SouthAmerica.travel IncReviews of southamerica.travel

Very effective work. Glad to deal with.

Everything went off very smoothly in firming up the itinerary and booking it up. Martin Kaleta, who was the coordinator was patient, very focused and very very helpful in making it a happening thing. Credit goes to him in whichever way we look at it. Trust the vacation becomes worth the effort from both sides. Thank you.

The customer service for booking our 2019 South American holiday has been first class so far. We hope this continues when we actually hit the ground in March next year. If so, we would be happy to reconsider to a 5 star rating.

I am a first time user of SouthAmerica.travel and asked them to plan an itierary I designed for four countries including Machu Picchu, the Galapagos Islands, hiking and city touring. Martin Kaleta, my SA travel coordinator, also made suggestions for other popular acitivites including hiking the Cocora Valley and visiting a coffee plantation. Having just returned, I give the company the highest rating The guides and drivers were top notch, the air, train, and bus arrangements had no glitches and I was pleased to meet other world travelers who had similar experiences working with SouthAmerica.travel. Martin was a great communicator, extremely patient, and was always accessible as we worked through itinerary changes beforehand.

Excellent organisation and planning advice. Tailored made trip to suit our requirements, including flights and we benefited from the expertise of our travel adviser. Nothing was too much trouble to arrange, even though we are based in the UK. 9/10 hotels excellent and 9/10 transfers easily undertaken. Guides knowledgeable and adaptable. Would definitely recommend this travel company.

Top service, prompt and clear!!

I would give this company 5 stars, but for between the finalized travel itinerary of May, 2017 and our trip start in March, 2018...three of the four hotels were changed by SouthAmerica.travel, and all of our specifically selected airline seats to and from South America, on tickets arranged by SouthAmerica.travel's booking agent, were changed without us being notified. We only found out by looking at the airline site. The hotel changes necessitated new research by us regarding local restaurants, menus, etc. that were very important to us, and resulted in additional on-going stress. The reasons given were "upgrades due to the seat snafu", "safer areas", or what we might like better. On the other hand, when our flight to South America was canceled by the airline due to a blizzard, the SouthAmerica.travel emergency staff REALLY kicked in during the night, and managed to get us rebooked so that we only lost 2 days of our vacation, and were able to catch up with the itinerary. Our agent spent a GREAT deal of time with me on the trip details, answering questions, even making dinner reservations at a chosen restaurant, and ensuring the restaurant would be serving dinner at 5:30pm and giving us "free" transfers to the restaurant because he had changed the original local-to- the-restaurant hotel to one in a different neighborhood. His response to questions was always within a reasonable time frame. The final "travel voucher" which governed the trip was clear and concise. The voucher generation program however does not interface "real time" with the actual flight schedule changes that may occurr between booking and travel date. We recommend independently reviewing flight/schedules, using the airline locator codes supplied when the trip is booked. The ground ops is supposed to keep aware of flight schedule changes, and inform travelers of changes to any pickup times. SouthAmerica.travel contracts with various agencies in the three countries included on our itinerary who act as "ground operations"; transfers, tour guides; etc. This process worked pretty seamlessly through the various countries, airports, transfers, tours; with the exception of the respective ground crew not seeming to be aware of the flight schedule change between Santiago, Chile and Mendoza, Argentina, and a ferry crossing ticket to Uruguay which the respective ground crew thought we had purchased, but that SouthAmerica.travel had purchased for us and that turned out was available at the terminal; linked to our passport number. The situation was resolved quickly by the ground ops on the way to the ferry terminal. Most importantly, we felt that SouthAmerica.travel and the various ground operations "had our backs" and as older travelers, we felt safe and secure with all the emergency numbers provided on this "daunting" trip-which we never had to use. The ground crews, guides, drivers all were friendly and kind. Finally, our agent quickly facilitated the documentation we needed to complete the travel insurance claim process for the portion of our trip canceled by the blizzard. We would recommend SouthAmerica.travel.

Everythign was great! Well planned. Well executed. The only thing that was bad was the tour guide for the jeep tour company to the Corcovado hill to see Christ the Redeemer in Rio. She was an awful tour guide. The worst I have ever seen for the group jeep tour and she should be let go. The other issue is cost. For a 9 day trip with my own airfare the trip cost me about $5.5K which I think is a bit much. But overall it was a great experience