Sinorama Holidays — trip to china
We purchased the tickets in February and paid in full a month ago from Sinorama. Since then we have been calling and email to follow up in regards to the flights, The people in Sinorama office kept telling us that "flights are not ready" or "we are still working on the flight schedule". More over they promised us the flights will be around 10 am or later on April 22nd. Finally, we got the flight schedule for the trip from Sinorama after one month chasing, we were surprised with the odd route, we will be flying from California to Chicago( to the east) and then fly back to china to the west. We asked them to consider our inconvenience and rearrange the fly schedule. But in their Email "But since your air tickets had been issued and we have nothing can do for changing any route at this moment."
We received the email with the tickets from Sinorama and they did not give us the opportunity even to review the tickets. If we know from the beginning that we will flight to Chicago we would object at that time, and no one inform us or let us know ahead about the flight schedule. That is not a professional customer care with their statement regarding the air tickets.
Again, we called Sinorama and we replied the email to Sinorama and they ignored us. At this point, we are not sure if we still pursue our trip with them.
a verified customer
We booked the China Yangtze River cruise which also includes a 2 day Viet Nam leg. When we purchased the tour, air flights were not to be arranged until a month or so later. When we received the flight reservations, we were chagrined to find that the flight from Shanghai to Ho Chi Minh City flight leaves at 10:20PM and arrives HCM City at 1:35AM. The return flight is 49 hours later leaves HCM City at 2:35AM arriving Shanghai at 7:05 with a 6 hour layover before our flight home to the US. Had we known this leg would be at such onerous hours, we would not have booked the tour.
We decided to opt out of the HCM City leg and just stay in Shanghai at our own expense. Sinorama replied that this was a change and required a $400 US per person change fee. We said nonsense. The contract says the penalty for unused services was no refund, which we were willing to do. Then, after we appealed, Sinorama said that if we did not go to HCM City, it would void our return ticket to the US because it was on the same booking number. We previously talked to China Eastern who said that they do not charge fees for missed flights beyond forfeiture of the ticket but that since the ticket was booked through our agent (and I use that word lightly), Sinorama had control.
Very angry at this unfair treatment.
a verified customer
We also have a very, very bad experience with a trip to China Yangtze River cruise with Sinorama. First they messed up our flight going to China. They were supposed to let us know when are the flight scheduling but instead they just scheduled the flight to china from bay area to china through Chicago which doesn't make any sense. We have requested them to change those flights which we were not consulted with but they refused. Second the 5 stars hotels that we visited on the trip was -3 stars motel. : the non-smoke rooms smelled from smoke, the toilet broke down 3 times during 24 hours stayed and we had to move to different room 3 am in the morning. There were bed bugs in the room, staying with us without paying any rent. :-). The local tour guide in Beijing was very rude and aggressively kept pushing us to buy what they wanted, wasting our time. Just mention, this is not a shopping tour as Sinorama advertised. He also talked about tips, (he said don't give me a few dollars for tips) and demand higher tips which was supposed to be included in the package. The food was barely edible, at one time to buy extra Beijing duck because this place is famous for it. We bought the whole duck but we received only 10 pieces of duck breast. This tour was not worth the money we paid. We will never come back to any tour from Sinorama .
Wow! I was considering doing a whole family trip with 10 of us and the complaints listed have been a deciding factor in not pursuing this venue withsSinorama
a verified customer
I just returned from a 12 day tour of China through Sinorama. It was excellent, beginning to end! Great customer service over the phone, as I am in California. I had both an International guide and local guide at every venue. Frank, the International guide was available 24/7 throughout the trip. Hotels were fantastic! Never felt rushed on any of our excursions and had very good advice about doing any shopping at any of the locations. Well worth the $1700 I paid for this trip. Will definitely be using Sinorama the next time I want to go to Asia.
I typically don't post reviews, but after reading the bad reviews about Sinorama I just have to jump in. We took a Land/Yangtze River trip with them 2 years ago and it was outstanding from start to finish. No complaints whatsoever. I was thoroughly impressed with their c/s, tour guides, China and its people.
I would travel with them again in a heartbeat.
Hi All we had booked a 20 day tour of China organised by Sinorama Holiday (New Zealand). 2 weeks prior to us departing the tour gets cancelled. We had to get the visa's for China 2 months earlier. Only reason to get the china Visa was for this holiday. Now Sinorama - being a big company, refuses to come to any agreement to reimburse us for the Visas. I will not recommend anyone booking any tours through company. There customer service is really bad.
@rkooverjee Myself and a friend booked in March 2018 to travel to China in April 2019. We are in UK. We were told that to get the tour at the so called reasonable price, we had to lay in full so we did. About a month ago, we found out by accident that Sinorama had ceased trading. We had no communication from them directly. We e, ailed them, the message bounced back as undeliverable but later that day we received email to say our trip cannot b assured. What a mess! We are trying to obtain refunds via our credit card and whilst we are relieved that we did not find out even sooner to our planned departure date, feel so sorry for travellers who may have been stranded in China when all this happened. Absolutely disgusting - and we feel very foolish that we parted with our money like we did.
a verified customer
Sinorama Holidays is a fraudulent company. They took our money in June 2017 for a 16n day China Imperial Tour. They were closed down / license suspended by the Consumer Protection of BC. Do not book with Sinorama Holidays/Vacancies they have had their license suspended and we lost $5008.00. It's afraudulent operation. Do not use your credit card 60 days before purchasing. You may be at risk for loss. Buyer beware.