UTOvacation Bewertungen 1.323

Just returned from Thailand and the trip was amazing..UTO were very communicative at all times and the onsite guide Chai went above and beyond…Would definitely use them again! It was a GREAT deal too!

The trip was amazing! Our tours were well planned and tour guide was professional and well versed in every aspect! The UTO Japan trip exceeded all of or expectations and we highly recommend UTO Travel!

We first booked a trip to Japan with UTO before the pandemic (scheduled for late 2020), and for obvious reasons the whole thing was delayed to late 2023 in the end. That’s fine, life happens. What I was able to notice, however, was the switch they made between fairly responsive, personable customer service and a fully automated online portal, which is sadly not the best for communication. There were many occasions when I tried to get a hold of someone to finalize or discuss important travel details (we were extending our flights to stay longer and travel on our own, so it was all very pertinent to trip planning), and it was a very frustrating process overall. Basically if you need a bit more customer service than simply paying for your trip, that’s going to be a challenge. That said, the tour itself was perfectly fine, a bit over-planned in places but the guide was funny and effective, and the hotels were about what we expected for the price. My partner and I usually never do organized tours (this is the first one I’ve been on as an adult), but we thought as an introduction to the “highlights” of Japan a tour may be a good start. In some ways it was, but I doubt I’ll want to repeat the experience, personally. As a way to save money on flights and hotels—an ok option (wasn’t that cheap, tbh). If you’re looking for a “cool” or “small groups” sort of tour, this isn’t it.

Have credit for four people, for 10 day China/Thailand air/land and we paid the gratuities already too. Trip cancelled during COVID. Tried to book on recent Black Friday using the credit for same China/Thailand price of $299/person for air/land. EXCEPT, after entering all required info, it indicated the special air and hotel prices were gone and there was an increase of > $799 more per person. I've sent emails, no response and no help from person on web site, except to say they could not help, could not put me in contact with anyone who could, and no refunds. This is not acceptable. They should have given the people, whose funds they have, first choice to book before anything opened to the public.

Too bad , I do not want to give them any star but I cannot leave the field with no star . This is a scam, they took your money and then cancel the trip , give you credit but it’s next to impossible to book anything after , in the meantime they keep your money and use it to their advantage . I will not be surprise that after they collect enough money, they will declare bankruptcy or disappear. They really should be brought to justice…

My sister and I are both in our 70s and love to travel. Our first trip with UTO was to Turkey. I'm giving this trip four stars instead of five because there was a mixup at Istanbul airport on arrival and no one was there to meet us and take us to the hotel. After a very long trip over, it was exhausting not knowing what to do on arrival. We did find a UTO guide for another group and he got us transport to the hotel. Other than that, the trip was fantastic. The hotels were all very nice, the guide was absolutely wonderful and knowledgeable, and the included tours and optional tours were all fascinating. We'll absolutely use UTO for another adventure!

Booked a trip in 2021. After them cancelling trips, offering credit for previous payments, and getting the run around for several years, it was clear that they were doing some of this on purpose because they collected more money each time to use your credit. I finally thought everything was good with a new trip booked in May for early 2024. Paid more money, because none of their current trips are priced anywhere close to what they offered a few years ago (see where this is going?). Before the deadline, which is 6 months prior to the trip, passport info was supplied and the balance paid. Shortly after, they claim they never received the passport info, even though it is shown on an invoice and I have a screen shot of the upload. They are always willing to work with you, if you agree to pay more money. The week following the balance deadline, they said $500 more and they would allow me to still go on the trip. I kept fighting this and trying to contact them. They don't answer the phone during business hours and won't let you leave a message, their emails say not to email them, and their chat either is a robot or overwhelmed. The last chat took over 2 hours to get four sentences out of them. Bottom line was the price was now $1000 more to keep the trip. I disputed it with my credit card company, UTO provided doctored documents, and I have no money back. They told the credit card company that the trip was still on and I was still on the list. They tell me the trip is suspended and I forfeited all of my payments. Almost $2k gone and they provided me with nothing. They even kept the prepaid tips for a trip they won't let me take.

Don't believe me? Read the same stories over and over on TripAdvisor, BBB, and other sites. They sell a trip for an unbelievable price, cancel it for one reason or another, "allow" you to use your deposit towards a more expensive trip, and then look for ways to say you violated the contract and keep everything you paid.

I definitely don’t enjoy posting negative reviews if I can help it, but in this case I feel that I need to warn others about this business and their semi-fraudulent practices. I can’t give zero stars, but I wish I could In this one instance.

I booked UTO’s discounted China tour in late 2018 (for travel in 2020) with a deal alert from Travelzoo - who are a very reputable travel service, so I did not question it when booking (more on that later).

I knew the deep savings of this tour came because it is sponsored by the Chinese government and involves having to attend a few activities that show the history and economic activities of the country (visiting a jade store or an herbal medical farm, etc) with high pressure sales pitches wanting you to buy one of the items you saw demonstrated at the visit. I was okay with this after reading that this was a portion of why the trip was so inexpensive.

What I didn’t know, however, was that if something happens and your trip is canceled (mine was canceled by UTO, NOT by me at all) it is not refundable even if THEY cancel it. How is that even legal? They can cancel it but you get non refund, as if you are the one who canceled?

I paid them almost $1300 ($400 was for our two Chinese visas), and when they canceled our trip due to COVID, they offered us a credit for future travel only and no refund option at all. At first I was okay with this, as I understood about COVID obviously being the cause, but I was a little disheartened by the no refund/only credit news.

Our credit was only for $900 since the $400 Chinese visas were good for 10 years, so we would be able to use those when we rebook, right? WRONG.

First off, the initial trip was only $399 per person base-price, but every trip they posted after COVID situation was a little one under control was in the thousands of dollars per person. Some were in the $10,000 plus range! So what am Is supposed to use this $900 credit for now?

The credit was good for two years, so I waited it out to see if they would post any more discounted trips like the one we originally purchased, but no luck for about a year.

Black Friday rolls round, and guess what! They posted another trip just like the one we booked and that was canceled! Phew, we can rebook and use our visas we paid them for (so don’t have to pay that portion again, luckily, right?) and can finally take our trip with our credit! Woo! Again - wrong!

I try to book our trip with our credit and it shows that it’s about a THOUSAND dollars more than it should be on the checkout screen? I go back to my cart and it looks like there is indeed a visa charged at $498 per person there that is making it so much more than the base price.

Oh, I just need to contact them and let them know I already bought a visa through UTO and can use that one, right? AGAIN wrong - this is almost comical at this point.

They tell me that all their Chinese tours are using “group visas” now and my visas that I paid them $400 for already are now useless and I need to pay almost $1000 more for these new visas they are using. So I am stuck with a basically useless $900 “credit” that I cannot use without spending more than double my original trip.

One more thing I’ll note that’s super shady is that they are still posting little badges on their tours that some of the “discounts” are for “Travelzoo members” only - but Travelzoo has not posted one of their deals in years (probably because after hearing all the complaints similar to mine, they are no longer promoting them to their members so they don’t get hoodwinked!)

I am out $1300 (not a small amount of money!) and received ZERO useable services for that amount. I highly recommend you read up on all this company’s ratings and all of their reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google, before deciding to see a shiny discounted trip and booking it without being informed of their practices.

I hate to say something is an outright scam, but that is how I’m feeling at this point.

Do not book a trip with them! Scammed me and hundreds of other people out of $1400 with no recourse. DO NOT TRUST THEM

My husband and I went on an excursion to Israel and Egypt with UTOvacation. This was our first experience with this service. However, I feel to call it a service is gracious as they did not offer any service. We were treated as peasants who had not paid more than $10,000 for their service - despite we paid for 5 - star hotel upgrade for and then received ZERO STAR placement in hotels and train. We had rust and black mold in our hotels. When we complained, we received a 1 star switch in rooms. We also had purchased the train ride from Cairo to Aswan not knowing that the train was uninhabitable to humans. We were told by our local guide that they had tried to get the UTO to change the accommodations as they were well aware that it was not fit for service, and UTO refused. In addition, we paid for the Bite & Sip Package but we were not allowed to drink any wine at several of the locations, and then told we could only have 1 bottle for the entire table. It was ridiculous. We will never use this company again. I would give ZERO STARS if it were possible.

We purchased a trip to China from UTOvacations back in 2019, for the April 2021 trip. After the pandemic took place our trip was canceled, but UTOvacations refused to refund our money. Instead, they rescheduled it for October 2022, and then for April 2023. Then UTOvacations asked us for additional payment, or they threatened to cancel our trips. (I have an email from them to prove it). They refuse to provide a refund but ask for additional funds instead and threaten to cancel or trip altogether. In the end, they issued a credit for the money that we paid, but they don't have any available trips to China anymore. Their website is a complete scam. They post the trips to China and other places in Asia, but they don't have any available dates for them. So no one can book them.

Went on the Italy trip which includes Rome, Florence, and Venice. Their customer service is terrible. There is a phone number you can call for questions, but they either didn't answer calls or if they did answer the call would be lost. They basically do not want you to contact them once you've uploaded documents and paid fees. Thirty days before the trip they emailed our flight schedule and list of hotels. One day before we were scheduled to depart, all the hotels were changed. Also, good luck on the hotels. UTO reserved a hotel 40 minutes outside of Venice for some of the members of our tour group. Each day they had to pay for transportation to and back from the city. When you purchase the trip, you can then buy other packages such as tours or dinners. When I tried to find out when the tours/dinner would be scheduled, I was told I would have to wait until we arrived in Rome and met with our “tour coordinator.” This made it impossible to schedule other activities we wanted to do in Rome that were not offered by UTO such as going to Pompei and wasted a lot of time we could have used doing other activities. In addition, activities were scheduled but transportation to the locations was on your own, which they don't tell you. Uber can cost up to 80 Euros and taxis are a little cheaper. This also means you're on your own when trying to get back to the hotel. There were positives to the trip. The hotels were decent, clean, and included breakfast. The only complaint is that the hotel in Rome was far from the popular areas (and next to a train station which shook the building every now and again). The tours that were scheduled were really good except for the last one in Venice which was decent. WOULD NEVER USE UTO (nicknamed UTI by our travel group), AGAIN.

Unfortunately, I am completely disappointed with this tour. UTO was improvising all along. The Tour Guide and the Bus Driver were constantly arguing in public. Some of the options for which I paid in advance, were not provided. I will never book another tour with UTOvacation.

traveling for over 30 years & this was the worst experience I’ve ever had traveling. This tour was put together selfishly & put together with no thought. 12 days & only 1 day was enjoyable. The mini cruise, I could complain about the cruise but I won’t since there was nothing else to this trip. Just tour After tour of the same boring stuff. No fun booked, most of the time was unnecessarily in traveling to the next destination no time to shower before the next boring tour. Sometimes we didn’t have a guide we had to do it ourselves. Left alone in a foreign country was very dangerous. I actually want a refund, they booked us in a hotel across from the most beautiful beach in the world, guess what? No beach time, had us booked for what? Another boring tour due to the traveling to each tour the day was gone & no beach time, & off to another temple with the same thing to look at. I’ve never been so bored & pissed off at the same time. Wasted time & wasted money. I don’t recommend this tour company. They make changes to your connecting flights last minute without notifying you, Because of all the mistakes we verified everything before the next tour or flight. Thank God we did or we would of been stranded. Just fine a professional company & read reviews before booking. Sometimes a good deal is deceptive you get what you pay for.

My wife and I were excited when we booked a China/Japan tour. We had it planned to leave in 2022. COVID happened and delayed our tour. Then we rescheduled for March 2023. Same thing - COVID required cancelling. Now I am trying to book for 2025. Nothing but expensive add ons - ALL OF THE INCLUDED COST ACCOMODATIONS AND AIR FAIR ARE NOT AVAILABLE - requiring us to pay expensive upgrades for hotel and flights.

UTO is Bait-And-Switch.

So right now, I have a $3294 credit to use before 09/02/2024 or I forfeit my money. I'm certainly not going to invest more money with company knowing that if something gets cancelled, delayed or whatever that they get $3294 plus whatever else I pay to get a trip. So, this is probably an expensive lesson / loss. Cheaper to give up the deposit/credit than to pay more money and chase it.

FYI - I had travel insurance. Insurance would not cover the cost because trip was cancelled by UTO and they gave me credit. So don't think travel insurance will cover you with UTO.

BUYER BEWARE - YOU WILL BE RIPPED OFF.

Major complaints is I am unable to contact the company by phone and they don't respond to emails.
I was overcharged $20 for my trip and paid a mandatory gratuity of $400 for my husband and myself and nothing was forwarded to either my guides nor driver. I subsequently gave additional gratuity to the guides/drivers, as did others in our group.

Travel is good for the soul. Travel with UTOvacations is a soul sucking experience. Your time and money are valuable. There are so many better, and less expensive, options. However, if you enjoy frustration, aggravation, wasting money, poorly planned itineraries and more time spent riding on a bus than visiting the sights you travel to see, then UTO is for you.
My UTO nightmare started when I won the photography portion of a contest they held for a “free” trip to Turkey. There was also an essay portion of the contest. At first I was happy that my photo had won. My joy quickly turned to frustration when I received the most ridiculous and laughable email from UTO telling me that I was to share a room with the winner of the essay contest.

“We have two winners from this contest and the two winners(one from article and one from photography) will share a room on the tour.” - Brian Tan UTO Vacations.

Things really went downhill from there. My free trip cost me $1,109 ($260 prepaid tips for guide and bus driver, $499 upgrade to a direct flight, and $350 single room supplement) before I even set foot in Turkey. As part of the tour package I was supposed to receive $100 spending money while in Turkey. When I inquired about it, I was told it would be a credit against future travel.

I will devote the rest of this review to my experience during the 13 day tour from October 29th to November 10th.

I arrived in Istanbul, Turkey about 6:40 am on October 30th. After I collected my luggage and exited customs, I was unable to find a UTO representative for the hotel transfer. UTO had neglected to inform me that the guide would be waiting in a coffee shop. I called the local UTO emergency contact number and received a prerecorded message that the phone number didn’t exist.

With no one from UTO in sight I took a cab to the hotel listed in the itinerary. Others on the tour were also not met at the airport and had to pay for cabs to the hotel. Upon arrival I was told that there was no reservation under my name and the desk clerk said he had never heard of UTO. My anger and frustration were growing exponentially. I called UTO in Canada. But, given the time difference and their limited hours,they would not be in the office until 5:00 pm Istanbul time. I then sent UTO an email detailing my situation, and the next day received a dismissive response that said… “Our local team will contact you as soon as possible. Best regards, Janey”

About two and a half hours after I arrived, the desk clerk called me over and told me the guide was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. The room issue was straightened out and I now began to believe that the trip was real.
This was my second trip to Turkey. Seven years ago my wife and I traveled there using another tour company. We both thought it was one of the best vacations we had had. The itinerary was very similar to the UTO itinerary. However, it was much more organized and superior in every way. Infact, while I was in Turkey, I received an email from the other tour company announcing a 13 day Turkey vacation, including airfare for $1,899, compared to the UTO website price of $3,399. The one saving grace of this tour were my fellow travelers. They were a fantastic group of people and given that I was traveling solo, it was nice to have such great company.
The issues I had with this trip are as follows:

UTO may try and counter these points by putting the blame on the “local team”. However, before selling these tours they should have vetted them.

Hotels - they are advertised as four star hotels but, with the exception of one hotel, this could not have been further from the truth. They were two star hotels at best. The one in Istanbul had a moldy shower and musty smell and the one in Troy smelled like low tide. The locations of the hotels were generally away from the city centers and tourist sights. The hotel in Izmir was approximately two hours away from Ephesus. The hotel locations contributed substantially to more time on the bus and less time at the sights.
Another issue with the hotels is that UTO sold an upgrade to five star hotels. Having groups staying in two separate hotels causes needless time wasted going from hotel to hotel. On average we lost one hour per day going between the separate hotels. This wasted time sitting on a bus that could have been better spent at the sights.

Itinerary - When visiting many locations in a large country, the itinerary should include interesting stops from city to city. This was far from the case. Most of the intermediate stops were at service stations with nothing else around.. One day we left the hotel at 7:00 am and arrived at the next hotel at 8:30 pm. During the 13.5 hours in between, we spent approximately three hours at tourist sights.
The lack of responsiveness by the UTO was one of the common complaints among the 18 people on the tour.

Please do not waste your time and money on UTO vacation they are absolutely the worst travel company.
Our flight into Tokyo was a one hour train ride form our hotel. I attampted to have this changed and they have poor customer service and would not change flight.
They expected us to use public transportation between Kyoto and Osaka. When your check to them clears, you will not hear from them again. As an update, I was threatened with removal of this review if a refernce # was not added. Reference # is 55046. I made the mistake of traveling with UTO vacations and wasted my money. I am simply trying to prevent your readers from doing the same. Not only do they provide poor service, they do not want people to see an honest review. PLEASE do not waste your money.

We first booked with UTO before COVID so to reschedule I was forced to pay double. Then they forced us to pay a gratuity tip of $350 per person! We inquired with our guides who confirmed they never got paid. They just took out money! They didn’t provide an itenerary. We were lucky our driver in Peru had it and he gave us a copy. They dropped us at our hotel after flying for 24 hrs. At 6am but hotel did not have a room for us until 4 pm! We had to pay extra to get in early. Whenever we tried calling UTO Vacation they were never available. We never heard from them during our trip after calling several times. They were the worst. It’s unfortunate because Peru was beautiful and guides were good. It was the agency that was awful. Don’t book with them!

Bad package was sold by this company. Horrible service, totally overpriced. I would never recommend anyone to travel using this company.