Cancellation problem - It has been a total nightmare to work with this company. I booked a cruise and was given 4 different invoices and after many emails to customer service, I finally cancelled. Then, I got a call with a special offer on price and upgraded cabin. After not receiving any confirmation, I again cancelled. No response on my deposit return, so I contacted my credit card company who then called to try and settle this. I was then harassed by the man and told the trip wasn't cancelled until he said so. Only God knows if I will ever see any refund. A very angry senior citizen.
Consumer Complaints & Reviews
We took the Australia, New Zealand and optional Fiji extension leaving January 29, 2011. The airline schedule was not followed through by Vantage on our return trip home. Leaving Fiji, we were not booked through to Las Vegas as shown in the original itinerary. No record was shown of our flight from Los Angeles. We had to rebook in Los Angeles for our return to Las Vegas. Vantage dropped the ball on this and all our tour guide's response was, "This is not my problem, there's nothing I can do. Chill out and go have a drink." His attitude through the entire trip was as if he was on vacation also. When he led the guided tours, he took off and left most of the group behind. The tours were not rated as to physical abilities. Most of our group was comprised of 60 to 80 year olds. Even though we could keep up, several in our group were not able to complete most of the excursions.
The Fiji extension was a complete disappointment. We were stuck in a resort in Nadi for five days. The resort did not have sand beaches and Vantage did not offer optional tours of the additional islands with the beautiful white sand beaches and grass huts that you imagine Fiji is. Most of our group just sat in the hotel with nothing to do. We had to find our own tours around the islands, etc. Our tour guide and Vantage were useless in this respect. The price we paid for the Fiji extension was extremely overpriced for what we received as our hotel had serious bug problems. It was definitely not a 5 star hotel as quoted. We will not travel Vantage on our next land tour and will definitely not consider them on our next river cruise.
Upon arriving in Prague at our post Danube River Cruise in September 2010, Vantage switched our prepaid three-night stay from the five-star Hilton Prague City Center to the two-star "Elephant" Hotel, with no advance notice, claiming that the hotels were comparable, even though the Hilton costs $200 more per night.
My registered letter to Vantage CEO, Henry Lewis, for $600 compensation for the hotel downgrade was ignored. Vantage charged me $400 for two lost wireless receivers, when the actual replacement cost was $160. They ignored my refund request for the $240 cost difference.
In late October 2010, my traveling companion and I booked a river cruise sailing on June 4, 2011 with Vantage Deluxe World Travel. We paid the invoice submitted, which supposedly included a $500 early booking discount. In early March, we received a personalized brochure entitled "Everything you need to know before you go". In that document, the price listed for our sailing (on our departure date) for our cabin category is $1200 per person, less than what we paid (including the so-called early booking discount). We have tried, without success, to have Vantage honor the price listed. We have written, called, sent certified mail to Mr. Lewis, all without any satisfaction.
We received a letter from a customer service representative stating that "many times, Vantage advertises last-minute deals" to fill the inventory. We were told that when we booked, we got the last cabin available. In this instance, it seems peculiar that these so-called "last-minute deals" were sent to us 3 months prior to our trip and that Vantage will not honor their own advertised price.
I and my travel companion booked a river cruise through Vantage on October 18, 2010. At the time we were aware there was a $500/pp deposit. Because of our age and physical conditions we took out travel protection insurance, which we have done every time we have traveled. Approximately 4 or 5 days later, we received the confirming invoice. We were surprised to see that not only were we billed for the $500.00/pp deposit, but also for $715.00/pp for the Travel Protection Plan. We were not advised that that would be the case when we originally booked.
The package contained additional information on the tour, along with a booklet from the Travel Protection Insurance people advising that the TPI was non-refundable. In re-reading the detail on the daily walking tours on this trip, it became apparent that neither of us was capable of making the trip, so we canceled less than two weeks after the original booking. My traveling companion has since been issued a permanent Disabled Tag from the California DMV and I have been urged to have a second knee replacement ASAP.
We wrote a letter to the President of Vantage, Mr. Henry Lewis, advising him of the problem and asking for his help in refunding our deposit and canceling the TPI. We did not hear from Mr. Lewis but a person in the Cancellation Department of Vantage, whose name I don't remember, called. His attitude was that of a pitbull on a bad day. He said he had not seen our cancellation letter, even though he is the head of the Cancellation Department and he was just calling to let us know how much money we were going to lose unless we rebook or book a different tour within 12 months.
Since we have paid no more than the initial deposit, there is nothing for the Insurance company to "travel protect". We feel this is a fast-buck scam between Vantage and the Trip-Mate, the travel protection insurance agency. Surely we are not the only people in this situation with this complaint. We will never book any trip through Vantage again and will advise our traveling friends to avoid dealing with them, unless they are willing to go broke in case of a cancellation.
This company follows a certain pattern. Once you have booked your trip, you're on your own. Try to make any changes or ask for even the slightest accommodation, and the response will be "sorry, can't do, that's not our policy". And that is if you are lucky enough to talk to a customer service representative. Hold of 45 to 50 minutes are common. We booked the Moscow-St Petersburg cruise and later added the pre-trip to Kiev.
Then we check our Itinerary online. We were booked Sacramento-Seattle (Alaska Air) - Paris (Air France) - Kiev (Air France) - Moscow (Kiev Air). St Petersburg - Paris - Seattle (Air France) - Sacramento (Alaska Air). When we received our travel documents, our itinerary had been changed for our return. Paris - Salt Lake City - Sacramento (Delta). This new return itinerary from Paris is longer with a 5:40 minute layover in Salt Lake for an 1:38 minute flight. My wife called Vantage and after a very lengthy period on-hold, the clerk was extremely surly and said that nothing could be done.
I contacted Air France and was told that the flights were still available with plenty of seating but any changes would have to be made by Vantage. I then sent an email to Vantage Customer Service who responded that the flights were no longer available. We are now hoping that the smoky conditions in Moscow will persist or increase so that we can cancel without penalty. We have future trips in the planning but we will never, ever travel with Vantage.
We have just returned from 3 weeks in China . . . a fabulous trip, except for the return routing by Vantage customer service. We will never travel with Vantage again. Others on our tour had a direct flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco. Our return routing initially had us going from Hong Kong to Tokyo to Seattle to Denver to Tucson . . . a 25 hour trip. We faxed the CEO from Shanghai about our predicament but never heard from him. Our tour director was unable to help us.
