photo: pixabay
Today, I was glancing through my weekly This Week’s Top 20 email from Travelzoo, and this heading caught my attention:
Free – Explore China & Thailand. Yes, We Said Free
According to Travelzoo, the company UTOvacation is offering free 13-night trips to China and Thailand – including hotel stays, ground transfers and tours (but not airfare or meals – those are available for additional fees). Travelzoo, goes through step by step how to sign up for one of these tours and the code to use (FREECHINATHAILAND) to make the trip free.
This might be something to file under Too Good To Be True, but hey, you never know!
I picked a date in September 2022 and signed up. I did not pick any add-ons – I figure I can always add those on later if this is really going to happen.
A LITTLE UPDATE
I’ve received some comments and messages from people who’s opinion I trust that people should be wary of trips like this because they often entail taking you from store to store expecting you to make purchases, and that the hotels are often outside the cities in question. All this has made me pause on whether I would be interested in this deal. Would you?
BUT WAIT – READ ANGELA’S COMMENTS!
Angela (a fellow attorney and Hyatt Globalist whom I met when we were both at the Hyatt Regency in Puerto Rico in April of this year) actually went on this trip to China with this same tour operator. She has left a detailed message about this trip – which actually sounds interesting.
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
Proceed with caution – I’ve never seen a free trip before but there are often these tours for $299-399ish and there are a lot of people who say 70% of your time is at shopping stops (with aggressive sales tactics) and 30% actual sightseeing. I don’t know anything about this company in particular but I assume there has to be a catch.
To add to what Becky wrote, the price usually includes international airfare. This “deal” does not.
Thanks Brian!
thanks Becky!
UTO Vacations are Bait and Switch at its worst! China Thailand trip. Booked in June 2022, final payment due Sept 2022 but trip not available due to travel restrictions. Only option is to cancel and lose all money paid or drop the China portion that’s not available and pay twice as much for half the trip. Worst part is they’ve been doing this to people for years! Advertising a trip they can’t deliver and knowing the customer will lose all deposits or pay more than twice as much for a lesser trip. They actually have a policy that they say doesn’t allow for refunds on pre-existing trip issues! They sell a trip they can’t deliver and then have a “policy” to protect themselves and steal your money. Check out their Better Business Bureau complaints! This has been going on for years! This trip is still being advertised! Liars and Cheats!
Ok I can actually offer some guidance on this one. We did this trip with UTO right before the world came to a screeching halt. We returned in early December 2019. (Imagine the fun reactions when everyone was talking about Wuhan and I said I just returned from China!). The “free trip” now, which I looked at this morning after seeing it in Travelzoo, is exactly the same price it has been for the last couple years. When we booked it I believe the base price was $299. Back then that included airfare. Now the trip is “free” but without airfare which you can add for $299. On top of that we paid a mandatory in advance tip that I think was a couple hundred and we paid for a Visa (good for 5 years) which was about $250. We also opted to stay a few extra days in Shanghai (during which time I got sick and ended up in a hospital where no one spoke a word of English) so we paid extra to reschedule our return date. The trip included all hotels (decent quality, not extravagant and generally kind of far out from the center of things), transportation within China (flight and bus) tours, and some meals. We did have a few non optional visits ( a tea place, a jade place and a silk place) but there was no pressure to buy. They did require you to go though. If you did not I think they charged a fine or something. The tour guys were decent. We had a good group of people and no issues (except for the hospital stay but that actually happened right after our tour ended). It was not a luxury tour but it was a good deal for under $1000 each (figuring in the visa and our extra charge for changing our return date) and we did get to see a lot. The way it is formatted now could be good for those that want to pay for their trip with miles!
I also took the $400-ish trip in March 2019. The shopping trips were a small part of the day and no pressure to buy anything. Our guide allowed us free time and we just had to be back to the bus on time. Having a guide and transportation was huge in a country where it’s hard to get around on your own and many don’t speak English. Hotels were average to elaborate. My friends and I just booked this free trip for April 2023. We will likely stay extra days at the end of the trip and do our own thing in SE Asia since it’s easier to get around without a guide.
We also did the $299 trip in November 2019. Got the same ‘COVID patient zero’ jokes soon after when things started closing down. As others have said, the shopping stops are mandatory, but there was no obligation to buy, and no real pressure from the salesman. We never stayed more than an hour, so not a huge part of the day. There were 5 stops in total, jade factory, silk factory, pearl farm, tea plantation and Chinese medicine (where we all got foot massages). As for the hotels, they were typically farther from downtown, but a few of them were really amazing. Much nicer than the average hotels in the US. Each day was packed with things to see/do, and we got back to the run tired each day. The only down I saw to the trip was the optional excursions. If you did not purchase them, you just had to wait near the bus while everyone else was on the excursion. Not a problem for us as we booked them all.
UTO may have been decent before COVID, but their practices changed since then. They have been engaging in deceptive and fraudulent practices, specifically bait and switch and refusing travel credit and refunds when they are legally owed. Moreover, some of the lucky few who have gotten a refund check tried to deposit it and it bounced! Is UTO keeping travelers’ deposits in a safe bank trust like they advertise? Please check out the better business bureau and find the Reddit group. There will be a class action soon.
thank you for this information.
I just got my Japan china trip cancelled .,.similar story…is the class action for real? Anyone pursuing legal action
We traveled to China on one of their trips (see review above) and the experience was great. However, during the pandemic we purchased a cheap trip to Thailand. The trip was put off several times due to Covid. We tried to redeem the trip this year and they refused to honor the price we paid. The current price is $1000/person more expensive, and they are asking us to pay the difference. We have already paid in full for the existing trip and they refuse to provide a refund (claim the reason is still Covid even though that’s not an issue if we pay the extra grand) and had to take a credit to a future trip. We won’t be giving them any more money. Be cautious if you do.
Terrible company, The actually had their account with the BBB revoked. They canceled our trip and refused to refund us.