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About smarTours
smarTours makes it possible to experience more once-in-a-lifetime trips. Since 1996, more than 200,000 travelers have taken a smarTours trip to 40+ exotic destinations around the globe. Our tours are priced "all in" (with airfare from U.S. origination airport) and require only a modest deposit to reserve. Some smarTravelers have taken five, 10 or even 20+ trips with us. smarTours is the smarter way to see the world.
smarTours Reviews
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In March 2023 we took a SmarTours package to Morocco. I was a little afraid to travel there, but my husband was super excited to go. Now I look back at my fear as naivety, because I absolutely fell in love with Morocco and its people. Our guide was named Madani and he shared so much about the lives of his people and their rich history. We traveled in comfort and stayed in amazing hotels in six different cities. We went on daily adventures that I never knew were possible. This was not what I call a "vacation", but rather "educational traveling". Every day I learned...every day I experienced this exciting country and culture...and best of all...every day I smiled. Our first adventure with SmarTours was to Peru. That adventure got us hooked on this company, because we realized how much of the world, we knew nothing of, but could learn about with SmarTours. Live for today...because tomorrow is not promised
Thank you Denise! It was a pleasure to have you travel with us to Morocco!
The agent wasn’t interested in giving me more information about the tour. All he kept saying was Ok ok ok. Then he blocked me from talking to anyone else. Hung up on him. Called back 3x and got the same person. All he wanted was my credit card which I did give. I called back the next day and the other person said he’ll send me a receipt and I’m still waiting. Had I seen the reviews before I’d never use Smartours.
Dear Vejai, we are so sorry that your experience with our customer service team was not in line with your expectations. We've sent you a private response to share some additional information and hope that we can resolve any outstanding questions. You will also receive additional information about the trip by email as your departure date approaches. Please reach out with any additional questions, and we do hope that you have a wonderful journey.
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Unauthorized removal of over 3,000$ from my bank account and I cannot get an answer to get my money back. I made a payment of 1,000 and they took 3200.00. Unauthorized. I have called many times all without resolve. There is no one to speak to. Only a customer service person. This is absolutely awful and I will never ever book another trip.
Dear Lisa, We apologize for this mix-up and the delay in getting your refund. After investigation, we found this refund was held up in our accounting department, but we are looking to get this situation rectified right away. Thank you for your patience. We are so sorry this has taken so long, and hope that your travel experience with us next year will still be a wonderful one, despite this rocky start.
Best wishes,The smarTours Team
BEWARE of Smartours. On August 4 of 2022, Smartours ruined our Tanzania Safari experience by downgrading and changing our accommodations without any notification to a camp site where we felt unsafe, vulnerable and restless. After not sleeping much that night we moved to a lodge related to the same company they used and on top of that we ended up paying an extra $600 USD to get what we paid for in the first place. Seems like a bait and switch to add additional profit as turns out there were lodges in the area just not as cheap as the camp surely. We told the guide we would sleep in the jeep before returning to the camp.
At least that way we had safety.
When we purchased this safari package Kenya with a Tanzania extension, we paid for hotels not camps, which is what their website shows and even the final itinerary package they provided showed hotels/lodges, not camp sites. We ended spending the whole day on August 5 searching for a room on our vacation already booked, this put much stress on our vacation and our guide trying to satisfy his customers. We would have cancelled the Tanzania extension if informed we were staying at a camp, but this was conveniently not communicated to us until we arrived in this Country
Smartours was very deceptive in their approach and negligent in how this was handled. The biggest issue was no notice. This Safari trip was quite expensive and for the price we paid we never expected to be downgraded in this way. We have used Smartours for several trips in the past but, this blatant omission is fraudulent and concerning to say the least.
We have emailed Smartours customer service many times. No response as of this date. We have called them numerous times since our return on August 10, 2022, spoken to several people and no action has been taken on their part. We plan to sue in small claims for a partial refund and return of our additional cost. When things got tough they disappeared leaving us to fend for ourselves in a foreign land. There are many other tour company choices do not bother using a company who does not take care of customers and ignores you when issues arise. This is a desperate company refusing to attempt to resolve our issues as they have our cash and now make us chase them for resolution. On to the next sucker is the way they look at it appears. The pandemic was tough but, did not think they would turn to stealing from customers and laughing all the way to the bank.
Dissatisfied CustomersStephen ** and Monika **
We’d like to acknowledge that you had a frustrating experience, and we could have done better. The original lodge was shuttered due to the pandemic, and we upgraded guests on the extension to luxury tented accommodations. Your final travel documents were updated with this information and sent via email in July indicating the change. We will follow up with you separately to address the specific concerns you have raised in this review. We truly appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts
Customer Service is horrible. Call six times and you will either get no answer or all different answers. They cheated me out of $349 and gave me the run around. DO Not use them, Spoke with many people on the tour and most said they are done with SmarTours.
Hi Rob. I see that you were on our recent Ireland departure. We have opened an investigation into what went wrong on this particular tour. We deeply regret that this trip did not live up to your standards, and absolutely does not live up to ours. You should have received a communication from our management team following up with information on how they plan to rectify these issues. Thank you.
We booked the Magical Ireland Tour. It had to be cancelled and rebooked twice, due to covid. I received an email from Smartours saying I have a $150 credit. When I called to use it for the payment due on the trip we are finally taking, I was told I can't use it, even though it's a COVID credit, because I have another small credit I'm using from the original deposit I paid. I can only use it by booking a 2nd trip to a different destination. I consider this misleading advertising and don't understand why, if the credit is mine, I can't use it for the trip I've been trying to take for over 2 years. I was told to "read the fine print" at the bottom of the page.
Annette, we are so sorry for the confusion regarding this credit. We issued credits to all passengers for payments made against trips suspended due to COVID-19 during 2020. Once passengers used their credit to book a new trip, and paid for that trip in full, we issued an additional $150 credit as a thank you for coming back to us. Our intent was indeed that you would be able to use this on your next trip, but we are so sorry that it was handled in such a way. We do hope you enjoy Ireland!
Here's my experience with the Smart Tour agency: 1) I had one reservation for 2021 (i.e., Germany Christmas Market), This trip was cancelled due to the rise of COVID by the trade agency. And this Tavel agency provided options to either receive credit for future travels or getting refund. I requested refund and I did receive two different emails from their payroll management (Mr Chis ** & Tyrell **) that I will be receiving my refund by 1/19/2022, not only I did not receive my refund they are not responding to my emails anymore. I would suggest to anyone be really careful if you are planning to book a travel with this agency because they are not reliable plus they have lots a bad reviews with YELP.
2) I had another reservation for 2022 (i.e., Jewels of Adriatic), This trip also was suspended/cancelled by the travel agency. I paid $600 as non-refundable deposit and I was hoping to receive a credit for the $600 but they are not responding. By the way, I am discussing my matters with my lawyer for further actions.
Dear Masoud, thank you for your feedback, and we are so sorry this turned out to be such a frustrating experience, and needed to be escalated so many times. We were able to resolve the refund issue in January and the additional credits have been restored to your account for future travel. There have definitely been many bumps in the road to recovery from the pandemic, and we know we need to do better. Thank you for patience, and we do hope to see you on a future trip!
We were sold a "land only" South Africa tour in June, 2020. Smartours reversed the schedule on us shortly before we were to leave Aug, 2021. They informed us they would reimburse us the cost of fees incurred to rearrange hotels, flights that we had to change in order to accommodate their change in schedule. This amount was $796.64. We have not received anything in spite of their manager telling us that we would be reimbursed.
Pamela, we are so sorry that this turned into such a frustrating experience for you. Navigating travel in these COVID times has certainly been challenging for us and for our customers. We’re sorry that the last minute changes by the airline resulted in such a headache for you, both in terms of rescheduling your flight, and in getting your reimbursement from smarTours. According to our records, the amount was reimbursed in November. We apologize for the delay, and hope you will consider us again.
I was never refunded for my trip to Vietnam and lost $2552.00 I cancelled my February 4th trip on January 27th due to my Covid concerns. Our trip was on Air China with a very long layover in Shanghai. I had insurance but of course they said it did not cover a Pandemic. I had travel solely with Smartours for years and had brought many other travelers with me. To me it was disgraceful as this was a huge decision to make. I was not unaware enough to think I could travel through China and not be exposed to the Corona Virus. I was truly disappointed with them and realized that I did not count as a human trying not to bring this awful thing back to the USA. Obviously my life and the life of others was less important then the money they kept.
Booked a tour to Ireland along with 4 other people in my party. The tour scheduled for May 2020 was cancelled. Operator refused to refund our money ($4900 for myself and my husband) and gave us a credit for a future tour in May 2021. Now they have filed for bankruptcy so it is unlikely that we'll ever see the money. Fortunately, we had booked our airfare separately with Delta and they did refund our money as they are trustworthy. We had a positive experience with SmarTours on 2019, which is why we had booked again. I agree that a class action suit is in order and if anyone knows how to proceed, please post. There are thousands of us in this situation and as retirees on a fixed income we cannot afford to write off nearly $5000.
We're sorry for the frustration you experienced and for this late reply. Like many businesses impacted by the pandemic, we lost much of our staff and struggled to keep up with our customers' needs. We were also forced to make difficult decisions like updating our cancellation policy to offer affected customers a future tour credit in place of a monetary refund. We hope you'll continue to share feedback with us as we work to rebuild our business and restore the levels of service you expect.
smarTours author review by ConsumerAffairs Research Team
The smarTours company has been in business since 1996, offering low-cost group vacation tours to exotic worldwide locales. To date, more than 150,000 satisfied travelers have used smarTours to book their holiday.
Expert guides: Local, English-speaking guides enhance the tourist experience by providing local knowledge of destination sites to smarTours guests in the language guests are most comfortable with. This allows travelers to enjoy traveling without the frustrations of a language barrier.
Deluxe accommodations: smarTours offer group booking options, which make it possible to enjoy bigger savings at both deluxe and first-class hotels.
Roommate services: Since traveling alone often comes with increased costs with many prices based on double occupancy, smarTours offers 'Find a Roommate' services to help keep travel costs low.
Airfare is included: Rather than incur additional expenses, international airfare is included with discounted packages through smarTours.
Industry certification: The smarTours company is a member of United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA), which allows travelers peace of mind since certified operators carry at least $1 million of professional liability insurance to cover issues and problems that may arise.
The ConsumerAffairs Research Team believes everyone deserves to make smart decisions. We aim to provide readers with the most up-to-date information available about today's consumer products and services.
smarTours Company Information
- Company Name:
- smarTours
- Company Type:
- Private
- Year Founded:
- 1995
- Address:
- 545 8th Ave. Suite 2250
- City:
- New York
- State/Province:
- NY
- Postal Code:
- 10018
- Country:
- United States
- Fax:
- 212-297-0965
- Website:
- www.smartours.com
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