines – Beware!!