Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Craig and team are amazing. Never let's us down. We have again given DialAFlight recommendation to people who we met whilst travelling
Air India, despite its quite recent privatisation, is simply awful in every way. I was at Gatwick for 11 hours , with zero information about what was happening. Apparently the previous two Air India flights to Kochi were cancelled. All very stressful, but no fault of DAF!
There is a great deal of reassurance in knowing that your trip has been arranged by people who really know what they are doing. And that you are not just abandoned to the anonymous machinery of an airline that doesn't really care, in spite of all their rubbish claims about caring! Also that if something goes wrong you can get advice with a telephone call that is actually answered!
Although my baggage was lost from Dubai to London Gatwick I was able to speak to DialAFlight and ask for guidance on how to process the forms to reclaim my baggage. This they did readily which was a comfort at the time. You'll be glad to hear I now have my lost baggage!
Archie was brilliant - sorted everything out. Will definitely be using you guys and recommending to friends
Great service, especially from Ray Taylor.
Zoe Lane is an excellent travel agent.
It's not until something goes wrong with your travel plans that you realise the benefits of booking with them. After sitting on the plane at Gatwick for a couple of hours our flight was cancelled due to a technical issue. At 11pm there aren't that many people in the airport to help. Fortunately a call to DialAFlight's emergency phone line had me talking to Korinna within seconds. She was able to see there were no flights from Gatwick the following morning but there were spaces on the Heathrow flight and she changed our booking to this flight. She also re-arranged our connecting flight for Dubai to Delhi. All this whilst my husband was trying to talk to the airline's customer call centre who were saying they couldn't do anything as the flight hadn't been officially cancelled! A big thanks to Korinna for her help.
Efficient and helpful
No hitches on the way despite the potential for this to happen. Radisson Blue Hotel in Connaught Place excellent service and very convenient for shopping and restaurants.
Always very helpful and a pleasure to book with.
Other than the changes with the flights everything else was great
Amazing customer care
Excellent service
None. Good service
Alfie was very helpful, as usual and ensured all went smoothly
You didn't have to rearrange a flight home for me after a last minute international flight cancellation on this holiday, as you did on the last, but it was so good to know that - far from home - you were there to help me should I find myself stranded. Thank you so much for being there.
Excellent service and they were there for me when I needed assistance. Will definitely use again.
Always had good customer service from Michelle
Flight suggestions worked really well
All perfect!
Everything was handled promptly, professionally and it delivered an experience in India that was everything we hoped for. Great to have a team that were readily available to support us in both the planning and execution! Particular call-out for Brody Letchfield who was our main contact and ensured that, through liaison with Tamarind Global on the ground in India, everything ran smoothly
Connecting flight from Heathrow was delayed because of fog in Delhi, causing us to miss the connection to Goa. Seven hour wait for the next flight.
Great service yet again
Brody once again has provided excellent service and planned our holiday to perfection
Edward Scudder is a star - above and beyond. Quality service
Absolutely seamless holiday to Goa with all the flights booked with Rosie at DialAFlight Thanks again
As always, excellent service especially by Gino. If only BA could learn a thing or two from you about customer service.
Raphael was very helpful throughout the entire process, from initial booking to just before departure
Aiden is great and always most helpful as are all your team!
Sir Howard Arriving at our Thames B&B, we're told by the landlady that in the event of an earthquake, we should assemble at the cattle grid.
We're not in England's Thames Valley - this is the historic town of Thames, 90 minutes' drive south-east of Auckland on New Zealand's North Island.
SO MUCH TO SEE & DO
This country's spectacular, exotic beauty was forged by earthquakes and volcanoes over millions of years. The South Island looks and even sounds like the Scottish Highlands. Parts of the North Island resemble Jurassic Park.
It's no surprise that Kiwi filmmaker Peter Jackson used his native country as the backdrop for The Lord Of The Rings. About a third of New Zealand's four-and-a-half million people live in Auckland, with the rest spread over a country slightly bigger than the UK.
Our trip was part normal holiday and partly to follow the British Lions rugby tour.
Arriving in Christchurch, we found it still scarred by the tragic 2011 earthquake - a constant reminder of how this lovely land came into being.
Driving south to Dunedin - so Scottish we had haggis and whisky for breakfast - we spent a glorious day exploring the craggy Otago Peninsula. We saw rare royal albatrosses with wings like wind turbines crash-land on a cliff to feed fluffy chicks too fat to move; we watched baby-blue penguins waddle up the beach at dusk for a cuddle, honking amorously; and we nearly tripped over a snoozing sea lion on windswept Allans Beach.
SWEET REMINDERS
New Zealand's endless miles of neat wooden bungalows, with pretty Victorian ornamentation, white picket fences and soporific verandas, filled me with nostalgia for my childhood in a wooden bungalow by the River Thames near Windsor.
There are two sets of initials a visitor to New Zealand should know: the All Blacks rugby team are the ABs - and SBs are sauvignon blanc wines.
VINEYARD TOURS
The New Zealand SB boom is exemplified by the Woolshed Vineyard, which produces Mud House wines in the Marlborough region at the top of the South Island. The Woolshed ranch was once a sheep farm, but the sound of shearing has been replaced by that of SBs being swirled round the palate by brilliant young winemaker Cleighton Cornelius.
Mud House was sporting enough to sponsor the British Lions - another reason to buy its excellent wines, including sauvignon blanc and pinot noir. After sipping several, we took a ferry to the North Island, passing many hidden sandy coves glinting in the moonlight.
Next we headed north to Rotorua, New Zealand's unofficial Maori capital. The Maoris came to New Zealand some 500 years before Captain Cook landed here in 1769, but no one is sure where from. Guesses range from Hawaii to Indonesia.
Maori chiefs handed sover-eignty of New Zealand to Britain in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
A WARM WELCOME
Some say that NZ has made a greater success of integrating two ethnic groups with starkly contrasting cultures than any other country.
A fun way to experience New Zealand's natural underfloor heating is at Hot Water Beach, on the Coromandel Peninsula. Dig a hole in the beach, let the cold waves dilute the boiling sand and you have your own bubble bath. But beware: get the mix wrong and you'll be scalded where it hurts.
A FUN FINALE
We ended our tour in Auckland, where we joined thousands of British rugby fans who swapped beer, banter and ballads with the locals in harbourside bars and restaurants.
We stayed in Auckland's Ponsonby district, a kind of mini-Notting Hill with yet more quaint bungalows. They make for a novel skyline, with skyscrapers and the ocean right behind them.
We twice bumped into ex-Irish and Lions rugby pin-up Brian O'Driscoll in Ponsonby as well as AB star Beauden Barrett - though a friend laughed off our celebrity sightings, saying: 'There are so few people in New Zealand, you soon get to meet them all!'
First published in the Mail on Sunday - October 2017
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