Costco TravelReviews of costcotravel.com

I will never use Costco travel again. We had a flight delay that caused us to miss a tour and two nights at one of our hotels. Although I had even purchased the very expensive Zurich travel insurance, the amount I was refunded was ridiculously low. They will not tell you the value of the rooms for travel insurance claims. It was not worth the extra expense. I paid close to 30K for a 10 day trip for 3 people. Two stars because the hotels in Italy were very nice.

To be fair, I did not read all of the fine print. So, that is definitely on me. But when you get a vacation package that includes flights, hotel and car rental - intuitively, I assumed/expected this would also include parking at the hotel. $350 later - it did not. The travel package also did not include any checked bags, which I did notice. But I did not think they would be $60 per bag per person per direction. Essentially, assume an extra $500-$600 more, on top of the sticker price of your Costco Travel Vacation, and compare your options. Also, don't expect any empathy, logic or answers to your direct questions from "customer service". They share the Costco name, but do NOT share the Costco customer service. They really earn their 1.9 star review. 15+ years of being a Costco Exec member, earning annual rebates... That is about to change. Costco Travel customer service was so infuriating that it has really soured my thoughts/feelings toward Costco as a whole. :(

On January 27, 2025, I booked two rooms for a cruise from Barcelona to Rome. The booking was made via phone, and a $900 deposit for each room was paid using a credit card. I used my credit card to book my room, and I gave the associate the details for my brother’s card. I received two separate emails from Costco confirming the booking and a lot of other information. After the cruise booking was made, we made an airline booking from Los Angeles to Barcelona and returned home from Rome two days later. Today, when I was looking at my credit card activity, I noticed that the $900 was charged and the next day it was reversed. I was shocked. Good thing that I noticed this early enough otherwise I would have lost lots of money and no travel. Thus, I called Costco Travels today and spoke with Veronica for more than 90 minutes. At first, she was saying my conversation may not have been cleared at the first booking and that is why the booking was canceled. I told her that I did get the email from Costco confirming the booking. Veronica then reached out to Celebrities to reinstate the booking. She was successful in doing it. Now comes the payment part. Just like the previous time I first paid for my room with my credit card. However, Veronica will not accept my brother’s payment. She said he had to be with me to use his card. I told Veronica that was not the case the first time. She had no good answer. Since I was not able to make the payment for the second room right away, later on ended up paying with my card so that we do not run out of the 24-hour payment deadline. I asked Veronica if Costco had any check and balance system for their customers. We could have been stranded in Barcelona, who knows? I am just reporting what I experienced. This was my first time booking through Costco Travel and will be the last time, too.

Hotels are not vetted at all through Costco. Used them twice and both times there were big problems with the hotel, rental car etc. It became obvious that there is no review of the quality of the hotel and the actual hotel will treat you poorly as they have a thing about customers that book through 3rd parties. Learned the hard way to just book right through the hotel. Gave them two stars as the pricing is competitive and they did try to sort out the issues upon our return. Note that they usually are not able to help right way if you are experiencing issues while on your trip.

DISAPOINTING FROM COSTCO TRAVEL -CRUISE This is our 3rd cruise with the other two shortly before the pandemic on Cunard and Holland American. The simplest summary is that: Had this been our first cruise we would NEVER have gone on another one. This was a San Francisco (our home) to and from Hawaii 16 day cruise. While the crew was very nice, as were the passengers, as well as hard working the choices and/or competence of the management which controls Princess owned by Carnival (which also owns Cunard and Holland American) is either very poor or so avaricious that it was a sadly disappointing experience. The music is poorly done and even in one case two musicians syncing to a background recording. Unlike our two previous cruises, there was no sauna though the gym equipment was OK. The gym based occasional events were oriented towards selling trusting passengers what I call “magic cures” – e.g., these arch support “trainers” will cure everything from flat feet to back pain and spinal misalignment. And the food — ugh–– food has great descriptions, but the taste reality is only marginally even edible –– with the interesting exception that the fresh fruit and the salad greens were excellent (i.e. things which they serve but do NOT cook or prepare). Several elevators which usually had very busy ATTEMPTED usage remained out of order with the controls not working consistently or just the elevator not working at all. The daily events descriptions leave some out. Cabin breakfast delivery is sometimes unreliable. The internet app (for which you pay a substantial additional charge) is half-functional. As a management professor and former food critic for a community newspaper for many years, I can tell you that if this were our first cruise we would never have gone on another😢 Frankly I was very disappointed with Costco which we have for years depended upon not only for good prices but for reliable products. This does not seem to extend reliably to Costco’s choice of commercial partners.

Hello! I traveled with Costco several times and this experience is about it for me. I had a package to Hawaii confirmed and mostly paid for. The trip is 6 months out. I asked customer serv about changing the shared rides to private pickups. The agent looked it over and quoted an additional $280. Then when confirming and finalizing, she states its $500+ now. I cancel the inquiry with her. 35mins later, she tells me my package went up another $22. Nothing right? My package was already secured. There should not be a price difference. She told me during that 35mins, the price of transfers went up. I waited a day after complaining. The price did not change back to my original finalized price. I cancelled the whole trip and lost $125 for the intra-island flight now. Unfathomable to think that $22 is going to make a difference for Costco; yet, now it cost them my trip.

Costco has good packages and prices, and a previous trip went very nicely. However, we are now on a long planned, "treat ourselves" trip to Mexico and the airlines have been a mess. While we understand Costco can't be responsible for airline delays, it is beyond disappointing that the Costco we have loved for decades tells us essentially, "sorry too bad" at every step. The airline eventually re-booked us, missing a day of our 4 day vacation. Via Costco, the hotel said, "sorry too bad" and Costco directly said, "too bad." I don't know what happened; Costco seems to have lost the customer care. We are semi-stranded right now as our re-booked connection itself is heavily delayed. Wish us luck. And don't book an itinerary with Costco that has travel risk. They won't help you and they don't care.

We are on day four of a 13 day vacation celebrating our anniversary in Greece. Our first 3 nights were spent in Athens at what I would consider a below average hotel in a seedy section of Athens. I write this as for the most part we are very pleased with Costco in general. The fact that they would become partners with a hotel in a less than desirable location is mind baffling. Surrounded by strip clubs and brothels was not on my agenda. The Athens Avenue Hotel was a two star hotel at best. Recently renovated the rooms are small, the housekeeping staff was atrocious, the shower was very small so much so that it wasn’t much larger than a cruise ship offers. You could barely bend over or turn around without bumping into the valve which would cause a drastic change in water temperature. No face cloths, one bath towel for two guest, no top sheet only a comforter to name a few. Lastly, the toilet when flushed ran constantly to the point we complained to the front desk which did no good. Lack of sleep, comfort and peace of mind makes this experience far from pleasant. Let’s hope we have better luck in Santorini.