Wakatobi Resort - Payment?

[Slow]

I did a search and didn't find any discussion about this...hopefully I didn't miss anything.

I'm in the process of booking a trip to Wakatobi and since it is in the next 90 days they are asking for full payment up front, which seems reasonable. What gets me thinking is that they first said they wanted payment by wire transfer and then when I asked if credit card was available, the said I could pay by credit card at instapay.id and gave me a link to a very fishy looking invoice on instapay.id in Indonesian currency.

Is this the normal way to do payments? This is my first trip to dive in Asia...all my previous diving has been in the Caribbean and has been handled differently with more direct-seeming payments via credit card. Am I being overly nervous?

Thanks for any info to settle my thinking.

 

[Blackcrusader]

I've never paid upfront for a land based dive trip. Is this a liveaboard?

 

[Slow]

This is land-based at Wakatobi Resort. I'm used to paying upfront when you get close to the actual travel dates at Caribbean resorts (and liveaboards when I've done them), so that part isn't what's weirding me out...or at least wasn't till I read your post. LOL

 

[Jaan]

We paid by CC using their link and all was fine
Our bank rejected the first attempt with instapay but we talked to them and it was approved in our second attempt

There were no issues and the team there is very professional. They also book the charter flight for you (and we added some Bali tours for a couple of days to acclimate and they helped organize these with their driver too)

 

[d^2b]

For what little it's worth, Discovery Palawan (.ph) used a similarly sketchy seeming payment service, and it also worked out OK for me.

 

[Slow]

Thanks Jaan and d^2b...gives me a little more peace of mind.

 

[FishCity]

When we first went they only did wire. Took forever trying to sent around $10k to a place in Indonesia with a bank in Singapore. Got nasty bank letter later to fill out to prove not money laundering.
We made a credit card deposit for second trip. Unfortunately cancelled due to covid and clock ran out on reusing it so guess we made a donation.

 

[Cali_diver]

If it helps, all sales transactions in Indonesia have to be done in IDR. Its the law.

 

[mgoodness]

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. Bookmarking for future trip(s) to Indonesia!

 

[Damselfish]

That’s pretty common for that part of the world, but not typical in US/Caribbean region so it weirds us out. That is actually one benefit of using a travel agent, you are paying them and they are paying the resort.