Dogtainers Pet Transport Reviews

3.9 Rating 7 Reviews
71 %
of reviewers recommend Dogtainers Pet Transport
3.9
Based on 7 reviews
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I booked Dogtainers to transport my cat and dog from New Zealand to the Middle East. During the enquiry process, Dogtainers appeared well organised, professional and responsive, so while their quote was higher than others, I went ahead as I believed my pets would be in safe hands. Once I submitted my booking request (10 weeks from my requested travel date), it went downhill. To start, the booking form said deposits paid by credit card would be processed in the next 3 working days and their office would call to do this. After a week with no contact, I followed up with an email, played some phone tag, and after 11 days was able to pay the deposit. After this, aside from an email to confirm my request and state their NZ team would be in touch re the next steps, in the 5 weeks following, no communication was initiated by Dogtainers. I emailed after a few weeks to check in but didn’t get a response so I followed up with a phone call (where we discussed flight options, that Dogtainers would submit booking requests for the flights discussed, and they’d update me soon). At this stage, I believed all was under control in the background but Dogtainers wasn’t great at communication. Just over a month out from our travel date, I was worried as Dogtainers hadn’t come back to me to confirm the flights discussed or if any changes needed to be made, and I needed to know for the import agent. There was no response to my email asking for an update so I followed up with a phone call 2 days later, where the team member seemed disorganised and disinterested. He couldn’t recall what stage the booking was at, then said he hadn’t heard back from the booking agent but that he would follow up, but when I asked when I could expect an update, he wasn’t sure. At this stage, alarm bells went off so I called another transporter to come up with a plan B. The second transporter was surprised that Dogtainers hadn’t told me that the airline wasn’t flying pets from NZ after mid November and we needed to either get them out before the final flight (in the next 2 weeks!) or do a double export through Australia (which would incur a significant additional cost). I confirmed this with the airline directly, who told me that pet transporters had been advised of this some months before. At this point, I realised Dogtainers had dropped the ball and I was worried that if Dogtainers had dropped the ball on something this major, changes to one of the biggest airlines in the world, changes that directly affected Dogtainers’ NZ business (an airline that Dogtainers lists as a partner on their website), how could I trust Dogtainers to safely transport my pets? I lost all confidence in Dogtainers. When I called Dogtainers’ head office in Australia to cancel my booking and explain why, their international transport manager also wasn’t aware of the airline’s policy change, nor was he apologetic that his team had dropped the ball. He also didn’t seem interested in resolving the issue or learning about the experience to ensure this didn’t happen again. And while Dogtainers agreed to refund my deposit, it took 7 weeks (and me following up several times) for the refund to be received. Dogtainers’ website states they: are “pet travel specialists”, “take the stress out of international pet travel”, and “can manage the logistics of world pet travel for Any Animal, Anywhere, Anytime”. Sadly, my experience demonstrated this isn’t true; Dogtainers didn’t action or follow up on my booking in a timely manner, they neglected to keep up to date with airline policy, their communication was awful, they lacked empathy and awareness that their business is transporting pets who are much loved family members (not a piece of luggage), and ultimately, they didn’t do their job and caused significant stress during an already stressful time. Fortunately, the second transporter was able to save the day. Within 4 days of my initial call, the second transporter had my pets booked on a flight, and just 2 weeks later, they flew my pets out of NZ on one of the airline’s last pet allowed flights. I understand an international move with pets will be stressful but using a pet transporter should reduce the stress, not increase it. I do not recommend Dogtainers.
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Posted 1 year ago
The issues started for us after we paid the deposit and found out that they weren't open on weekends (!!). Even though as you know people and pets still fly on weekends. This was an issue from the start because we flew out on a Monday. We had the expectation that our dog Scout would fly out on a similar day and have a similar arrival time and date to our own, yet even though we had provided them with our flight details from the very start we found out that Scout's flight details were changed and they now expected us to take her to Sydney airport on Monday the 10th, even though that was clearly when our own flight was. We had no consultation with this date and no say in it. Thankfully we were able to arrange for her to stay with my mum after we'd already left for Sydney and then be driven all the way down by a friend. This was just the beginning of the stuff ups, then we found out that Scout's flight wasn't actually until the 12th!! So she had to stay down in Sydney without us in an unfamiliar environment for extra time. When she did finally fly we had to email multiple times to get an update on her and we received a brief copy and paste description from Emirates with a photo of her looking terrified. We had extra stress when we noticed that her flights were different on the flight tracker the day before pick up. We spent a lot of stressed hours emailing and ringing Emirates trying to get information and getting no reply. Eventually we got an email from them just before we were about to leave. We still did not get an update about exactly where to pick her up from and had to pay $12USD for parking at the airport while Emirates rang each other to determine that it was in fact the freight terminal. We drove all the way to New York City with our 2 year old who had the understanding that he was going to see his puppy that morning. We arrived at 9:45am just after her flight had landed, someone was able to give us her paperwork and direct us to the customs building to pay the fee. This is where everything fell apart and our happy day became a nightmare. After waiting at customs for 2 hours to pay and fee and get our dog released, we were told that we actually needed to have hired a broker to get her released and they needed to have all of her documents. We had to pick a name off the sheet of paper there and then and pay an additional $240USD (that was the cheapest broker!) on the spot. Thank God my sister in law was able to pay this for us or I don't know what we would have done. The officers at the freight terminal couldn't believe that we went through a pet transport company and hadn't been advised that the broker was part of standard procedure. They said that they definitely should have been aware of it and already have had it sorted and paid for us, with all of Scout's documents transferred to them. Instead we had to sit in the office at the terminal and try and locate all of Scout's documents on our phones to be able to send them through ourselves. We paid Dogtainers $6000 with the understanding that it covered all the paperwork and fees for import and export to America (except the final customs fee). Thank God we chose an amazing broker who answered his phone on the first ring and did everything for us so quickly. Customs told us that it would likely be another 2 hours after the broker filed the paperwork before Scout would then be released to us. This then meant that she would have spent too long in her crate at the freight terminal and would have to be picked up by The Ark and taken over to their facility to be properly cared for. This would also incur a daily fee of over $200USD. When they came over and said they would have to take her rather then release her my toddler and I were in tears. Thankfully our broker worked overtime on her case and was able to get her released in only half an hour instead of two hours. When we got the phone call we rushed to The Ark to get her, only to be told that she had just managed to get released in time to not be shipped over, so then we had to pile our now distraught 2 year old back into the car and drove back to the freight terminal. We waited another half and hour and then finally got told she could be released to us. When they brought her crate out on the forklift our son went straight up to it and was trying to get her out. Both he and I were crying, Scout was terrified after sitting in a crate in a freight terminal from 9:40am that morning till 2:40pm. She wasn't in a large crate as we had been advised that Emirates thought she should be, and only had her collar with her, not her lead and her toy that had also gone with her. This meant that we couldn't even take her for a walk after we got her out. The poor thing just jumped into my husband's arms and got carried all the way to the car. And because yet again this company is closed on the weekend we couldn't have even emailed or rang you to deal with any of this nightmare. We were both furious by the time we got her in the car 5 hours after we were meant to pick her up!! And another $410USD poorer ($170 in customs fees & $240 in broker fees). All of the officers at the fright terminal and The Ark couldn't believe how much we paid for the lack of communication and knowledge of the import procedures Scout had to go through. I emailed Dogtainers to try and get some resolution and a partial refund and got no empathy at all. They just copy and pasted their terms and conditions to us and pretty much said 'bad luck'. We would never trust them with another one of our pets again.
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Posted 1 year ago
Dogtainers Pet Transport is rated 3.9 based on 7 reviews