Paiya Tours - Payment

Has anyone used Paiya Tours and if so, how did you pay for your tour? I was told they do not accept credit cards and would accept $USD cash or telegraphic transfer? Not familiar with telegraphic transfer, is that an older form of wire transfer? Thanks in advance.

telegraph transfer is just the old term for a wire transfer

anyway paying local guides/companies can be a big problem - best advice is to work with an agent outside PNG who you can pay with a credit card and they then pay by transfer - they usually transfer to their PNG account and then locally pay via something like 'wantok moni' run by BSP and Digicel which is a system for holding and paying money by mobile phone

providing the company is reliable then paying by bank transfer avoids carrying cash but if there are problems getting any kind of refund is very difficult

carrying cash in large amounts is not advisable but can be unavoidable - take all the normal precautions when travelling - obtaining cash in PNG from ATM is possible in the bigger cities but cannot be relied on working all the time and it may not be possible to draw large amounts out

a good compromise might be to pay part upfront by transfer and part by cash once you are happy with the service provided

i dont know paiya tours - suggest you search here and on tripadvisor forum

This topic has been automatically locked due to inactivity. Email community@lonelyplanet.com if you would like to add to this topic and we'll unlock it for you.