We booked with Crillon a 3D2N round trip tour to U...

We booked with Crillon a 3D2N round trip tour to Uyuni salt flats from San Pedro, Chile.

In a nutshell, we were asked to pay an additional 800 USD two days before our trip due to a detour required on the trip in relation to protests in the area. The detour never happened and we ended up staying at a much lower class hotel than originally booked. When we asked for a refund of only the additional amount we have been refused.

Please note Crillon prices are already set at a much higher premium compared to other tours. And we were forced to pay additional on top of this. Communicating with anyone at the La Paz office was difficult - they will never call you back - you are expected to call them. We wasted a lot time on our trip in the lead up to the trip trying to sort out the complications.

Details below:-

Two days before our trip we received an email asking for an additional $200 USD per person for our trip due to protests and road blockages in Uyuni and region. This included a change of route avoiding Uyuni on the final day however, the rest of the details of the trip remained the same. When we did more research into this we found out these protests had been happening for 3 weeks yet Crillon waited two days before our departure to tell us.

When we asked what this extra charge covered we were told for the extra mileage the tour would incur due to the detour. X4 pax.... they were asking for an additional 800 USD for petrol.

When we refused to pay this they gave us an ultimatum to either do the trip without the salt flats (the main part of the trip!) or cancel the trip entirely (with no promise of a full refund). This was the day before our departure. Backed into a corner with little time to prepare alternative plans we were forced to pay the additional.

On the 2nd day of the tour we were told by our tour company that:-

a) our driver had run out of petrol and had trouble finding somewhere to refuel due to the blockages and

b) the hotel we had booked for the evening near Uyuni had been affected by the protests and we would now need to check in to a new hotel.

We had 800 USD for petrol for a detour which was to happen on the final day yet there was no additional petrol onboard in the car? We are still baffled to where this 800 USD was spent. We lost out time on the salt flats on the second day whilst the driver went to find petrol.

The original hotel that we had booked was a 4* Hotel and we were booked into a basic B&B for our final night.

On the final day - when we expected to take a detour back to San Pedro our guide had told us that the protests had stopped in Uyuni and we were free to take the original route.

Save yourself the hassle and money and book direct with Hijora tours the company Crillon outsourced our trip to - both driver and tour guide were brilliant. Better to deal with them direct than go through Crillon and pay an additional premium.