Viator Excursion Warning

[frantic36]

2 hours ago, WheresWalter said:

 

We never use an aggregator for third party excursions, we only book directly through vendors we have researched. 

Always best to use direct. 

 

I think the problem is using Viator you don't always get all the information up front. I remember in Barcelona we had booked a tour too Montserrat with a local company. Met at the meeting point and we had to wait awhile for a family who was also booked. We were just about to leave when they turned up in a rush and very stressed. 

 

It turned out they had booked though Viator who had given them an incorrect meeting place and they didn't have the contact details for the tour guide. The family had to contact Viator who then had to contact the company and call back the family to give them the correct information. 

 

Our tour guide was also trying to contact Viator to find out where the family were. That confirmed why I don't use third party to book tours. Too many extra steps and it gets too confusing.

[CynCyn]

10 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

Especially important when booking a hotel .  Yes, the third party will get you a room, but twice, once in Rome and once in Paris we got shuttled from the booked hotel to an alternate because the booked hotel had been “overbooked”.  In the case of Rome, it got us a better hotel - but in each case it cost us many hours of our first day in a desired city

That happened to me in New Orleans.  It made for LONG walks.  Thank goodness for PayPal!

[slidergirl]

1 hour ago, CynCyn said:

That happened to me in New Orleans.  It made for LONG walks.  Thank goodness for PayPal!

As someone who worked the Front desk at several resort hotels, let me tell you - 3rd party bookings are the worst!!!  As a supervisor and manager, I had access to our portals for Booking, Expedia, Hotels...Some of them are on the same portal even though you book separately.  Anyway, every week there was at least one guest who had a 'booking' that didn't come through, wrong room, wrong dates.  Sometimes I could find things on the portal and fix it for them.  Sometimes, if we were full, I couldn't do a single thing for them other than give the names of other hotels that may have vacancies.  

If you ever book with a 3rd party, call or email the hotel directly the next day to verify your reservation.  The discount you get with the 3rd party may be up to 10% - you can call he reservations dept of the hotel and ask them to price match.  And never do same-day booking; the portals run several hours behind real time so a place can be sold out even though the 3rd party "booked' for you.  Those are not fun to deal with when guest shows up at 10;55pm because they were out drinking and didn't want to drive home...

[ontheweb]

8 hours ago, slidergirl said:

As someone who worked the Front desk at several resort hotels, let me tell you - 3rd party bookings are the worst!!!  As a supervisor and manager, I had access to our portals for Booking, Expedia, Hotels...Some of them are on the same portal even though you book separately.  Anyway, every week there was at least one guest who had a 'booking' that didn't come through, wrong room, wrong dates.  Sometimes I could find things on the portal and fix it for them.  Sometimes, if we were full, I couldn't do a single thing for them other than give the names of other hotels that may have vacancies.  

If you ever book with a 3rd party, call or email the hotel directly the next day to verify your reservation.  The discount you get with the 3rd party may be up to 10% - you can call he reservations dept of the hotel and ask them to price match.  And never do same-day booking; the portals run several hours behind real time so a place can be sold out even though the 3rd party "booked' for you.  Those are not fun to deal with when guest shows up at 10;55pm because they were out drinking and didn't want to drive home...

Thank you for sharing first hand knowledge that I know I did not know, and I am sure many others also did not know.

[CynCyn]

22 hours ago, slidergirl said:

As someone who worked the Front desk at several resort hotels, let me tell you - 3rd party bookings are the worst!!!  As a supervisor and manager, I had access to our portals for Booking, Expedia, Hotels...Some of them are on the same portal even though you book separately.  Anyway, every week there was at least one guest who had a 'booking' that didn't come through, wrong room, wrong dates.  Sometimes I could find things on the portal and fix it for them.  Sometimes, if we were full, I couldn't do a single thing for them other than give the names of other hotels that may have vacancies.  

If you ever book with a 3rd party, call or email the hotel directly the next day to verify your reservation.  The discount you get with the 3rd party may be up to 10% - you can call he reservations dept of the hotel and ask them to price match.  And never do same-day booking; the portals run several hours behind real time so a place can be sold out even though the 3rd party "booked' for you.  Those are not fun to deal with when guest shows up at 10;55pm because they were out drinking and didn't want to drive home...

Yes, thank you so much for sharing!
 

on this one, I called and told them I’d be late.  They said it was air conditioning but I think they were playing loose.  When I complained to the 3rd party, the hotel wanted me to PROVE they had done this.  Thank goodness for PayPal.  #neveragain

[donaldsc]

On 5/16/2022 at 6:23 PM, slidergirl said:

As someone who worked the Front desk at several resort hotels, let me tell you - 3rd party bookings are the worst!!!  As a supervisor and manager, I had access to our portals for Booking, Expedia, Hotels...Some of them are on the same portal even though you book separately.  Anyway, every week there was at least one guest who had a 'booking' that didn't come through, wrong room, wrong dates.  Sometimes I could find things on the portal and fix it for them.  Sometimes, if we were full, I couldn't do a single thing for them other than give the names of other hotels that may have vacancies.  

If you ever book with a 3rd party, call or email the hotel directly the next day to verify your reservation.  The discount you get with the 3rd party may be up to 10% - you can call he reservations dept of the hotel and ask them to price match.  And never do same-day booking; the portals run several hours behind real time so a place can be sold out even though the 3rd party "booked' for you.  Those are not fun to deal with when guest shows up at 10;55pm because they were out drinking and didn't want to drive home...

 

One of the problems w 3d party hotel booking sites is that the sites have rigged their Google listing so that their site comes up before the real hotel site and the 3d party site looks very much like the hotel site.  It is very easy to make a mistake and book on one of the 3d party sites.  I did it once and have almost done it several times.  They are tricky SOBs.

 

DON

[navybankerteacher]

45 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

 

One of the problems w 3d party hotel booking sites is that the sites have rigged their Google listing so that their site comes up before the real hotel site and the 3d party site looks very much like the hotel site.  It is very easy to make a mistake and book on one of the 3d party sites.  I did it once and have almost done it several times.  They are tricky SOBs.

 

DON

Good point - sometimes you have to really work to get to the hotel's actual site,

[ldubs]

3 hours ago, donaldsc said:

 

One of the problems w 3d party hotel booking sites is that the sites have rigged their Google listing so that their site comes up before the real hotel site and the 3d party site looks very much like the hotel site.  It is very easy to make a mistake and book on one of the 3d party sites.  I did it once and have almost done it several times.  They are tricky SOBs.

 

DON

 

I know what you mean and it does take some attention to drill down to the Hotel's site.   Mrs Ldubs uses a middleman site to book lodging.  But she always checks the hotel's site to make sure the pricing is favorable.  

 

I liked your earlier suggestion to find the individual tour operator for the tours offered by the intermediaries.  While I can find the hotel sites, I'm not having the same success finding individual tour operators. 

[donaldsc]

1 hour ago, ldubs said:

 

I know what you mean and it does take some attention to drill down to the Hotel's site.   Mrs Ldubs uses a middleman site to book lodging.  But she always checks the hotel's site to make sure the pricing is favorable.  

 

I liked your earlier suggestion to find the individual tour operator for the tours offered by the intermediaries.  While I can find the hotel sites, I'm not having the same success finding individual tour operators. 

 

The problem with 3d party hotel bookings is that it can be hard to get refunds.  Once we had booked several nights at a hotel which was not in the location that we expected it to be.  When we tried to leave early, the hotel would not refund our prepayment for the unused nights because it was a 3d party booking.  With regard to finding individual tour operators, I agree that it can sometimes be difficult but it is usually possible w a bit of work.  Not always however.

 

DON

[Charles4515]

12 hours ago, ldubs said:

 

I know what you mean and it does take some attention to drill down to the Hotel's site.   Mrs Ldubs uses a middleman site to book lodging.  But she always checks the hotel's site to make sure the pricing is favorable.  

I found that usually the third party site is not more avorable than the online site when I drill in but if it looks that way I call the hotel if it has a US number. And often there are rates better than the 3rd party or their own online rates. 

[navybankerteacher]

1 hour ago, Charles4515 said:

I found that usually the third party site is not more avorable than the online site when I drill in but if it looks that way I call the hotel if it has a US number. And often there are rates better than the 3rd party or their own online rates. 

Logically, that third party site should not be more favorable - the hotel wants to get the maximum return for “selling” that room - and the third party is only in business to make money - so the revenue the third party gets must come from the pigeon making the booking.

[slidergirl]

23 minutes ago, navybankerteacher said:

Logically, that third party site should not be more favorable - the hotel wants to get the maximum return for “selling” that room - and the third party is only in business to make money - so the revenue the third party gets must come from the pigeon making the booking.

3rd party sites get a bulk rate from the hotel - a finite number of rooms.  So, the 3rd party can offer the room at more than what they are paying, but less than the hotel's rate.  That's where the 'discount' comes in.  If someone called us directly, any of the supervisors and managers were able to match up to a 10% discount.   Refunds - a royal PIA.  Guests just didn't understand that we couldn't do the refund but they had to go through their 3rd party.  Some of 3rd parties don't give us the guest's CC for payment, but a one-time use MasterCard or Visa number, so no way to do it.  

I do not miss dealing with 3rd parties one bit!!!

[cruisemom42]

On 5/18/2022 at 10:31 PM, ldubs said:

I liked your earlier suggestion to find the individual tour operator for the tours offered by the intermediaries.  While I can find the hotel sites, I'm not having the same success finding individual tour operators. 

 

One tip I've used:  try copying some of the text from the description of the tour and pasting it into your search engine of choice. Often Viator takes the original agency's description and uses it verbatim in their listing. So if the text is plagiarized, you can also find the original version.

 

I have to say that for at least the last 10 years I've probably posted 5-10 times per year on these boards to avoid Viator, for three reasons:  1) I generally have not found their tours to be that good, 2) it's more likely there will be miscommunication with a third party involved, and 3) I personally feel better knowing all the $$ are going to the local vendors. 

 

So why do people keep booking with Viator?  Because they make it so easy to do so.

 

[LadyBeBop]

On 5/18/2022 at 6:53 PM, donaldsc said:

 

One of the problems w 3d party hotel booking sites is that the sites have rigged their Google listing so that their site comes up before the real hotel site and the 3d party site looks very much like the hotel site.  It is very easy to make a mistake and book on one of the 3d party sites.  I did it once and have almost done it several times.  They are tricky SOBs.

 

DON

Happened to me. I booked a week stay at a Holiday Inn. I thought it was the actual IHG site, but it turned out to be a third party. Then Covid happened and I had to cancel several weeks ahead of time. Lost a so-called nom-refundable booking fee. Even though I booked a refundable room. 

[ldubs]

12 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

One tip I've used:  try copying some of the text from the description of the tour and pasting it into your search engine of choice. Often Viator takes the original agency's description and uses it verbatim in their listing. So if the text is plagiarized, you can also find the original version.

 

I have to say that for at least the last 10 years I've probably posted 5-10 times per year on these boards to avoid Viator, for three reasons:  1) I generally have not found their tours to be that good, 2) it's more likely there will be miscommunication with a third party involved, and 3) I personally feel better knowing all the $$ are going to the local vendors. 

 

So why do people keep booking with Viator?  Because they make it so easy to do so.

 

 

Good stuff Mom42.  Thanks for the tip!  

[navybankerteacher]

On 5/19/2022 at 12:57 PM, slidergirl said:

3rd party sites get a bulk rate from the hotel - a finite number of rooms.  So, the 3rd party can offer the room at more than what they are paying, but less than the hotel's rate.  That's where the 'discount' comes in.  If someone called us directly, any of the supervisors and managers were able to match up to a 10% discount.   Refunds - a royal PIA.  Guests just didn't understand that we couldn't do the refund but they had to go through their 3rd party.  Some of 3rd parties don't give us the guest's CC for payment, but a one-time use MasterCard or Visa number, so no way to do it.  

I do not miss dealing with 3rd parties one bit!!!

But the fact remains - if a hotel gets sufficient direct bookings at their regular rate, they may refuse to recognize some of the discount bookings made by third party sites.  I am not a “hospitality industry” insider but I have personally experienced and heard of a sufficient number of cases where third party bookings were not honored to realize that chasing that discount may not always work out for the “guest”.

[ilikeanswers]

On 5/17/2022 at 5:08 AM, rkacruiser said:

My traveling companion booked two tours for us in Amsterdam through Viator.  The first tour was a dinner Canal Cruise; the second was a Canal cruise during the day.  Both tours were excellent with no issues.  Maybe we were lucky?  

 

I guess I must be lucky too😂. Mind you I have only booked three experiences with Viator. It is not my go to aggregate site though so far no bad experiences on any sites🤞. 

 

While I do like to try and book direct sometimes I do find aggregation sites more convenient in certain circumstances like road tripping where I find it easier having all the accommodations on one website and in Japan we had a unique experience where places didn't have English language websites and I found the aggregation site translations much better than Google Translate so I preferred to book via them.

 

There is one particular tour guide site where you find guides you would not be able to access otherwise. They don't have their own websites or direct booking facilities. I once asked one of these guides why they don't have their own websites and she said the costs associated with having a website along with payment platform fees, advertising and search engine fees were more expensive than the cut the aggregate site took. 

Edited May 23, 2022 by ilikeanswers

[hallux]

When I did my Mexican Riviera cruise in 2019 we booked a tour in Cabo through a different 'aggregator' site (I think they were anyway).  A portion of the fee was due at the time of booking, the remainder was due to the guide at the time of the tour.  I also inquired about a different tour (maybe on the same site, maybe a different one) that looked good but the times didn't match with the ship times and they were aware of that and told me they could not accommodate us on the tour as a result.

[cruisemom42]

7 hours ago, ilikeanswers said:

in Japan we had a unique experience where places didn't have English language websites and I found the aggregation site translations much better than Google Translate so I preferred to book via them.

 

I had a similar experience in Japan and did end up booking 2 Viator tours there over the course of two weeks when I couldn't find an alternative and couldn't effectively do it on my own. The Viator tours there were both well run and I had no complaints. But I think that may have more to do with the Japanese ethos than with Viator in particular....

[slidergirl]

14 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

But the fact remains - if a hotel gets sufficient direct bookings at their regular rate, they may refuse to recognize some of the discount bookings made by third party sites.  I am not a “hospitality industry” insider but I have personally experienced and heard of a sufficient number of cases where third party bookings were not honored to realize that chasing that discount may not always work out for the “guest”.

my anecdotal experiences working at 3 high-end hotels did not have this experience.  My experiences were bookings weren't honored because they were booked wrong (wrong date, wrong bed type), the entry in the booking portal lagged behind actual availability (big with last-second things).  We'd do our best to try to fix these, but it's not always possible.