Your calls always answered within 5 rings.
Big thank you to your team who got us home after our first flight of three was cancelled - special thanks to Tristan, Stan and Corrine who went above and beyond.
Connie is brilliant - I recommend her to everyone who travels!
The service we received was excellent, as it's been on each occasion we have used your services. The flights were exactly what we required and the suggestion to make a stop over to get the best price worked out really well. We'll use your services again next time we're making a trip abroad.
Excellent service DialAFlight, thank you very much.
Everything worked out well. No problems at all.
My flight back was cancelled but I was able to ring a 24/7 number where the advisor was very helpful and did her best to get me on the next available flight. Unfortunately, this wasn’t possible as I had already checked in and Qatar Airways wouldn’t let her change it.
Always helpful with quick responses
A truly personal service, you feel like you are being assisted by a friend
Dale was brilliant
I received the usual high quality service from Amy Hibbert that I have been used to over more than 20 years of using DialAFlight
So helpful, efficient but friendly at the same time
DialAFlight says what it does and does what it says. Having used DialAFlight for a number of years, we have had peace of mind knowing that if there is ever a problem they are at the end of a telephone line to help from anywhere in the world.
Many thanks to Raphael in particular, but to the whole team. You helped us out of a very difficult situation and took all the worries away so that we had a stress free and very enjoyable trip. Can't thank you enough.
Exceptional flight with outstanding service and lovely staff. Will book again very soon. And you found us the best deal!
Excellent communication from DialAFlight staff - thanks Harvey.
I've booked with DialAFlight multiple times and have always been very happy dealing with them and getting the best dates and times to suit my requirements. They are always friendly and answer the phone very quickly with no annoying pre recorded messages or push button navigating. They are reliable and you can always phone again to check any concerns.
Deborah was absolutely amazing with her help when I needed flight changes in Dubai due to the flooding. I wouldn’t have got back to the UK so quickly without her.
Becky was my link for the holiday of a lifetime. She did an excellent job of keeping me updated and although we didn’t have to call on her for help it was a big reassurance that someone was there at the end of the phone.
Thank you to Daryll and his team at DialAFlight who allowed me to travel with complete peace of mind!
All the flights were really good. However coming back home from Auckland to Shanghai, I wish I’d been made aware that my suitcase would need to be collected at Shanghai and then rechecked in. It wasn’t a pleasant or particularly easy experience. Anyway it all worked in the end.
You are not to blame for the poor service I received on my business class flights from LHR to AKL via Dubai but I will not be booking Emirates in the future
No issues from your end but Dubai airport and Emirates were very poor as far as communication went during our six and a half hour delay.
Great friendly service. Makes life so much easier using them. They find you exactly want you want in a matter of minutes whereas in the past it's taken me hours
Great service and prompt attention
Great service as usual. Excellent phone pick up, good prices and wonderful advice about which airlines, stopovers and timings.
Zoe always delivers.
Annabelle C is amazing and I'd book again with her!
Lloyd was very helpful at all times
Thank you for an excellent service
You guys are great….will return to you when (all being well) we head back to Kiwi in 3 years time. Lots we didn’t get to do!
Some of us simply can't do a whole English winter any more. For me, there is the added business every December and early January of being on the panto treadmill, three shows a day, in Guildford.
What's more, this year, the Grim Reaper had been scything like Poldark through my address book. I needed a break. I needed sun. Then someone suggested Goa is a goer. 'Goa?' said our son. 'Isn't that where you take stimulants and rave?' Well, excuse me if I rave.
THE LEELA HOTEL
The Leela Hotel is wonderful - despite the fact that Putin visits. Sir Mark Tully, the BBC's voice of India, stays, as does Sonia Gandhi, who arrived shortly after we left.
My wife Kate and I flew there non-stop and then had an easy 75-minute transfer.
Many of our fellow passengers were heading for package hotels up the coast, rather than sweeping into The Leela's discreet gates at the end of the peninsula.
A BIT OF BACKGROUND
The Leela was built 26 years ago and has benefited from less strict planning controls than exist now. It was able to secure a private beach then, not possible now, so that means it can put as many sun loungers on the sand as it wants.
Hotels now, fronting public beaches, can park no more than a dozen loungers. But for Leela guests, there are more than enough loungers for everyone.
Croquet is the only nod to the Raj, but the guests nevertheless are 50 per cent English: you can tell by their Boden linen. An elderly lady archaeologist from Pimlico, an accountant from Bromley, a yoga teacher from Hampstead. All regulars for decades. 'What makes this place,' they chorus, 'is the staff.' The astonishing ratio is 3.5 staff to each guest, lifting your finger before you're even aware that it needs lifting.
Of the rest? Russians (in bling), Euro-randoms (Italians leading the charge) and wealthy Indians. Their children are perfect: well-behaved and virtually invisible.
AT THE BEACH
The beach is perfect, too – no lacerating coral, the breeze cooling without sandblasting. At sunrise, there are dolphins. Sea eagles frame themselves beautifully between palm trees.
Sandpipers dart. Beach guards keep hawkers away. At night, you watch the lamps on the fishing boats and owlets hunting.
The huge rooms are scattered around 75 acres, overlooking lagoons where pink lilies bloom.
There are private villas, too, within the – yet more exclusive – Club, for Bollywood stars and Mr Putin. Silent buggies convey the elderly from joy to joy.
Conferences are discreetly arranged, wedding pavilions erected and down by morning. Indian ceremonies are welcoming and their tribute bands do a creditable Radio Ga Ga.
We attended not one, but two, Punjabi weddings of radiant couples we had never seen before, nor shall again, but may blessings rain upon them. My meditation class was too singsong to be intelligible, but the four-year-old Indian boy in front of me had it sussed. The gym is so deserted that the trainers are truly personal. In the top-flight spa, Kate had a magnificent holistic massage, with oils, bells and probably whistles.
CULINARY DELIGHTS
All You Can Eat was never like this. Thyme-scented lentil soup with roasted walnuts? Goan kingfish? A bewildering vegetarian menu, creamy dhals, dhingri palak? Desserts? How about rabri (cardamom condensed milk) and dates in soft, white fudge?
Trips to the Goan capital Panaji with your own driver are astonishingly inexpensive and you can shop there for textiles, paper and incense.
Ten miles on and Old Goa, with its Portugese churches, is unmissable. 'Another day in Paradise,' says the daily Leela newsletter. Nonsense. Paradise can't compete with this. Paradise won't have so many staff.
First published in the Mail Online - July 2018
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