Tourist Beware

We purchased tickets for Open to View, a British tourist package, last October and arrived in England on Oct. 31. We found that all of the Open to View properties--castles, estates, etc.--on our itinerary closed on Nov. 1.

After many phone calls and correspondence with Brit Rail and the British Tourist Authority, we received “a year’s free subscription” to BTA’s In Britain, a decent publication but not a magazine we would normally subscribe to, and certainly not equivalent to the $48 we paid Brit Rail for the two Open to View tickets. We were never able to validate the tickets after we arrived, but they still would not refund our money.

We feel obligated to tell others who are planning a vacation in England this fall not to purchase Open to View for use after October. “A significant portion” of the properties do not remain open, no matter what the BTA may claim.

JEROME and SANDRA HELMAN, Los Angeles