Viator

We booked an event, arrived on schedule and no one at the location knew anything about a Viator reservation/scheduled event. The local tour operator did not answer their phone. Viator 'costumer service' took all of 2 hours to refuse to refund and issued poorly worded and false information. We disputed the charges with the bank and will never use Viator again.

Despite booking a Tikal tour through Viator 5 months in advance and selecting from their provided pickup location menu, I was unexpectedly charged a 30% surcharge for pickup on the day of the tour. When I contacted Viator's customer support for a refund, they claimed my pickup location wasn't on their approved list. While this is true now, the location was definitely available in their dropdown menu when I made the booking. Unfortunately, Viator's support team seemed dismissive of my evidence and responded with generic denials rather than investigating the situation. This inconsistency between booking options and actual service, combined with poor customer support, was disappointing.

We had booked a cooking class in Lucca Italy for Oct 18th at 5pm. On the ticket it listed a remote location to be picked up due to the fact the class was at a private home. We arrived at the assign location at 4:45 and waited until 5:30. I tried to contact Viator because there was no phone number for the class operator. The Viator agent told me I had the wrong day! I explained the i was looking at my ticket and it was booked for today. The agent was very rude and had no solutions.
We had paid in advance $645US. After several conversations with Viator they are unwilling to refund any
of our money!
This is completely unacceptable! Our ticket showed a location to meet at and we were there. There was no contact information about the cooking class operator to call for help and the Viator agent was rude with no help.
This was an expensive class and I don't feel we did anything wrong. To not be refunded is just wrong! I will never use Viator again!

I bought tickets for Vatican museums and Sixtine Chapel for 6 people (via Viator) on 5th October 2024 at 3.30 p.m. It was raining, there was a strike of public transport workers, it was impossible to get a taxi. We were there for 3 days so we decided to walk around, doesn't matter that we were wet, we wanted to use those three days as mich as possible. Two (2!) hours before we were supposed to enter, Viator informed us that our tickets were cancelled. The explanation was trivial. So, we didn't see the museums. They kindly informed us that we can still wait and buy them at the entrance. REALLY? Well, we bought them from you, Viator,in order NOT TO WAIT FOR FEW HOURS! The best thing was that at that moment the tickets were being sold on their site for much higher price. A terrible experience, terrible business, terrible everything! I rated it 1 star as that's the lowest, but if there was 0, you would get that. The only good thing is refund in 2 days.

If I could give less than 1 star I would
Don't waste your time.
Booked an experience and nowhere does it state the currency for the booking until it had processed and I checked my bank to see it had processed in USD. I also note they did not have all the fare options that the provider offered so we were charged full price for an otherwise free passenger. Contacted customer support and they gave ZERO support or solutions whatsoever. Not even a partial refund for the over charge. They even tried telling me that USD was an internationally used currency which really made me laugh

Please do not rely on the customer reviews on the website of Viator. It appears that they only publish positive reviews. At least, this happened to me. When I submitted review that criticized provider and Viator, They have refused to publish it. They said my review did not meet their guidelines. This was surprising to me since my review did not include any bad language or politically incorrect statements. It only criticized their poor customer service and some misleading statements in their trip descriptions. - So, when you read positive reviews about a tour or Viator, please keep in mind that you do not see all the reviews of the many customers who were unhappy about a tour or the service quality of Viator.

We purchased the Giverny/Versailles day trip. The Monet home/gardens portion was delightful. Then we went to Versailles, where our guide, walking very fast, took off with the group. We could not walk that fast, but kept her flag in sight. Inside the gate, in pouring rain, there was no sign of any of them! The guide, plus a new guide, were told that we were missing, but did nothing. We walked along both of the 2 long lines trying to find them, with no luck. Ultimately, refund a café and sat inside for awhile until they closed. Then we found another Cafe. We paid $331 to Viator, who sells us to another company in Paris.
I spoke with customer service at Viator, who said she would send my request for a partial reimbursement to her supervisor. Twi days later I received an email stating they would not give a partial refund, with no explanation.
Find another company.

Viator is a total scam. DO NOT USE VIATOR. I tried to book a sailing excursion in Madeira Portugal and only received automatic emails asking me to rate my experience. I was charged for the excursion and tried to confirm and make adjustments to my booking and never got a actual response, only got more automatic emails to review my experience. So I tried to contact the vendor directly by email, Viators messenger, Whatsapp, phone, and text, and never received a response from the Sailboat or Viator. When I went to the vendors address and meeting spot, I could not find any evidence of the company. When I added this same review to Viators website, it was rejected bc their "guidelines" prohibit posting negative responses so that the public has no way of finding out that they are a SCAM. Apparently only EU citizens have the right to appeal that they will not post negative reviews. DO NOT USE VIATOR. IT IS A SCAM. Hopefully the credit card will refund

Many of the postings on Viator are a scam. Viator will then cancel bookings without notifying you. Was also severely disappointed in the Viator customer service reps; when I called to express the concerns about a fake listing and that the operator doesn't give appropriate notice, they hung up on me twice and refused to take this listing off the website. I honestly don't think I'll use Viator again for booking experiences as they have no investment in the operator doing a good job and don't have accountable customer service.

We won't be booking with Viator again after this trip in Europe. We had a problem with one of the tours, and it took three contacts to the help centre, and none of the promises of contact from the company ever happened. With at least one of the help centre 'chats' it was so poor, I assumed it was a bot, but was assured it was a real person on their end. We ended up missing the tour, despite our attempts to sort it out in advance, and Viator refused to issue a refund, despite the communication record of our three attempts to contact them.

Booking a cruise experience with Viator in 1000 Islands, Canada turned into a nightmare for me and my six friends. Despite their offer to rebook with a promise of reimbursing the original payment of CAD 380, I've been left paying twice with no sign of the refund after a month. Each week, I spend 45 minutes on calls with customer support, only to be assured that someone will address the issue, yet there's been no progress. Viator's customer service has been abysmal, leaving me feeling scammed into rebooking and utterly disappointed in their lack of resolution!
Date of experience: 15-06-2024
Booking reference: BR*******393

Viator offers 24 hour in advance cancellation however if your cruise ship decides or is told they cannot dock (due toi winds or other factors) only hours before scheduled arrival, you will lose 100% of your payments and Viator will not negotiate. For this reason, I will not book tours on a cruise from Viator again.

Booked an excursion while in Ireland that ended up being cancelled by the provider due to weather. Viator refused to give a refund and said they take no ownership due to weather, even though no services were rendered. Now I'm stuck disputing with Amex.

I've tried several times to update my review to be fair. Not knowing how, I write another one, even if it comes late.

The week after my review was displayed, Viator and the tour operator refunded me in full with apologies.
The story had a happy ending.

Nevertheless, the experience was disappointing and I will never trust these people again.

I attempted to post this review on Viator, but they emailed me back to say, "Our travel community appreciates that you want to share your experience with them. Unfortunately, we cannot publish your contribution as it does not meet our review guidelines." Here is my review:

NEVER buy Paris catacomb tickets from anyone except from the official ticket office (https://www.catacombes.paris.fr/en). We purchased 2 tickets for the Paris Catacomb tours from Viator. When we showed up at the Catacomb ticket office and scanned our tickets, they showed as "invalid" and we were not able to use these tickets. The Catacomb ticket office provided us a letter confirming we had two fraudulent tickets, and they shared that they never sell tickets to third party vendors, so any ticket that is purchased anywhere else except directly from them would be invalid. I reached out to Viator to let them know about this issue - they have not yet refunded our 108 Euros for the invalid tickets. Learn from our mistake.

Absolutely scam artists. Let you book a time slot on the website, but don't actually book the time slot. They will send you a link hours later and expect you to then book a time slot. They obviously expect you to be constantly checking your Viator account whilst on holiday. I had this happen to me and the tour was sold out. I complained and was told no refunds under any circumstances. So I have paid the I travel to the tour location. Have paid roaming charges to complain and also for a tour that I didn't get, and won't get refunded for as it was sold out. They will put all the emphasis on you and will say it's your fault for not booking a time slot sooner. Absolutely scam artists

Do you want to deal with a company that promises you excellent service and don't deliver. Do you want to deal with a company that promises fool refund for horrible and life threatening experience and don't deliver. I don't advise.

We were running late for our Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour due to taking a wrong train. We were 10 min late. No one on the phone would help me. If they sent me the actual tickets or let me know how to contact the tour guide we would have caught up with them given the long line to go through security. But instead I had to buy additional tickets to board. They are refusing to give me a refund. Its great if you do not run into any problems but if you do forget about it. You just threw $120 away.

Viator accepted a booking and took my money for a tour which did not even exist. The operator was on vacation and had no tours scheduled for the next 1.5 months. We wasted time booking and traveling to the meet up point only to find that there was no tour, finally getting notification by e-mail from a surprised operator. Although Viator coordinated the refund, they made NO apology or even tried to compensate for my son's disappointment and our wasted vacation time. Clearly, this was Viator's screw-up. Poorly run operation with little sensitivity to the end customer.