Gate1Travel
Reviews and Complaints
Unprofessional customer service representative
2nd Gate1 European trip and it was Fantastic and well organized
Airflight was fine. Upon arrival to Rome ,our deiver was there waiting with Gate 1 sign (easy to spot).
Immediately upon drip off at Hotel Genova. Our Tour Guide Mr. Ignazio Billera was there asisting others in our group . He gave us overview and got us checked in 1,2,3.
Day 1 Ignazio has us on our way. He was knowledgeable about so much related to the scheduled tours but also the cities historical preseperspective as well. He was easy to talk to and ask questions. Florence was out next major tour then on to Venice.
Ignazio Billera encouraged us to stay close to the group and he kept that sign visable at all times. He consistently communicated through the headsets so we knew where he was and what we were viewing.
I felt he went abive and beyond with us. I didnt see this man eat , he was always checking on us and our needs.Gate 1 BRAVO, for a excellent well organized trip and a extra BRAVO for IGNAZIO BILLERA....
I love Gate 1
- Every trip i have taken has been great
India and Nepal
Customer: Thaddee and Suzanne Gaudette. Trip Date: March 13 Kaleidoscope with Nepal 16 days The trip was very worth while and well organized even down to the days you had free time, for extra touring or just some rest.
The trip took place at good pace and our Gate 1 guide, Kapil Deval was excellent, which makes the difference between a good trip and a poor one. Kapil is personal, well educated, humorous and patient, everything needed in guide. From a trip standpoint some hotels, Eros, JP Place and Novatel were excellent. All hotels offered good breakfast and were quick to please.
Lunch and Dinner ... all Indian is hard on American diets. The Dream Garden Restaurant was excellent and we highly recommend that you keep it in the tour. Bus Drivers should be given a medal for their abilities driving in Indian traffic and on Indian roads in general.
India is no place to rent a car and do it on your own. Sights: For us the highlights of the trip included the Red Fort and Elephant Ride, Taj Mahal, Crematorium on the Ganges, Erotic temples (but they all look alike after a while). Durbar square was good but one was enough. One attraction the intrigued me was the Mega Sundial and it accuracy.
Nepal was interesting but heavy construction really delayed traffic. Would like to have had time to go to other sections of town (walk around) as part of the tour. The grand Stuppa area was very interesting. Shopping: When American travel they enjoy seeing monuments etc.
but also want time to shop as your walking thru areas. Kapil was pretty good at stopping for a few minutes if an area of interest to the woman and he would also comment that we will be seeing a larger shopping area. This comment brings me to the local guide, Vivek. He does not have Kapil's attributes.
Although educated on the subject he does not have the polish that Kapil has. He also seemed to be always rushing us along and not looking back if folks got separated. At one point in one historical square with alleys to go thru we lost a few folks and had to send one ahead to stop Vivek. He also basically refused to slow down in shopping areas for the woman to shop.
At one point several woman just stopped to buy bracelets, one lady had been looking for a specific type since she started the trip. I commented to him at that point that woman need time to shop for souvenir's so slow down. I know Kapil spoke with him at that point. We think Vivek was trying to be a good guide trying to get in more sites.
I hate complaining about Vivek but he is young and he needs to understand what tourist look for in a trip and that's shopping for unique stuff or just T shirts. We feel he has the making of a good guide but needs a mentor like Kapil. One other disappoint was the Everest Trip, Vivek got tickets and then said "I am just going to do a lottery" and had everyone pick one ... well that does not work.
Couples need to have tickets for each side. He said, just ask the person across from you to allow you to take a picture. If you're a husband an wife across from each other that works but if the person across is a non English speaking person it doesn't and I am sure when he bought tickets he could have got rights and lefts and then hand them out that way. Out tickets were on the same side.
That was a $560 side trip that in my opinion wasn't worth it. Upon leaving New Delhi a young man picked us up at the Novatel, got us pass all terminal entry checkpoints and delivered us to our airline check in. I wish I had saved his name but; I am sure you can get it from Kapil. He was excellent!
Getting out of India is harder than getting in. All in all we enjoyed the vacation and plan to do more with Gate 1.
Good product for the money. Respectfully, Ted and Sue Gaudette
Signature series not yet to par
- Hotels tour guides excursions
- Useless customer service
Preferred solution: Apologize and learn from mistake
Italy in 8 days
My daughter and I took a trip to Italy using Gate1 for our travel agent. Our trip took us from Rome, to Florence, to Venice.
Overall it was an excellent experience. All of the travel vouchers were accepted with no problems. Our shuttles to and from our hotels and airports arrived on time. Gate1 help desk people were easy to access when we had questions before we left the United States.
8 days in Italy for less than $1300 a person, including airfare from Minnesota, was an unbelievable bargain. The one thing that Gate1 could have done better was to reserve us a better hotel in Rome. The hotel was the Donatello. Guest services were very friendly and nice but the hotel was terrible.
It was in what I thought was a sketchy part of town, the 'continental' breakfast consisted of old, dry croissants and biscuits with jam and coffee and that was it. The noise level at the hotel was awful. The front door was locked 24/7 and guests had to use a buzzer to get in. We could hear the grating noise of the buzzer from our room every time it went off as people wanted back in.
We could hear water gurgling in the pipes. People were constantly traipsing past our room on old noisy wooden stores all hours of the night and into early morning. People were laughing and yelling and talking loud. We could hear kids screaming at the top of their lungs.
I got almost no sleep the two nights we were there. It was exhausting. In fairness, another couple who we met and were staying at the Donatello, were on the third floor and said that they did not experience the noise problem. So it could have been the location of our room that was the problem.
Our second hotel (Miridiana in Florence) and third hotel (Olimpia in Venice) were much better. Especially our last hotel, which was very nice with a lovely breakfast and excellent service all around. One thing that did trouble me was that we tried to call Gate1 when we first arrived in Rome because our shuttle driver was not there to greet us. My daughter called the 800 number and the local number but no one ever answered the phone.
That was worrisome but it could have been a problem with using our cell phone so I'm not sure where the difficulty was in getting through to Gate1 at that point. (Our shuttle driver arrived shortly after we tried to make the call as it turned out that our flight arrived a little early). So, overall, it was a great trip at a very low price. I would use Gate1 again in the future.
Some glitches in overseas travel are just part of the experience - especially if you are traveling on the cheap.
Perhaps the one thing I would do is try to upgrade all hotels. Just to avoid the hotel experience we had in Rome.
- Our first hotel
Gate1travel - 10 Day Greek Islander Tour Review
Iceland Northern Lights Tour 5Dec - 10 Dec 2016
- Tour destination
- Read my review
17 day tour of Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Budapest with Danube cruise
- Optional excursions were very good
- Hotels were fabulous
- Tour guides were fantastic
- Additional tipping amounts
Italy in April
Scandinavia
Greece trip and the CRoatia trip were great
Travelers beware, would not recommend Gate 1 Travel
- Local guides were great
- Problem resolution
- Customer service
- 14 hour flight layover
Review of the June 2016 China and Tibet Discovery Tour by Gate 1
Gate 1 Tours did an excellent job of organizing the Discovery Tour to China and Tibet in June 2016. I gladly recommend Gate 1 Tours as one of the best out of the half a dozen tour companies and cruise lines I have dealt with in visiting more than 35 countries in the world.
There are however a few points I like to lay down that would enhance the value of the itinerary and the tour.
1. Guides. The different local tour guides lacked training in different specialties of guiding. Though they all were very courteous, some lacked knowledge of the locality, some were not adequately conversant in English, some did not use the Whispers Communicator prompting participants to elbow their way to her proximity to hear the commentary. The Tour Manager did an excellent job, when called upon, surpassing all the deficiencies of the local guides. However, his statement that he had been trained “not to say that he did not know the answer to any question”, left an uneasy feeling whether all his answers were accurate.
2. Meals. All the breakfasts and most of the lunches and dinners were generously provided by Gate 1. According to the Tour Manager the Gate 1 Beijing Management had laid out a monotonous menu for all the meals supplied not only by the restaurants, but also by the two homes the Tour Group visited. Typically, the Lazy Susan would sequentially carry dishes of; Soup, Peanut Chicken, Beef with Potato, unshelled Shrimp, twice cooked Pork, Bok Choi, Egg Plant, Beans, Broccoli, Rice and of course different kinds of noodles. By the time the dishes reached the last clockwise diner, there was hardly any protein left. Larger quantities of proteins, lesser number or dishes and a variety of different dishes at the different venues would have been much more satisfying. The Tour Group was told that Chengdu was the Capital of the Sichuan Province and eagerly waited for highly spiced dishes. The meals the Tour Group received had been watered down to satisfy the so called Western Palate.
3. Itinerary.
a. It was rather disappointing that there wasn’t at least an option to pay $7.50 and take the Maglev Train to enjoy the lifetime experience of travelling at 270 mph by the fastest train on the planet.
b. What gainful experience did the Tour Group receive from the diversion along the Goddess Tributary?
c. The Tour Group received $10 worth of cultural entertainment in Lhasa for the $65 each paid. Immediately dispatch a Cultural Theater Director to Lhasa for six months or instruct the local guide to interpret the movements through Whispers.
d. Cameras failed to focus on the second tallest building in the world from half a mile away, due to thick fog. No attempt was made to lay out the policy of the Peoples Republic of China on this dilemma. Perhaps in a few more years the PRC would achieve economic supremacy in the world and would then strictly enforce environmental regulations. The American Republic took 194 years 4 months and 28 days to achieve economic supremacy in the world and then promulgated the EPA. It took many more years for USA to arm the EPA with the necessary regulations of CAA, CWA, CERCLA, RCRA & TSCA and attempt to purify the environment.
e. What did the Tour Group gain by attending a lecture in a hotel near the Jin Ang Hotel in Shanghai? The narrator summarized his life story and concluded the lecture by stating that Mao Zedong did ‘70% bad’ and ‘30%’ good during the cultural revolution. Was this an accepted policy of the People’s Republic of China?
f. The English Professor from the University of Tibet failed to distinguish the difference between the Tibetan Buddhism and the South East Asian Buddhism, the concepts of which have taken root the West.
g. The Tour Group members planted Pine Tree seedlings that would grow up to say 50 feet, at five foot intervals. This exercise was carried out amidst low growing trees similar to weeping willow. How was this deemed environmentally and economically desirable?
h. Visits to two homes of common citizens in two big cities was superfluous. A single visit to a city home and one to a rural farm home would have been much more desirable.
4. Emergencies. The flight from Xansia, the five gate airport to the Shanghai International airport was cancelled just before the boarding time, late in the evening. The Tour Manager immediately contacted the Gate 1 Office in Beijing 850 miles away. A tour bus was rented out from the nearby 750,000 population city of Yichang and the Tour Group was transported comfortably to Wuhan the Provincial Capital of Hubei Province. Gate 1 also supplied a complementary dinner of Chicken Burghers. The Tour Group was relived to enjoy a typical American Meal after days of monotonous Chinese Meals. The accommodation in Wuhan was in a plush modern hotel with suites larger than 500 ft2. Wuhan had several daily flights to Shanghai and the Tour Group took one early next morning. Would any other travel agency have had that familiarity with the 750,000 population city of Yichang and the expertise and connectivity to reserve rooms in Wuhan and flights from Wuhan to Shanghai within a few minutes?
With best wished to Gate 1 Tours and Jason Liu the Tour Director.
Suranjith [Suran] Peiris
10403 Church Road
Dallas, TX 75238
Home: 214 245 ****
Mobile: 972 974 ****
- Everythibg
Single supplement increases
I have taken 9 trips with Gate1 Travel, & I have enjoyed them all very much. All but two of these trips I have taken alone, and paid the single supplement charges with no complaint.
However, when I booked my two upcoming trips for the fall & found the supplement cost is now about $1,000, I instantly became unhappy. That is simply an untenable amount, with no justification whatsoever. My trip to Equador in September is one of those trips...a place where hotels are not all that expensive. I feel that Gate 1 is exploiting the single traveler with these fees.
If they had stayed in the ballpark of where they have been over the past two years, I would have had no complaint. Part II of my issues is that you supposedly get $100 for referring someone to Gate 1, but the catch is that you can't use it on any of the "deals", which is of course what most people book when they receive the emails. I think you should be able to redeem the $100 on any trip. I have spent a lot of money over the past two years, & have been a big promoter of the company to friends & acquaintances along the way, many of whom have also traveled with Gate 1 due to my rave reviews.
These, too, will have to stop based on the "trick" reward which is virtually impossible to redeem. Sonja
- Every trip has thus far been exceptional
- Recent hikes in single supplement charges
- Difficulty in redeeming awards for referrals
Preferred solution: Let the company propose a solution
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Hello,We sincerely apologize for any lapse in service when contacting us with your questions. Please know that we have reviewed and shared the concerns you have outlined with our management team. Please dont hesitate to call us and request to speak with a supervisor as we do want to be able to assist you.
When in doubt and not getting an answer you want than ask for a supervisor. But they are human too.
The CSR (customer service representative) will go the extra mile for the customer that isn't passive aggressive towards them and is patient and calm with them. Even if they aren't the best with us then we can try to change the course of attitude.
If that doesn't work.... "Supervisor name and number and I will wait for him/her please".
Even though the rep was rude, your question makes no sense. Why would you book land and air if you're NOT going to use the air?
You always have the option to just book land and do what you want with your own air bookings. Weird.
I too spoke to Edward unfortunately 2 times. He does not represent Gate1 in my opinion.
He is very rude and answers questions very abruptly. If I ever got him again I would simply hang up. But I have had other good experiences. The reason why he spoke this way to you is they do get commissions.
Edward doesn't deserve my time at all.
What I do is when I like the agent I get their extensions and call them directly even if I have to leave a message. I do also think that most of these agents work from their homes (?).
Kind of confused about your request, so I may be providing wrong info. Why don't you just purchase the land portion only?
Then purchase outside of Gate 1 the flights you need, if any. If there is an intra flight on the tour, it comes with the land portion.
Of course by doing this you risk your outside purchased flights if they cancel the tour. I normally purchase land/air together through Gate 1, for this reason, but once used miles for the air purchase and took the chance.