Travel Counsellors

My husband and I have recently returned from a trip to Antarctica. Having booked the trip via a third party agent we discovered they did not provide a flight booking service.

Our travel counsellor, did a great job of booking all of our flights from UK to Ushuaia, and return, with stops in Buenos Aires, at a very good price (much less than I'd been able to find myself), and despite numerous changes of flight, and even departure airport in Buenos Aires (by the airline), we were always kept up to date with the situation and were provided with all documentation within hours. She arranged all our transfers and hotels (which we were happy with apart from one, and that purely as they did not provide facilities for tea and coffee making - what I think European travellers expect nowadays).

I would not hesitate to recommend her to anyone planning a trip.

I have booked travel arrangements with my Travel Counsellor for about 20 years. The advisor I deal with always provides exceptional service and researches hotels that are great value for money and have excellent transport link's. Having recently returned from a holiday in Munich I was informed that the flight home was cancelled. My advisor immediately arranged another flight home. My advisor is extremely knowledgeable and her expertise is admiral.

I lost £400 with one of your so called reps!

All because I wanted to move a holiday date so they said I had to cancel the holiday and lose my deposit of £400!

I always go with tui but not no more!

I have booked with jet2

Booked a holiday spending £18,000 for 8 of us in Disney for 2 weeks at Easter. Despite all of the assurances on the website that refunds will be issued in full within 14 days this is not the case. Misleading & scandalous. Definetely troubled times but it is for everyone and other companies are keeping to heir promises. Will never ever book with them again

Hi,

I am writing this review to warn people of the lack of service received from this company. I booked my honeymoon €5115 in January and was asked if I wanted travel insurance- extra €90- obviously I said yes for it to be added in. As time was getting closer to wedding and honeymoon I rang in July just to ask about baggage on internal flights and was asked again if I wanted travel insurance? To which j responded we got this in January. I was told no we didnt, I said yes we will take it but the lady was unable to take payment at this time. I rang back Monday and paid. Unfortunately, my dad was admitted to hospital unexpectedly at the weekend and died on the wens night/thurs morning- day before the wedding. I went through claims process to be told my insurance was taken out too late. I contacted head office in relation to phone calls being recorded, I was informed that are, I emailed the travel counsellor in relation to this, received a phonecall from head office stating “ I refused insurance at time of booking”, and basically it’s my word against travel counsellor and suddenly in Ireland only some calls recorded. Nowhere on documentation does it say I refused, terms and conditions highlight how they want customers to have travel insurance- multiple flaws in this that would take me forever to continue with. So disgusted that despite my dad passing away, this lady causing extra stress by not telling the truth, had not put through travel insurance initially and costing us full honeymoon. Really it has been a disaster, I’m awaiting phonecall from head office again this week in relation to this not an easy situation to deal with at present. Customer service disgraceful and employee negligent in her work.

I used the travel councellers a few times the last one I used was a female, what can I say awful just awful l, from start to finish her service was just diabolical, and that's when I could get hold of her.

She ruined my dream holiday with just one after the other errors she made to my holiday, giving the money I spent her attitude was just disgusting when I complained , they are a Mickey Mouse outfit and they should be massively embarrassed by such an employee!

Booked an individual trip of a lifetime to Cuba part was tailor made and part of the trip was organised through a well known travel package company. The latter part of the trip was perfect unfortunately the individually sourced by travel counsellors part of the trip and went seriously wrong.

We were left in Cuba to sort it out for ourselves despite contacting them there and then and our own extra cost and distress .

On return a formal complaint was made and their customer service department were shocking. They denied any responsibility or recompense yet alone any customer caring . Beware ! your money or holiday is not safe with this company, they do not offer any cover or assistance as advertised .

We were left out of pocket and without the holiday promised.

My son and his 2 friends were planning a 3 month holiday in America but didn’t really know where to start. A friend recommended Travel Counsellors and I can’t speak highly enough about the exceptional, personal service the advisor gave us. From a very sketchy initial outline of where they wanted to go he helped the boys to plan the trip and then booking everything for them. He listened to what they wanted and was happy to make as many changes as necessary to give them the tailor-made holiday of their dreams. His attention to detail and extensive knowledge meant that he was able to suggest things they hadn’t even contemplated and, as a result, the trip was undoubtedly a million times better than we could have organised ourselves. Before they set off he provided a comprehensive itinerary detailing every flight, hotel, transfer, park ticket, car hire, and train journey with numbered vouchers for each item. That’s not where his personal service ended though, he has helped out with a couple of unforeseen hitches along the way and has been keen to know how the holiday was going. It was incredibly reassuring to know that we could count on his help to sort things out if necessary.

We are incredibly grateful to him for making our son’s trip truly the holiday of a lifetime and would have no hesitation in highly recommending him to anyone looking for more than a standard package holiday (although he does those too)!

Contacted them for advice/help with 2-week business multi-location trip, long haul, Business Class.

After initial enquiry which went well, several weeks of silence from their end. Resumed contact. They sprang into action with suggested itinerary.

Hours of my own research resulted in all but one location on their itinerary being rejected: too far to pointlessly travel away from the main route. After that I found my own hotels and booked them. All results were shunted through to TC and put into my own spreadsheet.

Eventually I got an itinerary which left out one hotel (the most expensive one) and a total which was £500 higher than I had already researched, including air tickets. There would have been another £100 charge for paying them by credit card.

I queried this, and the total mysteriously went down by £200, despite assurances that they can achieve great deals on hotels and airline tickets because of their great buying power. They bang on and on about your money being safe: what this means is that they will take a £4,000 deposit and not disappear with it. But to pay that £4,000 deposit by credit card they charge another £100. In essence, you will pay £100 for the guarantee that whilst you now have no contract with the credit card provider (since you are paying a 3rd party), it's ok, your money is safe with us.

The final "bill" was the last straw. It was, frankly, pathetic. At that point I realised that I was dealing with someone who made up figures as they went along. I cancelled, politely, and resumed booking everything myself, thus saving £600 from the intial quotation.

The only point in using this company is if you are not prepared to do any internet research yourself, are prepared to pay massive credit card charges, and want some mysterious confirmation that they will be there to help you 24/7 should need arise on your trip. Since I could hardly ever get hold of the TC in person, I even doubted that.

Having used Travel Counsellors in the past without any issue and a great experience i have in the last 6 weeks been totally ignored, no response to emails to plan and book a 3 week multi-stop holiday not even an email to say thank you for getting in touch! Either they no longer want repeat / returning business or the staff that made the company have all left and now no one cares!

Can't describe how disappointed me and my wife are. we will no longer use them and will go elsewhere!