Travelzoo

In Sept of 2020 I booked a trip for Crete Chania through Exoticca. That trip is scheduled in 19 days. The US has just put Greece as Level 4 (do not fly) travel ban. The US has also imposed entry restriction for the next 500 days on folks coming from Europe. Greece itself has imposed travel restrictions in Crete and Chania. Chania the town is currently in lock down and has curfews. Exoticca will not cancel my trip nor refund my money. How is this possible? How can they take your money, trying to force you into flying into a pandemic war zone?

I generally find Travelzoo's offerings to be useful, but they must stop recommending UTO Vacations. There are many complaints with BBB and other sites from customers who were unable to complete a trip (some UTO cancelled) and UTO doesn't follow their own terms and conditions and refuses to give refunds. I booked a trip to Greece for April 22 back in November 2020. After I made the final payment, they told me that the date was no longer available, the trip would cost more and we would have to sign waivers assuming all risks for the trip. Ever since then, all they did was run out the clock so we couldn't go on the trip and any credit would be minuscule. Refuse to give a refund even though there is a Level 4 travel advisory for Greece, they raised the price over 10% and we were never given a deadline to pay that, but our spots were given away. This agency is master of the bait and switch!

I booked a room at Holiday Inn Express in Orlando through TravelZoo and Hotel Planner. I prepaid one amount but when I checked out of the hotel, the hotel receipt was for a lower price! Hotel Planner was not willing to adjust the price -- they stated that I had agreed to the price and that was it. A second issue was my rewards account with IHG. Hotel Planner asked for my membership number and included it on my reservation -- making it seem like I would be getting reward points for my stay. Not true! Booking through them did not give me points.

So, I learned my lesson... book directly with the hotel for the best price and for the reward points.

During the covid 19 issue travelzoo are the only company who have constantly ignored my requests for a refund or credit for a hotel booking that was something out of my control while other companies have been quick and sympathetic to help as they will require my business in the future when this scare blows over. I have been a member for several years but that means nothing shame on you Travelzoo

I wrote Travelzoo in hoped they could help me with a refund from UTO for trip to China. It was cancelled and then re/instated in 72 hours. They said my money (PAID IN FULL MONTHS PRIOR TO TRIP) was now a travel credit and they would send other tours. THEY NEVER SENT TOURS and everything I saw offered by UTO was triple or more of original trip.

Somehow, I felt safe because it was offered through Travelzoo. I alerted them to what I consider a scam and UTO is still on their site. I had hoped they would no longer associate with UTO.
I was about to book trip with Jetliner (offered on Travelzoo) but decided to check reviews. Seems like another UTO.

I now realize Travelzoo does not evaluate travel companies. Do not trust their listings without research.

I made a Travelzoo booking for 2 nights at a Montreal hotel for late October. I later called TRAVELZOO to cancel while within the "no penalty time. I was CHARGED (booked, later cancelled) 1 night by the hotel despite documented PROOF from TRAVELZOO that they had PROPERLY cancelled the reservation in time for there to be NO CHARGE. However, I was still billed by Mastercard for 1 night by the hotel. I advised Travelzoo of the error and they "forwarded" my complaint to the hotel. The hotel denied I was charged so I provided a copy of my Mastercard statement showing the improper charge to Travelzoo, which "forwarded" the documentation to the hotel. NO ADVOCACY DESPITE DOCUMENTATION- just "forwarded". The hotel then told both Travelzoo and me that that there WAS NO RECORD IN THEIR SYSTEM OF MY CREDIT CARD BEING CHARGED (WHICH WAS INCORRECT and Travelzoo SHOULD HAVE known that after reviewing my credit card statement). UNDENIABLE PROOF POSITIVE yet Travelzoo CHOSE to accept WRONG INFORMATION from their business partner rather than the ABSOLUTELY CORRECT AND DOCUMENTED INFORMATION from BOTH your customer AND MASTERCARD. SHAME ON TRAVELZOO AND MORE SHAME for pretending Travelzoo was ADVOCATING for me (which is what Travelzoo called "forwarding". There was no advocating from Travelzoo. All they did was forward my issue to the hotel and then NOTHING HELPFUL. How could a reasonable business not confront the hotel demanding how the $$ were shown billed to the customer by Mastercard with that hotel making the charges and receiving the $$? Travelzoo certainly did not advocate for me AT ANY TIME! Eventually, after I made a Formal Mastercard Dispute, the Hotel ADMITTED I had been charged and refunded the $$ TWO MONTHS AFTER THEY TOOK IT! TRAVELZOO DID NOTHING THAN "FORWARD

So, the hotel gave us WRONG INFORMATION about my being charged, I gave you CORRECT INFORMATION and Travelzoo essentially washed its hands and said "NOT OUR PROBLEM"! I spent over a month getting it fixed while TRAVELZOO DID NOTHING OTHER THAN FORWARD MY COMPLAINT AND LEFT ME (AND MASTERCARD) TO TAKE THE TIME AND EFFORT TO RESOLVE a Travelzoo's customer's issue.

AND I got the Travelzoo's customary response from Lisa Oswald (VP Travelzoo) how I would rate my dealings with their Customer Service. As soon as I hit UNHAPPY and UNRESOLVED, I got a page saying no sense completing. Travelzoo (Lisa Oswald?) would follow up with me. NEVER HAPPENED - NO TRAVELZOO FOLLOWUP.

So, I have used Travelzoo before and yes, you may get a good product and a good price. HOWEVER, if you run into any issue, don't expect help. In my case, they ignored my DOCUMENTED PROOF I was wrongly charged and accepted WRONG INFORMATION From their business partner. So, enjoy your Travelzoo. Just PRAY nothing goes wrong because I could not count on TRAVELZOO for support when I was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT (and Mastercard and later the hotel agreed I was> WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THEY'LL SUPPORT YOU?
PS. LISA OSWALD, VP TRAVELZOO. I'm still waiting to hear from you.

My husband booked a trip to Ischia, Italy with Travelzoo to celebrate our 30th anniv. I wish I had read the reviews before we booked! We really had booked our trip with Jetline Holidays out of the UK as all of our communication was with them. We were supposed to have a boat tour of the island on our 2nd day which was canceled without any notice. We arrived at the port and were simply told that it was canceled, we had cut our sightseeing short in order to make it to the port on time and were quite frustrated to be simply told that we weren't going out. We had to take a covid test less than 24 hours before our flight home and I unfortunately tested positive. My husband had to get back to the US so he flew home as planned. This is where my frustration with Travelzoo/Jetline really increased. I immediately got in touch with Roger who had been helping us with our travel arrangements, he was suddenly not available. A woman told me that it was up to me to get in touch with the airlines, hotel, tranfer arrangements, etc. Terrible customer service! I made arrangements with the hotel, was able to successfully make my flight home an open ticket (after many phone calls and lots of time spent on hold). My biggest complaint is - working with this company is fine until you have a problem, than they disappear and won't help at all! Which is really hard when in another country and you don't speak the language. I wasn't able to take the scheduled shuttle/ferry/shuttle to the airport due to covid and Travelzoo/Jetline refused to reimburse me approx $77. I was shocked, especially when the hotel and airlines worked with me and they were not whom I had originally booked with. I had paid for the transfer and they should've been rescheduled at no extra cost just like my flight.

Don't waste your time trying to find and actually book travel deals through this company. For over a decade I've received and read the multiple offers sent to my email every week by Travelzoo. I have found travel deals and packages that looked enticing. In the past, we purchased event tickets, packages, and even booked a cruise using Travelzoo. The last two offers I tried to book ended up being bogus. My most recent bad experience happened this week. Travelzoo's "Top 20 List" included a 5 night package to Paris from several US cities. The package included r/t air and hotel for $599 per person. I followed the booking directions provided by Travelzoo, which connected me with the vendor, Fleetway Travel. I went through all the steps, answering all the questions, selecting the available dates, airports, upgrades, and options. I completed the required documentation and registration. At the conclusion of this process, Fleetway's online booking told me my travel reservation had been submitted and that someone would contact me the next day for payment processing. Three days passed and I had not been contacted. I tried to call Fleetway Travel and couldn't get through (number I had went to The UK). I contacted Travelzoo customer service and they told me they would look into my reservation. The next day Travelzoo Customer Rep., Lisa called me and said Fleetway had my reservation and would be calling me shortly. Later that day, I finally got a call from Fleetway Travel. They denied having a record of my reservation and the Fleetway Rep. Told me they have not been able to process or even read the reservations submitted via their website due to the heavy volume of calls they had been receiving. The Fleetway Rep would not honor my reservation, look for my reservation, or even acknowledge that they had received a submission from me. I told the Fleetway Rep. My exact submission dates and that I had followed the directions provided by their and Travelzoo's websites, and that I was supposed to receive a call to process payment. She said "we can't be chasing people down who booked vacations online" and "I have booked over 20 vacations for customers who called in today alone, I don't have time to check online reservation requests". The advertised travel deal I signed up for 5 days earlier via Fleetway Travels own website was not available, if it ever really existed. I immediately called Travelzoo Customer Service to inquire why they told me Fleetway had my reservation, to ask why online bookings weren't being honored, and finally ask why Travelzoo would partner with a vendor of this poor of caliber. Doesn't Travelzoo check out the businesses it promotes? Travelzoo Customer Rep. Apologized for my experience, said they would note my complaint for future reference when working with Fleetway Travel, but that Travelzoo couldn't make Fleetway Travel honor the promoted travel deal. The other bad experience with Travelzoo occurred last month when I tried to book a hotel room package. The Guy Harvey Outrigger Motel in St. Petersburg, FL offered a special rate for a 3 night stay over Labor Day. When I called them (Guy Harvey Reservations) and mentioned the Travelzoo Package, the price with hidden charges and required extras went up nearly $500. Based on these two back-to-back bad experiences, I can no longer use Travelzoo and would highly recommend others save themselves the time and trouble of using this online service.

I ordered one ticket to Legoland through travel zoo. The printed voucher was not working at the ticket booth since there was no barcode. We lost time.

We booked a hotel in NYC through Travel Zoo and when we arrived at the hotel the booking no. Was not valid. (It was for a date that already passed and not under our name.) It took us several hours on the phone with at least 3 different Travel Zoo representatives before the problem was solved. When we got home we called Travel Zoo and asked to a partial credit to compensate us for our time (and the stress of worrying about where we were going to sleep!) We were offered a $25 credit toward a future booking... which doesn't go far in NYC. If you use Travel Zoo to book a hotel I would suggest calling the hotel to make sure they have your reservation.

Part II... Just got our credit card bill... We were charged twice for our hotel room. Once by Travel Zoo back in Jan. And then again by the TRYP Hotel. So now we will waste more time trying to straighten this out... Buyer Beware!

We contacted the hotel regarding the double charge and they are crediting our account. In all fairness I want to note that this was not Travel Zoo's fault. I am still waiting to hear from them regarding the initial problem of the reservation mix up.

Bought vouchers for advertised deal at Tenaya lodge. I was aware that all weekend dates in Feb were blacked out. However, when I called the Hotel reservation desk to reserve weekend dates outside of the blackout period they reported that NO WEEKEND DATES WERE EVER available for this deal. I now must wait 48hrs to receive the email confirming the refund THEN 7-10 additional business days for the refund of my $756 dollars. The responsibility is now also on me to make sure the refund email arrives and that the refund actually happens. Will not be using this travel site again.

Buyer beware! I have had multiple incidents where I did not check the fine print before purchasing vouchers through Travelzoo Local. Two, totaling $50, were lost due to short expiration windows. The third was the worst. The language on the purchase of a Loews Portofino Mandara Spa offer led my mother-in-law and I to believe we would pay $99 for both a massage and a facial. We found out a check-out that we had to pay for one of the services. Between the two of us, this was a $450 mistake (in addition to the $198 we paid for the vouchers.) I contacted Travelzoo Local about this and was offered a $5 voucher for a future purchase. It's our fault for not reading the vouchers properly before purchase. I just want to warn others to read the fine print carefully or you will be sorry.

Travelzoo looks like it was built with the same logo and branding managers as GoDaddy. Very' 80's ish and cluttered.

I pass over this site and check all of the other travel resources before coming to Travel Zoo

Travelzoo offers some great deals at time and occasionally you can find one that's not a per person based on double occupancy and are just for a great hotel deal or travel deal based on the person traveling. They need to have a solo traveler special added to their Top 20 travel deals. Travel is not all about couple traveling. Many solo travelers and there's a big niche waiting to be filled. I keep hoping TravelZoo will do something in this neglected travel sector, but it seems nothing will convince them of the need.

Purchased a deal for a "Cottage Resort" in the Ottawa Valley, Canada that included a two night stay with dinner. Resort was run-down, had no formal check-in so never met the owners(!) and didn't get any information as to how to order dinner. I'm not sure the criteria Travelzoo uses to accept businesses, but it is obvious that no representative of Travelzoo ever visited this place, otherwise they would not have aligned themselves with it. As a result, I would not use Travelzoo again. Perhaps it was bad luck but I wouldn't take the chance again.

Shirley Brown, Ontario, Canada

Why would anyone go to a site that has the word "zoo" in it. All it does is reminds me of how we (humans) are treated by the travel industry but especially the airlines. Bad enough that they treat us like animals, but why would I want to be reminded of it.
My other objection is that I've never, never, never found a bargain on "tz" (I don't even want to use the entire word). Where do they get their offers?
With so many other alternatives, how do they survive?

RIPOFF! Purchased a voucher (this is the first. And last time I used/will use Travelzoo) that was supposed to be valid for an Oregon wine tasting pass for two. After purchasing the voucher, I was required to redeem the voucher at the vendor's (oregonwinepass.com) website. However, the vendor refused to accept the voucher. Also, I noticed that the vendor indicated that the passes are good through 12/31/14, even though Travelzoo advertised that the pass was good through 12/31/15. I called Travelzoo and was told that it was up to me to call the vendor and work out the problems with the voucher and the inconsistent dates. Of course, there was no answer at the vendor's phone number. Thankfully, Travelzoo honored my request to cancel my purchase since it was within their 7 day cancellation period. This is a very strange business model--purchasing a voucher from a third party and then having to deal with the vendor to get them to honor Travelzoo's voucher. This particular purchase was relatively small, $29 so the risk in dealing with Travelzoo was small. However, many Travelzoo offerings are much more expensive and the risk far greater. Buyer beware--maybe it's better to deal with the vendor directly and forget about Travelzoo and their shoddy business practices.

The short version is that I paid 20% more by using Travel Zoo than if I had booked directly with the hotel. What is the point?

I bought s Travelzoo for lake blackshear resort in Georgia for a quick trip to some cooler weather.the only good part is I left the Florida heat for temps in the sixties. The resort/villas are in need of repair and a good cleaning. Unfortunately I only read trsvrlxooy reviews which were good. After arriving I logged on to ttip advisor and saw the real reviews. I didn't see any roaches bu that may be because all I smelled was mildee and bug spray. Cobwebs dust and dirt I didn't want to pick up the phone it was so dirty and everything is dated and old including the beds. We left after one night. Didn't bother asking anyone for a partial refund

I purchased a voucher to a local comedy club; however, when I went to use the voucher, I was told it was invalid because the comedian had "NO PASSES" beside the show time. Well, I searched the comedy club's website and practically every single show had this notation beside it; out of four months' worth of shows, MAYBE three show times didn't say "NO PASSES" (and there's a different performer every single week)!

Needless to say, I won't be purchasing from TravelZoo again -- they may be offering deals, but you're losing money in the long run if the venue doesn't allow you to redeem the deal! Save your money and/or stick to Groupon or LivingSocial; I've used those sites several times, and I've never had any redemption issues!

After booking 2 hotel rooms through Travelzoo, I upgraded the rooms to have breakfast as well as spa tubs. Upon check in the gal at the desk said it was a continental breakfast. I was very surprised and said that my understanding was a full breakfast. She was willing to accommodate the request if I sent her verification from Travelzoo. We checked in and called customer service. Aaron was almost annoyed speaking with me. Reading the voucher to me, which I already had over and over- I know what it said, it said room with breakfast. I then asked for his supervisor. After being put on and off hold for 28 minutes, Lana said she'd have to bring it up with HER supervisor and would quickly get back to me since we were already in the hotel and needed an answer. That was Friday, today is Monday. I just called customer service and Linda said oh there is $10 promo code for you. I explained the poor customer service as well as it was a $28 upgrade for the full breakfast( as well as the $39 extra dollars per room) and I was offered $10 promocode. I asked for one per room since I purchased both room vouchers. Very sad customer service.
Finding this site "site jabber" I was surprised to see all the bad reviews for Travelzoo. I've used them a long time and thought I would have been more appreciated as a valued customer. Beware of what you are buying before you hit that "buy now" button.