Sara C.

I definitely don't enjoy posting negative reviews if I can help it, but in this case I feel that I need to warn others about this business and their semi-fraudulent practices. I can't give zero stars, but I wish I could In this one instance.

I booked UTO's discounted China tour in late 2018 (for travel in 2020) with a deal alert from Travelzoo - who are a very reputable travel service, so I did not question it when booking (more on that later).

I knew the deep savings of this tour came because it is sponsored by the Chinese government and involves having to attend a few activities that show the history and economic activities of the country (visiting a jade store or an herbal medical farm, etc) with high pressure sales pitches wanting you to buy one of the items you saw demonstrated at the visit. I was okay with this after reading that this was a portion of why the trip was so inexpensive.

What I didn't know, however, was that if something happens and your trip is canceled (mine was canceled by UTO, NOT by me at all) it is not refundable even if THEY cancel it. How is that even legal? They can cancel it but you get no refund, as if you are the one who canceled?

I paid them almost $1300 ($400 was for our two Chinese visas), and when they canceled our trip due to COVID, they offered us a credit for future travel only and no refund option at all. At first I was okay with this, as I understood about COVID obviously being the cause, but I was a little disheartened by the no refund/only credit option.

Our credit was only for $900 since the $400 Chinese visas were good for 10 years, so we would be able to use those when we rebook, right? WRONG.

First off, the initial trip was only $399 per person base-price, but every trip they posted after the COVID situation was a little more under control was now thousands of dollars per person. Some were in the $10,000 plus range! So what am Is supposed to use this $900 credit for now?

The credit was good for two years, so I waited it out to see if they would post any more discounted trips like the one we originally purchased, but no luck for about a year.

Black Friday rolls round, and guess what! They posted another trip just like the one we booked and that was canceled! Phew, we can rebook and use our visas we paid them for (so don't have to pay that portion again, luckily, right?) and can finally take our trip with our credit! Woo! Again - wrong!

I try to book our trip with our credit and it shows that it's about a THOUSAND dollars more than it should be on the checkout screen? I go back to my cart and it looks like there is indeed a visa charged at $498 per person there that is making it so much more than the base price.

Oh, I just need to contact them and let them know I already bought a visa through UTO and can use that one, right? AGAIN wrong - this is almost comical at this point.

They tell me that all their Chinese tours are using "group visas" now and my visas that I paid them $400 for already are now useless and I need to pay almost $1000 more for these new visas they are using. So I am stuck with a basically useless $900 "credit" that I cannot use without spending more than double my original trip.

One more thing I'll note that's super shady is that they are still posting little badges on their tours that some of the "discounts" are for "Travelzoo members" only - but Travelzoo has not posted one of their deals in years (probably because after hearing all the complaints similar to mine, they are no longer promoting them to their members so they don't get hoodwinked!)

I am out $1300 (not a small amount of money!) and received ZERO useable services for that amount. I highly recommend you read up on all this company's ratings and all of their reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, BBB, and Google, before deciding to see a shiny discounted trip and booking it without being informed of their practices.

I hate to say something is an outright scam, but that is how I'm feeling at this point.