Pre-paying for a private tour in St. Petersburg?

[goforyourdreams]

We are considering booking a private 2-day St. Petersburg tour with Anastasia Travel.  They are asking to prepay the tour in full.  Is it customary? 

 

I would expect paying a deposit now to book, and paying the balance once we get there.

 

For those who used Anastasia Travel, what was your experience? 

[dogs4fun]

37 minutes ago, goforyourdreams said:

We are considering booking a private 2-day St. Petersburg tour with Anastasia Travel.  They are asking to prepay the tour in full.  Is it customary? 

 

I would expect paying a deposit now to book, and paying the balance once we get there.

 

For those who used Anastasia Travel, what was your experience? 

This is NOT customary for private tours in St. Petersburg. Most of the independent tour operators ask for a deposit only - not the entire amount. We did not book with Anastasia - we booked with Alla Tours. Alla requires only a deposit - same with the other top companies listed on TripAdvisor:  Best Guides, Tj, Spb, etc.

That said, I am sure you will be fine paying in advance - if you read the reviews for Anastasia you will find that they are uniformly good. 

Edited April 11, 2019 by dogs4fun

[GlennaRoseGoes]

I have a 2-day private tour booked with SPB for this July.....they only required a 15% deposit by May. Remainder can be paid online at anytime with credit card or in person day of.

[CruisingFox27]

We booked our tour last year with Alla, we were not required to pay prior to our trip.

[dogs4fun]

10 minutes ago, CruisingFox27 said:

We booked our tour last year with Alla, we were not required to pay prior to our trip.

Right - Alla requires no deposit on her group tours as you pay in St. Petersburg on the day of your scheduled tour. A deposit is only required on private tours (and that deposit is refundable up to 7 days before the tour).

Edited April 12, 2019 by dogs4fun

[2cruisecats]

We used TJ for a 2-day private tour last May.  When we booked, a deposit was not required.    Payment was on the last day.  Great service.  Great guide and driver. They have since started a deposit policy.

[Kate P.C]

Yes, there is no need to worry. We did the same thing not for one but for three tours when we booked with Anastasia Travel 4 years ago. It seemed odd at first, because we were expecting to just pay deposit, but everything went smooth. So, I don't think there is space for worrying.

[trosebery]

We're on a private tour in August (with a different company) and have been told that we can pay when we get there, no deposit required, but on our last trip, I chose to pay in advance just because I know my credit card sometimes throws a hissy fit with foreign transactions (as it did when I tried to prepay for our Finnish tour last week) and I didn't want to have to be trying to call the credit card company from Russia. I may ask to pay in advance for this tour too.

 

I think that as long as you're paying a well-known company and paying by credit card, you should be fine.

[trosebery]

On 4/24/2019 at 3:22 PM, cansas.piligrim said:

Just to remember - inform your bank about your trip in advance so you don't have any problems with credit cards.

 

 

It seems to make little difference these days as the credit cards have given over their fraud alert system to computer algorithms that they have little to no control over. Last time I tried to call the bank to warn them I was going to be traveling, they said, "Oh, you don't need to tell us when you're traveling anymore." Meaning that they had no way of inputting that information into the system.

[asebastian]

On 4/19/2019 at 5:02 AM, 2cruisecats said:

We used TJ for a 2-day private tour last May.  When we booked, a deposit was not required.    Payment was on the last day.  Great service.  Great guide and driver. They have since started a deposit policy.

 

Interesting. We have just booked with TJ for our upcoming tour in August this year, and no deposit was required for the 2-day tour, option to pay cash on the 2nd day or pay by CC. I guess since yours was a private tour, you needed a deposit.