Vantage Travel Reviews

Do not go near Vantage Travel. They will take your money and you will never see it again. You will not get anything for your money because your trip will be canceled. If I could give -100 stars, I would. I will not stop fighting until I get my money back. I hope Henry Lewis is brought to justice.

I was a group leader with 22 paying customers on a riverboat trip Sept 2022 from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam on the Rhine and Mosel rivers. The trip was excellent.

I was awarded two free trips or price equivalent. I chose the later as I was relocating my 91 year old mother to live with me and travel would be limited. I have emailed my group's department representative repeatedly with only an occasional response with various reasons why I have not been rewarded.

I leave messages with her without a return phone call. I wrote a letter to the CEO and COO/CFO without a response. I have been on 7 trips with this company since 2008 and have never experienced a problem until NOW.

After reading about other people's experiences, I am not hopeful I will ever see my money. I even contacted my local CBS news investigative group and they have not received a response yet, either. I will be following up with a complaint to the Better Business Bureau.

Trip "postponed" a year. Notified less than 24 hours before our flight. Yes, we have insurance, but even Allianz isn't helping. This company is fraudulent, a class action suite is warranted. Look how many people wanted to have 0 stars posted. Stay away from Vantage - they are a poisonous snake!

I'm currently scheduled to travel with Vantage Deluxe world travel in the fall. After I paid by check a week later they auto changed my date. I've been reading a lot of Facebook posts with horrible stories of people showing up to the airport with no apparent airline tickets. If they had airline tickets. Vantage canceled the reservation for the tickets. Some people have had 48 hours notice that their trips were canceled. Others have complained that they've been owed money for quite a few years now. I have no confidence in this company. They have not answered phone calls. Their website said that they had a ransomware attack for which we've received no information. Assuring us that our information is not compromised. It seems that the excuse for the ransomware attack has nothing to do with these unexplained cancellations last minute

How do we get in touch with Vantage. we understand that their website was hacked and a 502 gateway error shows up when you try to get onto their web site at the .com site. Have they gotten to a new web site?? . We have a trip scheduled this summer with them and would like to make contact with them to see if it still going to happen.

Vantage canceled my trip - tried to book me on another that was unlike the itinerary I wanted. When I asked for a refund - they said yes I was owed the money but couldn't say when it would be returned. Been trying for months to get my money back.

Now I see their website is down and they have canceled other trips. Look for another travel company - this one seems to be in financial trouble and even with insurance you won't get your money back

I have been waiting for a refund on a trip to Iceland I paid for in 2021 which was scheduled for departure in mid-2022. I had to cancel the trip on doctor's advice and put a claim in to Allianz.

They approved the claim and sent that info to Vantage for payment (why they did not pay it out themselves is beyond me). They have not made the payment authorized by Allianz and have refused to tell me why.

If I could rate it 0 I would! Booked a cruise in 2019 to Norway for 4/20 but due to covid it was canceled. Rescheduled for 4/21 but again covid. Thought for sure covid would be over by the next reschedule date of 9/22 but by then my health deteriorated and I did not feel it would be wise to travel alone (I'm 70) My state consumer protection agency initially wrote to tell me that Vantage had agreed to give me a refund but then wrote back to tell me they rescinded the offer! I received a travel voucher which I'm sure I won't use due to health and probably a higher cost. Avoid business with this company as there are more cruise lines more amenable to their customers. Suing is always a possibility but again that would be at a cost and I don't know the statute of limitations in PA.

Booked on the Best of Holland & Belgium: Spring Tulips & Culinary Treats scheduled to leave from JFK to AMS on Apr 28, 2023. Received a fedex package from Vantage on Apr 18 that had itinerary, luggage tags etc. Received an email from Vantage on Apr 20 stating "We are currently experiencing a service outage which impacts our website and contact center. Our team is currently working around the clock to restore all services. We can be reached via email at [email protected]. At the same time called Delta to check on flights and they told me that flight from JFK - AMS and AMS back to JFK were "refunded," i.e., refunded to Vantage, not us. Sent an email to vantage customer care asking status of flights and trip and of course have not heard back. Can't check my portfolio to see if perhaps they switched us to different flights.

Anyone in the same situation pls contact: [email protected]

Joel Hornstein

We had a trip scheduled for July and there were some issues with changes made by Vantage dealing with the destinations along the way. One of the stops was why we booked this trip. now that stop is no longer available. We contacted Vantage and were told that nothing could be done about the change. they refused to allow us to talk to a supervisor because the supervisor was "too busy". Now we are blocked from communicating with Vantage either by phone (always busy) or by computer (502 error). Something is rotten in Boston.

Booked and paid for a river trip in June 2022. The trip was cancelled and we were rebooked for June 2023. In January 2023 I notified Vantage we could not go and wanted to cancel trip. After many phone calls and emails I still have not received a refund nor any returned phone calls.

Traveling with Vantage would be a terrible decision. Their travel practices are deceptive and their customer service is non existent.

A trip initially booked in October, 2021was rescheduled twice in 2022 on very short notice. The second time they canceled the trip they sent a deceptive communications saying that the trip's departure was delayed but not saying that they had instead rebooked us on a different cruise to a totally different area of the world.

Only after requesting a full refund were we offered a reservation departing on the April 14, 2023 cruise with our desired itinerary. Then on March 29, 2023, Vantage canceled our reservation saying due to an inventory problem there was no cabin available for us.

Although their Tour Participation Agreement states that if they cancel a cruise a full refund of all funds paid to them would be promptly made, they have never offered a full refund but always tried to retain the funds and substitute another cruise.

Contacting Vantage is time consuming and rarely productive. Wait times for their customer service numbers can be literally hours.

Customers are expected to frequent their customer web site to stay up to date on the status of their trips rather than receive proactive communications of changes from Vantage. Their customer web site has frequent technical glitches, Chat has limited functions and after waiting to Chat you are directed to call Customer 888 number and wait endlessly.

All communications with Vantage staff start from the premise that they are in the right and you are the problem.

When the Easter Island fires canceled travel to the island, Vantage canceled the pre-trip extension for which we had paid and called us to announce the cancellation. To date, they have not refunded this portion of our trip expenses and have not communicated in any way to report a plan for reimbursement. This has destroyed our confidence in the company, one we had enjoyed for many years. The trip, the guide, the hotels, the excursions, the Chilean hospitality were excellent. It is so disappointing to see Vantage resort to underhanded, deceptive financial dealings.

My husband and I had to cancel a trip which was covered by insurance through Allianz. We filed the claim in June 2022. Allianz approved it on August 25, 2022, and said the refund would come from Vantage. However, to this date, March 4, 2023, we have not received our refund. I don't understand because they charged our account immediately when the reservation was made. I can get no response to them about this claim other than a few from Customers Service saying they were behind because of COVID. They have quite responding to my inquiries. I suggest that you do not do business with a company who considers themselves deluxe but will not pay what they owe. I'm very upset. It may take me hiring an attorney to get my refund.

Unfortunately we gave our full payment to them for a Douro River cruise in May 2023. They can’t provide the service/ product to us due to their company’s vaccine policy which they did not advise us of, nor was there any mention of it in their terms and conditions agreement.

We had traveled in December 2022 down the Rhine on a Christmas Market Cruise with no vaccine requirements, as most of the cruise lines had lifted their requirements. Their vaccine requirements were only available to view under the “BEFORE YOU GO”link which was well hidden! The Link should have been labeled BEFORE YOU BOOK as a clear warning of their discriminatory policy.

This company is unscrupulous and I would never recommend them! They don’t answer their emails and the sales reps can’t tell you anything. Their advertising keeps rolling into my inbox however. They messed up our original payment and now they tell us they are withholding 40% of our full payment. I only finally got this information after calling many times over weeks.They have not answered any of my emails.

This has been such a frustrating and disappointing experience and their failure to refund our money thwarts our ability to book with a cruise company with a less discriminatory policy. Buyer beware with this unscrupulous company. They are nothing like the company they once were!

My husband and I traveled with Vantage for 15 years and were delighted. In the last year, Vantage Travel has become an unqualified nightmare. We booked a Canadian Rockies tour in early July, 2022, specifically for May 2024 due to other 2023 travel and personal commitments. In September, 2022, we received an email from the Vantage’s travel insurance partner informing us that our travel insurance for the Canadian Rockies tour had been shifted to tour dates in July of 2023!

We immediately phoned Vantage, and after 30 plus minutes on hold, we were informed that our May 2024 trip was no longer being offered so we were now booked on a July 2023 trip. We stated that we had other firm plans for that date and we could NOT take the trip in 2023. We regarded this “schedule modification” of 10 months by Vantage as their CANCELLATION of the trip we booked. and we requested a refund on that basis.

We were advised that we had a credit and could use it to book another trip in 2023 provided we did so by 12/31/22. After MANY phone calls, emails to Customer “Service,” and (unanswered) snail mail letters to the company, we were told that we had”flex credit” for the entire amount we had paid for the Canadian Rockies trip, including the amount of the trip insurance premium, that we could apply to the travel portion of a trip booked in 2022, but taken by the end of of 2024.

We booked a 2024 trip in early November and we’re told we’d get an invoice shortly, Today, SIX WEEKS LATER, we finally received an invoice with travel insurance through Vantage, although we SPECIFICALLY DECLINED travel insurance when we booked, When we called Vantage, we were told that we have travel insurance because we had it on the “original” booking (which was essentially cancelled by Vantage) so it was “automatically” applied to this new booking by edict of Vantage accounting.

When we asked to talk to someone in “accounting” we were told that wasn’t possible. We were told it was NOT possible to escalate the conversation to anyone, and, besides, the answer would be the same always — even though we’re were told entirely different when we made the new Basque region reservation (only done to save our paid deposit).

Bottom line: DO NOT TRUST ANYTHING ANYONE SAYS TO YOU AT VANTAGE. This is NOT the same company it was even a year ago. I would give Vantage Travel zero stars if possible,

We booked a cruise pre-Covid and understood when it had to be postponed. That said, rather than being rebooked on the next available cruise once travel re-opened we were rebooked, without being asked, for a 2022 departure. Then, a week before the scheduled departure date, we discovered our flight reservations had been cancelled. When we called customer support they said we should have gotten an email explaining that we had been rescheduled once again. I investigated and discovered that the ship we were supposed to be on had not even been delivered from the shipbuilder.

Vantage refuses to issue a refund and now has us scheduled for a departure in 2024. Customer service has been so poor and communication from Vantage is so deceptive that we will never use them again.

We were signed up for Easter island, Iguassu falls and the

Arctic cruise February 2022 On our way to the airport I saw a credit for $6000. Turns out Easter island was still closed from Covid. When we arrived in São Paulo airport we found our flights to Iguassu we’re cancelled.

Vantage cancelled the post trip so of course they cancel the pre trip. we tried to call the emergency phone line BUT I don’t speak Portuguese so no luck. A wonderful woman from American Airlines helped us.

Only call the emergency line during EST business hours. Problem this was the dirtiest air port ever. 1 week later my husband tested positive for Covid. We were quarantined on the ship. Eating off paper plates on a luxury cruise. The crew had Covid from the start. The ship did not get to the Faulklin islands or S Georgia because of Covid. The food was mediocre at best no sound system to your room to hear lectures.

The crew was wonderful. I tried to post a 2 star review on vantage website amazing I could never find it. ps the original cost was $54000. We are still “ negotiating “ with the insurance company.

Vantage has refused to issue me a $15,717 refund that I am due, after cancelling a cruise 13 months prior to departure. Their "Tour Participation Agreement" says "you will receive a refund...." subject to a $500 cancellation fee, for cancelling up to 121 days before departure.

I am livid. They will not allow me to speak to a supervisor, and have been very shifty and evasive in their communications since I cancelled back in early June.

It has taken over 4 months to finally be told no refund is available and I only have a voucher! I'm a retired business lawyer, I needed these funds, and this is a violation of their contract. I feel helpless and enraged.

When paying money, all is fine. When plight arrives and cancellation is necessary...PROBLEMS.

First, I became aware that the Trip Cancellation, I was charged $750, cost only $165 for Vantage. It was 'passed off' as a service of convenience, "We can handle this for you so you won't have to be bothered."

IT'S A RIP OFF.