Gate 1 TravelReviews of gate1travel.com

I had a spectacular trip to Tuscany, Italy. We were a group of 22 people. When we returned to the United States, 9 people from the travel group, including me, did not get our bags; the airlines don't know where the bags are and when we called Gate1 Travel we didn't get any collaboration either. Gate1 Travel has a commercial relationship with Lufthansa, why do they wash their hands so easily? Perhaps they do not appreciate their customers. I am very disappointed.

The POSITIVES - This is our 8th tour with Gate 1 Travel (8 Day Essential Morocco, May 21-28, 2022. Like all our previous tours with Gate 1 Travel, our expectations were met. Our Tour Manager Mohamed, the bus driver Fetah and tour assistant Aziz were all exceptional and helpful. Local tour guides at Fez and Marrakech were very knowledgeble and informative during our optonal tour activities. Hotels in Rabat, Fez, Marrakech and Casablanca were all centrally located enabling you to do further site seeing in your free time after you had arrived in your hotels. The NEGATIVES: 1) On our 2nd full day at our hotels in Barcelo Fez Medina and Novotel Marrakech respectively, housekeeping forgot to give us fresh supply of towels. We both have to call housekeeping and the desk to remind them that towels were not issued at all. 2) On our last breakfast day at Novotel Marrakech, the staff were not at all wearing mask. The worst is that one of the staff delivering baked items were not using a tong to transfer said baked items from his cart to the tray on the table but using his bare hands to do it. VERY UNSANITARY especially when this pandemic is still around us. 3) We had traveled with Gate 1 for the longest time and my wife and I had always been assigned seats together (an aisle and middle seats or window and middle seats at times) but not separately seating on middle sites on different rows. Talking to our fellow Gate 1 Travel passengers departing from JFK on the same flight (AT-201 Royal Air Maroc), a number of couples traveling together too were all separated and assigned middle seats. Why is it like this, is Royal Air Maroc trying to make money from seat change fees if the husband and wife travelers would like to be seated together. Luckily for us on departure day for JFK, we were able to seat together as the return flight (AT-200) was not fully booked at all. Thanks to the RAM agent at Casablanca who granted our request to be seated together.

Gate1- 'Fly and Drive' a real disappointment. Hotel, flight, and auto rental - Milan, Italy October 2021. Returned home to find a $444.00 auto credit card charge . Several calls to Gate1 seeking help to reverse the charge. Gate1 will not stand up for you. Calls are transferred to their 'accounting office' for review. Calls are transferred there in the hope that you'll just give up in frustration..

We used Gate 1 travel 6 times in the past and overall they were fairly good. Recently we had a somewhat unhappy experience with Gate 1. We reserved a trip to Mexico in May 2020. The airline was Aeromexico and it cancelled the flight in late April. Gate 1 cancelled the land trip at the end of March. Our initial deposit was through our VISA card which covered the airline cost and a small additional amount for the land tour. We made a mistake by paying the remaining balance by check due to the small additional discount. Aeromexico refused to reimburse us the ticket cost and only offered a voucher for future flight within 14 months. We informed Aeromexico that since they cancelled the flight they are required by law (department of transportation) to reimburse us the ticket cost. They told us that Gate 1 purchased the tickets for us so we have to get the ticket money from Gate 1. Gate 1 did something not very professional and possibly not legitimate. Gate 1 agreed to reimburse us the cost of the land trip. We thought it would pay back to our credit card company and deduct the airline cost from the initial deposit since Aeromexico wouldn't pay back the ticket cost. Instead Gate 1 fully reimbursed our entire initial deposit by credit card and then deducted the airline ticket cost from our remaining balance which we paid by check. By doing it this way we can no longer use our credit card company to settle the dispute with Gate 1. Gate 1 told us they will pay us back the ticket cost only if Aeromexico reimbursed them the ticket cost. Aeromexico then filed bankruptcy and we thought we have lost the ticket money. To our surprise Gate 1 sent us the ticket money last Tuesday and it took 18 months to get our money back. Our advice is not to pay the remaining balance by check. The saving is only 2% of the remaining balance since our credit card gives 3% discount for travel. We are confident that had we paid the entire amount by credit card then we would have got our ticket money back from Gate 1 much earlier.

Our agent booked a trip with Gate1 for September of this year, Gate 1 is postponing the trip until 2022. I requested a refund and they charged me a 25% penalty for cancelling. Totally unacceptable!

Booked a trip to China with Yangtse River Cruise. Trip was great, hotels very good, travel times good schedules, our guide pretty good and very helpful when we missed our flight home because of problem in first airport. Our guide came back to airport and got us to a hotel for the night.Note much good to say about the cruise. Crumby ship, tiny ugly rooms, food not too good.Some was good but few choices, never even one solid meat dish at dinner, all chinese mixed up stuff, one dessert such as jello or pudding-nothing good. No ice cream ever. Food at land hotel meals was pretty good. For the price we made due and maybe use them again for Israel.. Booked about 4 yrs ago.

So I used them ten times due to the pricing they provide on their land tours. You have to take the good with the bad concerning this company, unfortunately. Good is the pricing and the itinerary they have for their trips. If you like a fast pace and seeing tons of famous sights without having to plan how you get there, allowing the language barrier not to matter then use them. Their tour managers are always very knowledgeable beyond measure. That's why I use them. Where Gate 1 Travel falls short is service, it is a hit or miss on the local tour guides. Some are excellent if you've never traveled, and others are okay. You have to speak up if you don't like music constantly being played on the buses. Some of the guides tend to play while you go to one destination after the next. Single travelers, you will typically get the worst hotel rooms, sorry to say, and on many occasions. They don't help with visa's. You are on your own with that. I buy travel insurance, but buyer beware and read the fine print because it is not cancel for any reason. Make sure you can go on the trip since their cancellation policy is horrible, especially for airfare. Last leaving a country, they place you on crazy early flights where you depart from the hotel 1 AM to 4 AM to get to the airport. They do not inform you of later flights to avoid this horrible inconvenience since they look to save on bring most to the airport at the same time. In short, they pretend they care; however, if something terrible happens and the local tour manager cannot help you, you are on your own. Gate 1 travel as a company does not give a crap about you as a customer. Booking trips customer service is not that great. You can never get the same booking agent even though they tell you, you can call them for all your bookings. Airport pick-up if your flight is delayed or you arrive late at night you are on your own, and they'll give you a voucher to use on the next trip instead of giving you back your money. You have to tip all the local tour guides they have on the tour, and it can add up to a pretty sum by the time your finish. Buses you use the whole trip are typically clean thanks to some of the bus drivers and others not so much. They are good at supplying water in countries where you cannot drink it from the tap. On the coronavirus, they only supplied vouchers to use on a later trip zero refunds no matter what and they are not available by phone. They don't care what your financial situation is and even with the purchase of the best insurance, you have pages to read through just to say sorry what's happening is not covered.

Got a $500 Boucher for future travel and $238 from the airline back.