Admission to Hypogeum

A week ago I bought tickets to visit the Hypogeum. I have visited many times in the past, but my son and his wife are visiting from Toronto and I wanted them to experience the rich past of the Maltese islands.

Unfortunately we had to change our flight and moved our scheduled visit by one week.

Three days after I bought the tickets, I contacted Heritage Malta and asked if I could change our scheduled visit date from September 22 to September 29. The answer was that their policy did not allow such changes.

I found this to be a very inflexible position. I have purchased tickets to museums overseas in the past and always had the option to change the visit date and even get a refund in some instances, given sufficient notice. The policy that allows this inflexibility leads to poor customer service and eventually poor customer relations.

I did not ask Heritage Malta to refund my tickets but simply to change my visit date by one week. Given that the visit date is three months ahead, I do not see why they are so adamant in refusing my request.

Their suggestion was, and I quote: "You can try to sell the tickets at the door when you arrive as a lot of people try to get tickets by waiting for cancellations." This is hardly a solution, since I will not be in Malta on that date!

I am very disappointed that in this day and age some organisations still conform to practices that treat their patrons with such disdain. I find that many times tourists in Malta are treated very poorly and it's this kind of attitude that hurts the island's tourism industry.

I have put the tickets up for sale on one of my websites (www.camilleriart.com/gallery_malta_1.html) and I plan to add them to my Malta website (www.maltagozo.com) as well. However, I would prefer to just exchange the ticket date.