Q – I received an e-mail from Travel Zoo. I have never traveled with them. There were two bargains that would enable me to take my three daughters with me:
01 – Portugal, which includes airfare, well under #1,000 per person.
02 – Tuscany, about the same as above. How do I get an answer on the legitimacy of this company and some information for me to have a comfort level? Thank you.
A – TravelZoo is a global media company that accepts paid advertising from tour operators to put their deals on its site. They claim to investigate the deals to assure they are real. Since Travelzoo is providing information on so-called deals, rather than operating the tours themselves, there is not a great deal of information about the company. They are large and they have been around for years. They appeal to bottom-feeding deal seekers who aren’t particularly interested in the financial history of the company they are working with, the safety record of the airlines used in some of the shadier package deals, or the quality of the hotels. And there are almost always additional costs.
Since a round-trip flight to Lisbon from the United States on a reputable carrier is, all by itself, more than the cost of the entire trip you are quoting, we have to assume there might be some concerns about quality. You should check out the company operating the tour packages carefully and to look at anything posted on the Better Business Bureau site. Unfortunately, there is no proper source within the travel industry that honestly rates and evaluates the quality of top-tier tour operators. Conde Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure do list the top tour companies annually. We do suggest you utilize companies on these lists.
Here’s a secret. The best way to determine the quality of a tour operator is to find out if they belong to any of the major travel agent consortium groups as a preferred supplier. If they don’t, we would advise you to walk away.
Finally, don’t try to figure this all out yourself. See if you can find a struggling travel agent with few clients who is willing to take you on.
