Kyrgyzstan LOI - who has worked with Caravanistan before?

Your profile says that you have Singaporean nationality. In that case, you don't need a tourist visa for KG for a stay of up to 60 days.

I am Chinese. That's probably the VPN

Hi
I am also trying to get LOI through Carvanistan, and the response from the tour operator is very spotty. So I am nervous doing the payment online. Did you have any luck with them?
Please do let me know

Thanks

I eventually used STANtours for the LOI. It was an utterly frustrating experience. The person that dealt with my case was called Alena Kolesnikova.
Apart from the 55usd LOI fee, I also had to cover the receiving fee for their side for the international transference (around 10 usd). They I was told the intermediary bank took about 15 usd, so they made me send via Western Union that amount. And on top of that 10 usd as a 'handling fee'. I questioned that in my email to them and expressed my frustration, as that just seems like endless hassling to me. Then their head, David, intervened and called back that handling fee and apologized.

Meanwhile they took about 17,18 days to prepare the LOI, longer than the usual 2 weeks time frame promised by most other known agencies.

Overall the whole experience was frustrating and left me speechless. Due to the fact that I had not much time to switch to another agency, and the money was already paid, otherwise I would never again use their service.

I don't know whether Caravanistan were to recommend, but avoid Stantors if you can! Good luck

Thanks! I did get a response from them, and I should be getting my LOI soon. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Caravanistan and other abencies very expensjve and сheating tourists
You didnt know?

Caravanistan and other abencies very expensjve and сheating tourists
You didnt know?

Hi Orkem,

Could you tell me in which way I cheat on tourists? I'd love to know.

I started Caravanistan to help travelers like myself organise their trips. Our partnerships with local travel agents are a way for us to earn money so we can keep our website in the air and continue to give away reliable travel information for free. We can keep our commission low because we don't deal with requests ourselves and just let the local agency deal with it. I understand the frustration of some people that it takes some time to get an answer.

Especially Chinese customers like the OP ashamalia. I have heard that in China, as a travel agent, you need to answer within 15 minutes to keep a tourist from going somewhere else. To then have to adjust to a Kyrgyz working rhythm where you might only get a reply in 1 or 2 days time is difficult, I understand.

But I vouch for our partners, we are selective who we work with and that is why we cannot offer all LOIs and all types of tours: for some things we simply cannot find partners that meet our standards. It's also true that our partners are not always the cheapest with every service we offer - quality is our main concern - although in many cases, like the Kyrgyz LOI mentioned above, we are faster and cheaper.

I hope this answers some of your questions. For future questions regarding the reliability of our partners, you are welcome to ask me directly. Although we do need to earn money somehow to stay afloat and offer a reliable travel guide, we do not put money on top of the rates of the local partner - it is a traditional affiliate scheme like booking.com, tourradar or viator where you don't pay extra if you book through the platform, our commission comes out of their pocket rather than yours.

Hey, its looks like I am going to go with your company to get the LOI to Kyrgyzstan, but we are on a tight time frame and need to get in less time than two weeks. I submitted information today. Is it possible to get the LOI within a week? If we don't, we may not be able to get our visa in time for our trip. Thanks.

What's your nationality, @zaloudeklaw266810 ? You may not need the LOI.