smarTours Reviews - Read 1,360 Genuine Customer Reviews | smartours.com

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Customer Service
communication channels	Telephone, Email
queries resolved in	Under an hour
customer service	3.92 out of 5

About smarTours:

smarTours is a leading provider of direct-to-consumer, affordable travel experiences to exotic global destinations. The Company offers travelers curated, pre-packaged itineraries to over 40 destinations across the globe. By offering tours directly to consumers, the Company provides premium-quality experiences at value prices, and as a result, has cultivated a highly passionate and loyal community of repeat travelers. More than 200,000 travelers have taken a smarTours trip since the founding of the Company in 1996. smarTours is… the smarter way to see the world.

Phone:

800-337-7773

Email:

info@smartours.com

Location:

545 Eighth Ave. Suite 2250
New York, NY 10018

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“Although our tour guide in Iceland was extraordinarily good, we will never use SmarTours again. We are telling all of our family and friends about this. SmarTours used to be a good travel company, but something has happened since we used them five years ago. They have devolved into nothing more than an unprofessional, clueless call center. SmarTours lures you in with a $100/per person discount if you pay your deposit by e-check. Six months later, when the balance is due, if you pay with a credit card, you will get an unpleasant surprise: your invoice will have a line that says "Forfeiture of eCheck Discount" and $100/person is added to the balance. You CANNOT pay by phone. The online system DOES NOT ALERT YOU of this "forfeiture." When I saw the invoice, the payment was still Pending on my credit card. THREE SmarTours call center representatives, including a supervisor, said it was no problem to fix this. I just needed to notify my credit card company and call them back, which I did. When I called back, the call center representative said there was nothing she could do. I asked to speak to a manager. She would not connect me but said she would have someone call me back. They never did. I have been BETRAYED, RIPPED OFF, and will NEVER use SmarTours again. You have been warned about this cheapskate, underhanded, chintzy company. BEWARE.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

“The tour was very poorly planned the tips were exhausting the tour guide was terrible I will be very hesitant to do another tour with you”

Posted 2 months ago

“I have informed smarTours that I did not feel safe on my tour due to another passenger. He was physically intimidating and verbally abusive toward me during the entire trip. I have asked for a refund of $300 for the cost of meals and tours I was advised to skip in order to avoid this man.”

Posted 3 months ago

“Our guide was GREAT!!! The itinerary was GREAT!!!! The Thai people were lovely! Elephant Nature Park was an amazing experience! I wouldn’t change a thing! Best trip ever!”

Posted 4 months ago

“The worst tour company ever. I spoke to Ms McKeon of your office who was dismissive and rude. When I spoke to her about an insurance claim she hung up on me in mid sentence I wrote to the CEO and never got a response.”

Posted 4 months ago

“I was very dissatisfied with my SmarTours experience. I had been looking forward to the trip to Ireland for years, Ireland had been on the top of my bucket list for quite some time and I was fortunate enough to make it happen and take the trip so early in life. My aunt whom I traveled with, had used SmarTours before and had nothing but great things to say about her trips with the company. Before getting to Ireland, the problems already started...we booked land only as we were flying from Los Angeles, California and Miami, FL and flying direct was a cheaper option for us. Nowhere on the site or in any information prior to receiving our itinerary did anything state that our tour ended in Limerick and that everyone flying back would be flying from Shannon Airport therefore we hit our first of many hiccups on the trip. We had to extend our trip, pay to change our flights, get a rental car and an additional hotel night in order to make it back to Dublin as we thought, if we fly into Dublin we're leaving from Dublin and booked roundtrip air to and from Dublin. Fine we dealt with that and made the best out of crumby situation. Now fast forward to the start of our trip where we didn't meet our Tour Director/Guide until the second or third day of the trip. We were given very little guidance as to what to do or see outside of the scheduled activities. Our tour director treated us like children calling restroom breaks "Pee Pee stops" and was very rude regarding specific interests that we had. If someone was interested in seeing churches, he should have pointed out the churches, if someone was interested in Game of Thrones locations, he should of made mention of a few. He said from day one that he had never seen an episode of Game of Thrones and said he didn't understand why people were so interested in it. I saw more on the time on my own than I did with our tour guide. To the point that other parties on our tour would ask me, hey what should we do on our free time. One of the days of the tour, Storm Lorenzo came in. Our tour director cancelled all plans for the day and told us to stay under our duvets. The "storm" didn't hit until the evening and it would've been a wasted day, had I not done additional research and booked a day tour out to Kylemore Abbey myself. Our tour guide didn't offer us things to do that day, he didn't offer to bus us to the city center at certain times seeing as our hotel there was far from the city center...Overall we weren't given guidance and I think as our guide, he should have been more insightful. I learned more about the famine on my day tour the day of the storm than I did in the almost two weeks with our tour guide. The meals that were provided were sub par. Breakfast was the same at all locations and in some places we had between 30-45 minutes to get breakfast. The dinner menus were all the same, a salad or vegetable soup for appetize, and irish ham, chicken or some type of fish with potatoes for dinner. There was no variety and the food had no flavor. At the Fitzwilliam hotel, we sat at the dinner table for an hour and a half without any food or appetizer having been brought out to us. I would have prefered to have paid less for the hotel and have had meals on my own to be perfectly honest. At least that way, I would have been able to try more things.”

Posted 4 months ago

“3rd tour but guide spoke poor English bedbugs in one room”

Posted 4 months ago

“Hotels were dives. Couldn't tell if staff was there to help us or just to get tips. Very disappointing trip. Phone support was unhelpful. STAY AWAY from this company.”

Posted 4 months ago

“If I could give smartour zero stars I would. I have been in a dispute with smartours for four months now. Smartours made a mistake on my last name and never fixed it! Luckily, the day before the trip I called to ensure my name was correct on my ticket. It wasnt! The day of the trip I was calling back and forth with smartours until they came to the conclusion that they needed mw to pay 150$ to fix a mistake they made or I can chose to not go on the cruise and wastes thousands! With months of calling and filing complaints on the BBB they promised me a refund and lied to my credit card company saying they did give me a check. They never did. They never call you back when they say they will. The customer service here is the WORST EVER. The stress smartours has given me the day of my trip really set a horrible mood for my trip I was planning for a year. When putting so much money into a trip like I did you want to make sure you have good customer service and a fast response in case there are problems. Go to a different company and be stress free!”

Posted 4 months ago

“Trip to Greece was very well organized but I would like to comment on certain issues:- 1) Trip to Santorini should have been at least for 10-12 hrs at the island . We got hardly 3-4 hrs at the Oía village which is world famous. 2) There should be provisions of Coffee machines in the Hotels . It was not there in most of the Hotels —- Hotel Royal Olympic in Athens is one example. Everything else was fine .”

Posted 6 months ago

“Firstly , I should have paid attention to the fact that there was too much ‘leisure’ time. This tour was just about for hotels and local transport only. Secondly , the tour guide failed us miserably. This was his second tour only. I have sent email and called Ritu in your office . I will leave it at that ! Very dissatisfied”

Posted 6 months ago

“Have traveled with Smartours in the past and this was the worst experience. Trip was not presented as advertised. Entire city visits removed.. course was changed .. riverboat cabins were small and cramped.. we spent a total of 3 hours in Amsterdam for touring. I do not recommend this tour and will not be traveling with Smartours in the future..”

Posted 7 months ago

“Tour director was not organized, unable to communicate and control of the tour in general. I would not recommend Smart Tours to anyone do to the fact it was very poorly organized from the air ports, the daily programs and the un ability of the tour director to communicate to us in a precise manner. Mass confusion daily.”

Posted 9 months ago

“Not good experience at all”

Posted 9 months ago

“Egypt tour. Just returned on the 28th. First off on the plane no vegetarian meal ordered as I had requested the man who booked my tour. I went 10 hours with no food but a couple pieces of bread. First day in Egypt-I let my tour guide know I was vegetarian-what did they serve me that very night at the 'welcome dinner'? A meal of meat. Once again I went hungry. What is so hard to understand about a common meal request? I saw many wonderful sights in Egypt which was why I went. But the total filth, flies, and constant harrassment from the locals for money basically ruined the trip. And why no bathroom on the bus? We were at the site of the 3 large pyramids and there was only a small row of port-a-potty things, gaurded over by a local who would not let anyone use them without paying him first!! Really?!!! Horrible bathroom situations everywhere we went except in the hotels. Always with someone there with their handout for 'tips'. Mistreatment of animals there. Several of us complained to the tour guide who explained, 'we beat our animals and children here, it does not mean we don't like them, its how we discipline them'. Its a wonder I did not end up in an Egyptian jail. First trip with SmarTours-now my last. This was not worth the money or level of harrassment we endured. Will not recommend this company to anyone. Donna Skinner”

Posted 1 year ago

“no”

Posted 1 year ago

“I have been trying to help a repeat client to book on this company, his friend had recommend him to book on. The booking system did not send through a confirmation and he has been charged twice. I have been dealing with Nora and she has been very unhelpful. The amounts that had been charged are different, she will not put in contact with the accounts team and told me I need to speak to my bank to recall the money - even though we have proof the transactions have been charged. Can someone please contact us and help get back the over charges !!!”

Posted 1 year ago

“We want to RELAX on our vacations. Old perhaps. The tour guide Fernando is a MASTER OF EXPERTISE. The rest of the tour guides are o.k.....very friendly of course. I found that to often the people of S America were out to cheat us.....short change us...etc......of course not your team. We`re going to stick to cruises. Now the Columbia trip was less stressful....and had more stuff to shop for so that was a bit better. Keith/ Dorothy”

Posted 1 year ago

“Hello - This would have been a great tour but for the experience at the outset. My husband and I are in the group of 8 travelers who due to a delay out of JFK, missed the connection to Saigon and lost a day of the tour. We were met in Shanghai by a China Eastern representative who handed us a slip of computer paper with our names on it, nothing much else. She did not speak English but we were able to figure out that the airline would provide a hotel for the night and that we should show up at the airport the next day for the flight to Saigon (they only have one flight a day in late evening). We were pointed toward immigration and had to figure out on our own that we had to apply for one-day visas to stay in Shanghai. After the ordeal with immigration, we assembled with all of the others who missed connections and put on buses to the hotel (absolutely no communications from anyone except that we should board the bus). My husband and I sent to a different hotel from the other 6 members of our SmarTours group (at this point, I did not know who the other members were). Turns out that we were put up in a hotel housing mostly Chinese visitors so I think that we were put there because of our ethnicity. At the free-for-all check-in, the hotel handed out boxes of Chinese take out food for dinner. We were probably lucky that they ran out before we checked in. I don't speak Chinese so we had a tough time there. It was also a dingy hotel located way out of city center. We tried to make use of the day and looked into possibly going into Shanghai but when we finally found someone who understood a little English, she told us that this was a bad idea because we were so far out of the city. Instead, we sat in the hotel room watching Chinese TV (no CNN or other English channels!) until check out and proceeded to the airport at around 2 pm because there was nothing to do near the hotel and the airport would be less depressing than the hotel for the next 8+ hours before our flight. When we got to the airport, I inquired at the China Eastern desk about something another delayed traveler told us about the night before. He said that the members of his group were each given a sum of yuan (close to $100) for the delayed flight. The China Eastern representative did not speak or understand much English but he said that he would look into it. After about an hour or so, we were told to follow another person who I thought was taking us to an office where the other traveler told us that the yuan was being dispersed. When we started to exit the airport, I stopped the person to ask where we were going. Mostly through hand gestures, he was able to communicate that he was taking us back to the hotel to get dinner. We were exasperated at this point so we got into the hotel shuttle bus to go back to the hotel. When we arrived he disappeared. We waited in the lobby and he returned a short time later with a bag of take-out food. He pointed us to the breakfast room and gave us the bag of food. He later came back with a room key where we were allowed to stay until the shuttle bus back to the airport. Relating this experience is funnier than when it was all happening but we lived through it. When we finally got to Saigon we learned that SmartTours arranged for us to get the guided city tour that we missed but the fact is that we missed going to the Mekong Delta which was one of the reasons why my husband and I picked this trip. Instead, we got to spend a day in a cheap hotel in Shanghai, a city I once loved but now can't bear the thought of visiting again. It was very disappointing that SmartTours did not set up communications with the eight of us who were in this situation so that we could at least communicate with each other and not feel so isolated and abandoned. We felt further deprived when our fellow travelers told us about how great the Mekong Delta trip was and showed us their pictures. The intrepid 8 all feel that at the very least, we should be reimbursed for the loss of one day of the tour. I hope that you will give this due consideration. Thank you.”

Posted 1 year ago

“The trip was definitely an eyeopening experience. Randy and Martha were excellent tour guides.”

Posted 1 year ago

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smarTours is rated 4.41 based on 1,360 reviews