Self-described "world leading" tour operator Sundowners Overland is based in Australia but offers tours here through Kiwi travel agencies. In April 2009 Matthew Weir (not his real name) booked through the House of Travel a Sundowners Overland trans-Mongolian cultural tour leaving in July.
It was the trip of a lifetime – a small-group tour from Hong Kong to St Petersburg via the Gobi Desert and the Mongolian Steppe. You don’t expect trips like this to be cheap but you do expect the price to be fair.
A $2338 currency surcharge
Matthew’s father Roy approached us in June asking if we could clarify why the tour increased significantly in price. According to the pricing featured in the Sundowners Overland brochure and displayed again on the company’s website (during April, May and June) the tour cost NZ$9760. But according to pricing provided by the House of Travel Matthew’s tour incurred an additional “currency surcharge" of NZ$2338, an increase of around 20 percent.
Nowhere on the website could Roy (or we) find an accurate NZ dollar price for the tour. The House of Travel (which booked the tour for his son) hasn’t been able to give Roy a detailed explanation of the charge.
No explanation
We contacted Sundowners Overland, seeking an explanation of the currency surcharge. However, none was forthcoming. The fine print in the tour brochure states the company “reserves the right to adjust the prices listed due to currency fluctuations ....”
The brochure also states “the prices were correct at the time of publishing ... for the most up-to-date information on pricing please see our website”. The website quoted US dollar prices in the booking section. Prices in NZ dollars and other currencies were quoted on other pages of the website and appeared to be scans from the company’s glossy brochures.
In April when Matthew made his booking via the House of Travel, the Sundowners Overland website reported a NZ dollar price significantly lower than the booking price he eventually paid. And when his father Roy checked in June, the website still reported the price as NZ$9760; yet the House of Travel confirmed that the booking price for the trip remained over NZ$11,000. When we spoke to the House of Travel we were told the currency surcharge for the tour was still 20 percent.
In early July, after we had contacted the company, Sundowners Overland temporarily removed all pricing from its website. By late July the company appeared to have loaded up-to-date brochures on to its website and altered the way prices were reported. Instead of reporting online booking prices in US dollars, booking prices were now quoted in NZ dollars. The trans-Mongolian cultural tour price was now quoted at NZ$11,350.
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