Viajes Internacionales Marco Polo, S.A. de C. V. is the name of an agency to watch carefully at the least, or avoid entirely, in Mexico City, Mexico. They seem to specialize in helping themselves to every advantage they can, even if it means ignoring the customer's desires and requests, and adding additional burdens to the traveler.

What happened: My sister's friend is/was an outside agent for Marco Polo; she offered to help my sister make some bookings I had requested, as a friend (they all live in Mexico, we live inthe USA. We value relationships in Mexico, so it is common for people to help each other out.) She had offered to find the best deals, lowest fares, etc. IMO, it was a win-win deal - I would tell them what I wanted after due research, they would book without having to work hard for their commission and fees, I would have one stop to deal with for various arrangements for a multi-week archaeological trip in southern Mexico for the two of us, and two Australian friends we brought over on AA award J cabin tickets on QF and MX.

I e-mailed a list of MX (Mexicana and Click! Mexicana) flights we wanted - the times, flight numbers, etc. selected for low price, best time of day and simplified direct routings (MEX-OAX <stop> OAX-VSA <stop> VSA-MID <stop> and back to MEX.) They asked me to wait a few days, as A6 (AVIACSA) often had sales on Tuesdays, and they might be able to save me a bale of money.

They then proceeded to book every flight on A6 without my approval, at inconvenient times and connecting back at MEX on every flight set at nonrefundable fares that were actually more expensive than the ones I had found for our trip, and gave me several ridiculous excuses why they could not change anything (they had already charged my sister's credit card for the non-ref fares and reservation fees.)

A little searching with Google revealed Mexican government regulatory documents that showed A6 pays agents 10% commissions - that was the real reason for ignoring my specific requests and for lying to me.

FT is very informative, so when AVIACSA made one schedule change, I demanded they void the tickets and give my sister credit for the flights, and re-book me on the flights I wanted on MX / Click! (The flights were by now a bit more expensive, and in one instance they booked a MEX-OAX-MEX set on MX originally due to the lack of A6 flights; that ticket was nonref and separate, and we were stuck.) In the end, we got what we wanted, but paid about $250 per person more than the ~$600 we had originally planned for.

I also found the lodging we wanted in various places, and stored information on offers, rates as well as terms and conditions. I had given these to my sister and requested she authorize the agency to book us on the condition they could book at the package rates I provided them or better; they had told her they could get much better rates than anything I could find in the US.

Marco Polo booked every lodging I had requested, at the specific package and price (even codes) I had given them - except that the vouchers they gave me had considerably more restrictive conditions than the ones I had found, and were fully prepaid. For example, the packages I had found had no cancellation restrictions or (in most cases) 72 hour notifications for cancellations without fees (and one night collected if I violated the advance notice requirement.) Marco Polo issued vouchers under conditions that required 30 or more days of cancellation notice, advance payment with no refundability of any money in case of cancellation. This meant that thought the hotel Chan Kah in Palenque only required 72 hours cancellation, Marco Polo would keep all the money if I was required to cancel for any reason within 30 days.

In the US, I would file a complaint, of course. In Mexico, forget it. But I did decide to warn my fellow FlyerTalkers (and others) against using this greedy agency that will serve itself in all cases, at the cost of the customer that is paying for their services (yes, they do charge the customer for their neafrious booking services.)

Not nice to mess with the customer...