- 1. Do you offer trip insurance or know where I can purchase it?
- 2. What Are the Benefits of Booking My Trip With Anywhere Costa Rica?
- 3. Are You in Costa Rica?
- 4. Do I Pay Extra for Your Services?
- 5. Do You Speak English?
- 6. Can I Modify My Itinerary After I Have Paid For it?
- 7. Can I Pay For the Itinerary Using Multiple Credit Cards So That the Whole Charge is Not On One Card?
- 8. How Long Before I Get My Confirmation?
- 9. How Can We Get a Discount With Your Company?
- 10. How Does Your System Work?
- 11. What If Something Goes Wrong?
- 12. What Is Your Cancellation Policy?
1. Do you offer trip insurance or know where I can purchase it?
We do not offer trip insurance. Currently we only offer travel services within Costa Rica and are fully insured for our in-country operations but we do not offer trip cancellation or trip emergency insurance to our clients. You can compare many travel insurance options here: http://www.insuremytrip.com/.
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2. What Are the Benefits of Booking My Trip With Anywhere Costa Rica?
Our goal is to provide accessible travel solutions for anywhere visitors wish to go in Costa Rica, and our specialty is composing a vacation that meets both your travel goals as well as your budget. We offer client centered services and work tirelessly to create positive experiences for families, couples, groups and solo travelers. AnywhereCostaRica.com is a single point of contact for nearly all Costa Rican travel services, which permits our clients to spend less time waiting for answers from different companies and more time learning about trip options from our trip advisors. Besides being a reliable and dependable resource for visitors to Costa Rica, we have a reputation among hundreds of hotels and tour operators as a dependable and reliable company. Costa Rican companies love to work with us and we are contacted constantly about new lodging and tour options throughout the country. Our strong relationships with Costa Rican travel partners ensures top notch service for AnywhereCostaRica.com clients.
We are available via toll free phone, email and online chat - so if you have a question, just ask! In addition, we offer customers a secure online payment service which allows all services to be paid for and confirmed in advance, so you can spend more time enjoying your vacation and less time planning and figuring out logistics. We have received hundreds of testimonials regarding our travel planning service, which can be viewed here: http://www.anywherecostarica.com/company/feedback. Our office is open 7 days a week, so during the trip planning process as well as during your actual trip to Costa Rica we are standing by and eager to assist you in every possible way. Our staff is 100% Costa Rican, we are certified by the Costa Rican Tourism board, contribute to local communities, and are working on our certificate of sustainable tourism. You can read more about our company here: http://www.anywherecostarica.com/company/about. Additionally, some of our non-profit efforts can be viewed here: http://www.anywherecostarica.com/sustainable.
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3. Are You in Costa Rica?
Yes, we are! Our main office is in the town of La Fortuna near the Arenal Volcano.
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4. Do I Pay Extra for Your Services?
No, you do not pay extra for communicating with our travel advisers or for booking services with us. We sustain our business from the commissions we earn from the hotels and tour operators that we do business with. These commissions are a marketing expense for promoting their services and bringing them customers. The rates are the same if you were to book directly with the hotels and tours, but we offer the convience of a single point a contact for all of your Costa Rican travel needs. Additionally, often times after putting together a full itinerary, we are able to authorize a discount so you can pay even less by using our service than by booking everything individually.
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5. Do You Speak English?
Our entire staff is Costa Rican and speaks both English and Spanish. We are available to answer questions via online chat, email or by calling our toll free number.
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6. Can I Modify My Itinerary After I Have Paid For it?
The following response is directly quoted from our Reservations Terms: "We are happy to accommodate any service modifications made up to 24 hours from the time of the service; the only fees, penalties, and time restrictions will be those imposed by the applicable service providers and not under our control. Last minute reservation modification requests (24-48hrs from the time of service) must be directed to our operations office in La Fortuna (p:2479-8811 e: info@anywherecostarica.com)." This basically means that we are open seven days a week, are more than happy to make modifications on your behalf, and will do our best to eliminate or reduce penalties. Still, it all depends on the circumstances surrounding the modification. We will not impose any additional re-booking or modification fees, but that does not mean that there will not be penalties or rate changes, as many of these are out of our control and imposed by the individual service providers. We can, however, always check to see how much a modification will cost, if anything, prior to making the change.
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7. Can I Pay For the Itinerary Using Multiple Credit Cards So That the Whole Charge is Not On One Card?
Yes, and it is very easy to do so. As soon as particular services become available on the itinerary, they can be paid for online. If you want to split the costs of the itinerary up, just select the items you want to pay for with the first credit card and then repeat the process with other credit cards for the remaining items. Another option is to give your login to the person paying with a separate credit card, so that they can access the itinerary and pay for the items that they wish to pay for. In fact, you can split the itinerary up into as many different cards as there are services (for example if you had booked three services, you could pay for them with three separate credit cards). Unfortunately, we cannot divide the cost into two or three equal amounts. But, for example, if the hotel is $300, the tours are $150 and the transport is $200, then those three items can be paid for with three separate cards; or the first card can pay for the hotel and second card can pay for the tours and the transport to make the charge more equal. If you need any assistance with this process, please ask one of our travel advisors for help.
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8. How Long Before I Get My Confirmation?
In most cases, we are able to send confirmations within 24 hours. Sometimes it's only an hour or two, but every now and then it can take a few days. This is due to no fault of our own - we are constantly monitoring pending confirmations and following up with providers by phone and email. However, some hotels do not check their fax machines or email frequently, and many are closed on weekends, holidays and after 5 pm. Thus, the timing of a request can an effect how long it takes to receive a confirmation. Furthermore, many hotels and some tour companies are small family businesses and do not have the resources or the sense of urgency to immediately confirm services.
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9. How Can We Get a Discount With Your Company?
We do not have set discounts, but when a client assembles a full itinerary with us, including hotels, tours, transportation or rental cars, we can reduce the total cost of the itinerary. The amount of the discount depends on the items that are included in the itinerary. Management will review the itinerary and authorize a discount on the total price. We can advise clients on specific services and places that meet their interests and budget, but when we are a part of the entire vacation planning process we can reduce the total cost of the services.
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10. How Does Your System Work?
You can ask us anything about traveling to Costa Rica or the services that we offer via email, online chat or phone. Once you know what services you want (transportation between destinations, hotels, and tours), either you or one of our agents can submit the reservation request as long as we have your name, dates, the number of people that will be traveling and an email address. With that information we will create an itinerary for you, which you'll be able to view or add services to at any time. Once we determine what services are available, you can pay for them online or by sending us an authorization form. You will receive e-mail confirmations for each individual service, once all services are confirmed you will receive a final e-mail with your printable confirmations which is basically a document you will print and bring with you on the trip to use as a guide, this document will have the confirmation numbers for the hotels and the services that you will need.
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11. What If Something Goes Wrong?
We take responsibility for any misinformation and hold our service providers accountable for their shortcomings as well. We consider every incident on a case-by-case basis. Due to our established relationships with the service providers, we are often able to offer refunds, send another vehicle, upgrade rooms or do whatever is in our power to ensure that our customers are satisfied with their entire Costa Rican experience. Of course, all travel has unpredicted setbacks; flights can be delayed, family members can get sick, and weather can prevent scheduled activities from occurring. In each of these cases, we will modify, refund or reschedule as soon as we are notified. In some cases it is impossible for us to issue a 100% refund, but over the last four years we have issued over $200,000 in refunds for booked services due to unforseen family problems, flight cancellations, bad weather or modifications, with no provider penalty. We do not want to compound any frustrations you might experience by being rigid and unsympathetic toward your individual circumstances. However, we do run a business and are responsible for maintaining a working relationship with each of our providers, so we always pursue the fairest and most sustainable resolution for all parties involved. We do not reccomend a specific travel insurance, but it is something that should be considered.
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12. What Is Your Cancellation Policy?
For itineraries with hotel reservations, the cancellation policy that you agree to when paying online or returning our authorization form is: "If canceled less than 15 days prior to arrival, NO REFUND. If 15 to 21 days prior to arrival: 20% plus any service provider penalties. If 22 to 45 days prior to arrival: 10% plus any service provider penalties. If more than 45 days prior to arrival, you are charged only the $50.00 deposit and no more." For itineraries with only tours and transportation reservations, the cancellation policy is: "If cancellation is requested less than 5 working days prior to the date of service, NO REFUND, otherwise only the $20.00 deposit will be retained." However, similar to modifications, we approach cancellations on a case-by-case basis. When we are able to cancel services without provider penalties we will only retain the deposit amount. The deposit amount, which normally is applicable toward the services, will be the only penalty for cancellations with no provider penalties. It is $20 for tours and transportation, and $50 for hotels.
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