Friendly Planet Travel Inc.

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Regards,
*** ***

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Regards,
*** ***

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that the proposed resolution is satisfactory to me.  Please have the company send the refund via mail to the address they have on file.  If they don't have it, please advise how I can get the information to them securely.My advise to Travel Planet is that although they sub contract the services to another company, it is still their responsibility to resolve and address the issues  at the end of the day. No passing of the buck.  Find ways to communicate better to ensure customers are satisfied.  As a heads up,  I will be informing my friends of the outcome of this complaint as they to requested for the same refund and was also ignored.  Please advise whether I should have them submit their complaint via Revdex.com.
Regards,
[redacted]

Attn: Revdex.com
Roman","serif"">We have already spoken with both
passengers involved in this dispute, and recognized that their complaints had
meritWe have already offered compensation that both passengers agreed was
acceptable
Thanks so much,
JoAnn R[redacted]
Office Manager
Friendly Planet Travel

I want to warn potential travelers about 'Friendly Planet' and their lack of follow through and horrible accommodations. I just returned Friday July 17th, 2015 from a tour with Friendly Planet, the Beijing/Tokyo tour. A travel mate and I were very excited about the trip. Before we left the states FRIENDLY PLANET was very inconsistent with service in providing us with dates and itineraries for the package we paid for. Often one or both of us would have to call FRIENDLY PLANET numerous times in order to get (conflicting) dates, time, information. This was not very encouraging when traveling to a foreign country.
My 1st issue was when we finally got our itinerary 4 days before the trip and only after I had called and spoke a rude young woman who lectured/quizzed me about how spam folders worked. The information we received (because my travel mate had not gotten her itinerary yet either) had a conflict with the Air China website about luggage weight. No one could give a clear answer so with a possible 200 dollar over weight fee at stake we were left uncertain and anxious about the appropriate weight of our luggage.
The next issue was the hotel in China and CITS (the vendor in China and the people who did our visas, hotels and tours). We were booked at Beijing International hotel a supposed 5 star hotel. The 1st night was fine but we noted that the hotel had stained carpet throughout and smelled of cigarette smoke. The 2nd night we had an issue, water pouring into our room from above. The water gushed from above down into our room from between the door jam of the hallway and the bathroom door. We called the front desk but with limited English/Chinese skills it took 15 to 20 minutes before we could get someone upstairs to look at the problem. We called and emailed FRIENDLY PLANET about the situation. Eventually maintenance came up and mopped up the water then put a mat down. About 15 minutes later another maintenance person came with a ladder looked at the yellowed/mildewed stain on the wood paneling and said "Yep" and left never to be seen again. We had no idea where the water came from or if it would happen again. My friend took pictures of the water damage and we noted this had been happening for a while because the wood was water stained and warped, so warped it made opening and closing the bathroom door difficult.
With no word from the hotel or FRIENDLY PLANET we contacted the assistant manager of the hotel (Dean) who spoke pretty good English. He apologized and promised a new room on the executive floor. We told him when we got back from our tours that day we would move to the new room and I suggested that we be given a free meal to compensate for the middle of the night inconvenience (surely a 5 star hotel understands how to make a situation right and customers happy.)
When we returned from a long day of wonderful tours the hotel did not have a new room ready as promised. We had to go to the front desk and wait. Our tour guide (Christina) was our translator and "go between" to try to make this situation right. The hotel finally got a room ready for us and relented to a free buffet meal for which I had to sign a paper saying it was acceptable. We moved our stuff (and by we) I mean my travel mate and I as no bell boy was called to help us. When we moved to the new room which was 2 floors higher but not the executive level promised the room was stuffy and smelled of burning plastic. The air conditioner didn't work and we are talking Beijing in July. The burning plastic smell became too much as we took pictures of poor and faulty wiring around the room. I tried to plug my IPhone in and the entire wall mount came out. Finally not being able to breathe we called the front desk and got the hotel manager who agreed to move us up 2 more floors (still not the executive level promised). The hotel manager (personally) got our room key ready and on the elevator ride up to the new room was more concerned with my hair style than the burning plastic smell or mysterious waterfalls in his building. He brought us to our final room where the air conditioning only marginally worked. We were too tired at that point to move again as we had to move all our stuff by ourselves once again, so just to keep up that is twice in one night after a tour of the Great Wall of China. Throughout all of this we emailed, called and message FRIENDLY PLANET with no response from them. It wasn't until I threatened to file with the Revdex.com and my bank fraud charges that we finally got to talk to Katherine the reservations manager who was rude to the point of angry and of no help.
We carried on with our trip to Tokyo and met with our tour liaison there. She informed us that there was a problem, our hotel had been changed (last minute) but when the change was made they didn't alert the tour company so we would not be getting a pickup from the hotel. A pickup paid for in our package. She said she was trying to contact the emergency contact for Tokyo but that person was not answering. She advised us to take a taxi to the tour office. I baulked, a taxi can be very expensive in Tokyo and I refused to pay (again) for something that was already paid for. I was also irked that the emergency contact person was not available for a minor emergency let alone a major one.
Finally the liaison was able to get someone who agreed to pay for our taxi to the tour office. The rest of the trip in Japan was uneventful but I will note that FRIENDLY PLANET was really pushy about us taking tours through them, we found out it is the same vendor used by viator but at about 20% less the cost that Friendly Planet was charging. The FRIENDLY PLANET associate who worked with me was so concerned that I take a viator tour with "other people that I didn't know" it was laughable, isn't that the point of travel? To get to know new people? I guess for FRIENDLY PLANET the point is to over pay them for tours.
Throughout our time in Japan we were in contact with FRIENDLY PLANET and Katherine who finally admitted that FRIENDLY PLANET had dropped the ball in contacting us and that these issues would be worked through. She also maintained that the Beijing International was a 5 star hotel but this is only by Chinese government standards which (as you can guess) are pretty poor.
The straw that broke the camel's back was our layover hotel in Beijing. 1st FRIENDLY PLANET never mentioned that Air China would be holding our bags for transfer back to the states so the clothes on our backs were what we would have for 24hours. This would have been nice to know since I had medication I needed to take daily in my luggage. Next, Christine (our delightful Beijing tour guide) was dispatched to meet us upon arrival back from Japan. She was instructed to take us to the hotel and make sure everything was okay. We felt some sense of relief at having a person we had come to like and trust with us. We were brought to a place that at first I thought was a joke. This had to be one of the sketchiest places I have even seen and I am from New Orleans. The hotel was gated and the shops and places around it had people just hanging out and watching you and the hotel. When we entered the hotel it was dank, mildew-y, smoke filled and just NASTY. This would made the Bates motel look like a palace. We checked in and went up to a hallway that was narrow danker, meldew-ier and just plain NASTY. Two tarps were on the ground with either blood or paint on it we could not determine which. The room was awful. The air conditioning did work but the bathroom was a nightmare complete with a condom machine and the beds looked like a place of many regrets (my body was not touching it). My travel mate found a bug next to her bed by the wall, we studied it for a while (took a picture) and tried to determine if it was a spider or bed bug….yeah it was that type motel. We were actually very glad not to have had our luggage exposed to possible beg bugs. I walked downstairs to the lobby at about 9:30pm to buy a bottle of overpriced juice (they call themselves a resort so charged and automatic 15% resort fee on everything) and found the lobby full of prostitutes working. We checked out a 1st light and spent the rest of our time at Beijing International airport.
This was unacceptable. We have pictures to support everything we are saying. FRIENDLY PLANET and their Chinese vendor CITS are complete frauds, they take your money, don't follow through and place you in sub-standard accommodations (while calling them 4 and 5 star). I have asked to be removed from FRIENDLY PLANET's email list because they can expect to more business from me or my travel mate. I have also let them know I will be filing this complaint and also going to blog sites that I work with on travel and raising the alarm about them. Buyer beware with Friendly Planet.

Dear Revdex.com,In regards to the complaint. Friendly Planet has refunded all 4 the passengers, $600.00 PER PERSON back to there credit card. Already spoke to passengers and is resolved.Please let me know if you have any questions.Thanks,[redacted]...

[redacted]Friendly Planet TravelOffice Manager

Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Times New Roman"">Attn: Revdex.com
We have already spoken with both
passengers involved in this dispute, and recognized that their complaints had
merit. We have already offered compensation that both passengers agreed was
acceptable.
 
Thanks so much,
JoAnn R[redacted]
Office Manager
Friendly Planet Travel

We were very surprised to learn that extensive renovations at our Penang resort were underway at the time these passengers were there, and we regret the inconvenience that our travelers experienced . If the travelers had only notified us via our emergency contact messaging service that the hotel was...

under renovation and the noise level was such that they were unable to enjoy their stay, we would have immediately worked to change accommodations. Unfortunately, we were apprised of this disappointing situation upon their return from the tour. We have already issued a $150 per person future credit  to [redacted] and his roommate, and as a goodwill gesture, we will also reimburse the hotel portion of the extension in the amount of $200 per person. Of course, we will refrain from using the same hotel until we have inspected the property and can ascertain that renovations have been successfully completed.

Good afternoon [redacted], My name is Harry V[redacted] and I am the System Manager at Friendly Planet Travel. I assisted a member of the [redacted] family in organizing a cruise for approximately 20 passengers traveling June 2016 on [redacted].Friendly Planet has a marketing agreement with [redacted]...

[redacted] whereby we provide their company information to our clients via a link in their confirmation to our informational page.  Clients are notified that [redacted] LLC is not owned or operated by Friendly Planet Travel.  [redacted] is responsible for collecting payment for, operation of, and customer service of any excursions sold. The order number shown below is their number, not ours. Also, this is the first time Friendly Planet has been advised of any issue with any tour the group purchased from [redacted]. I have spoken to [redacted] and they are still working thru the situation. However, in the interest of providing a high level of service to our customers, Friendly Planet Travel will refund the clients the $165 she is requesting and work in the background with [redacted] to obtain reimbursement. We are very sorry for any inconvenience the Sales encountered.If we can be of any further assistance in this matter, please don't hesitate to contact either JoAnn R[redacted] our office manager or myself.Thank you, Harry V[redacted] System ManagerFriendly Planet Travel

I want to warn potential travelers about 'Friendly Planet' and their lack of follow through and horrible accommodations. I just returned Friday July 17th, 2015 from a tour with Friendly Planet, the Beijing/Tokyo tour. A travel mate and I were very excited about the trip. Before we left the states FRIENDLY PLANET was very inconsistent with service in providing us with dates and itineraries for the package we paid for. Often one or both of us would have to call FRIENDLY PLANET numerous times in order to get (conflicting) dates, time, information. This was not very encouraging when traveling to a foreign country.
My 1st issue was when we finally got our itinerary 4 days before the trip and only after I had called and spoke a rude young woman who lectured/quizzed me about how spam folders worked. The information we received (because my travel mate had not gotten her itinerary yet either) had a conflict with the Air China website about luggage weight. No one could give a clear answer so with a possible 200 dollar over weight fee at stake we were left uncertain and anxious about the appropriate weight of our luggage.
The next issue was the hotel in China and CITS (the vendor in China and the people who did our visas, hotels and tours). We were booked at Beijing International hotel a supposed 5 star hotel. The 1st night was fine but we noted that the hotel had stained carpet throughout and smelled of cigarette smoke. The 2nd night we had an issue, water pouring into our room from above. The water gushed from above down into our room from between the door jam of the hallway and the bathroom door. We called the front desk but with limited English/Chinese skills it took 15 to 20 minutes before we could get someone upstairs to look at the problem. We called and emailed FRIENDLY PLANET about the situation. Eventually maintenance came up and mopped up the water then put a mat down. About 15 minutes later another maintenance person came with a ladder looked at the yellowed/mildewed stain on the wood paneling and said "Yep" and left never to be seen again. We had no idea where the water came from or if it would happen again. My friend took pictures of the water damage and we noted this had been happening for a while because the wood was water stained and warped, so warped it made opening and closing the bathroom door difficult.
With no word from the hotel or FRIENDLY PLANET we contacted the assistant manager of the hotel (Dean) who spoke pretty good English. He apologized and promised a new room on the executive floor. We told him when we got back from our tours that day we would move to the new room and I suggested that we be given a free meal to compensate for the middle of the night inconvenience (surely a 5 star hotel understands how to make a situation right and customers happy.)
When we returned from a long day of wonderful tours the hotel did not have a new room ready as promised. We had to go to the front desk and wait. Our tour guide (Christina) was our translator and "go between" to try to make this situation right. The hotel finally got a room ready for us and relented to a free buffet meal for which I had to sign a paper saying it was acceptable. We moved our stuff (and by we) I mean my travel mate and I as no bell boy was called to help us. When we moved to the new room which was 2 floors higher but not the executive level promised the room was stuffy and smelled of burning plastic. The air conditioner didn't work and we are talking Beijing in July. The burning plastic smell became too much as we took pictures of poor and faulty wiring around the room. I tried to plug my IPhone in and the entire wall mount came out. Finally not being able to breathe we called the front desk and got the hotel manager who agreed to move us up 2 more floors (still not the executive level promised). The hotel manager (personally) got our room key ready and on the elevator ride up to the new room was more concerned with my hair style than the burning plastic smell or mysterious waterfalls in his building. He brought us to our final room where the air conditioning only marginally worked. We were too tired at that point to move again as we had to move all our stuff by ourselves once again, so just to keep up that is twice in one night after a tour of the Great Wall of China. Throughout all of this we emailed, called and message FRIENDLY PLANET with no response from them. It wasn't until I threatened to file with the Revdex.com and my bank fraud charges that we finally got to talk to Katherine the reservations manager who was rude to the point of angry and of no help.
We carried on with our trip to Tokyo and met with our tour liaison there. She informed us that there was a problem, our hotel had been changed (last minute) but when the change was made they didn't alert the tour company so we would not be getting a pickup from the hotel. A pickup paid for in our package. She said she was trying to contact the emergency contact for Tokyo but that person was not answering. She advised us to take a taxi to the tour office. I baulked, a taxi can be very expensive in Tokyo and I refused to pay (again) for something that was already paid for. I was also irked that the emergency contact person was not available for a minor emergency let alone a major one.
Finally the liaison was able to get someone who agreed to pay for our taxi to the tour office. The rest of the trip in Japan was uneventful but I will note that FRIENDLY PLANET was really pushy about us taking tours through them, we found out it is the same vendor used by viator but at about 20% less the cost that Friendly Planet was charging. The FRIENDLY PLANET associate who worked with me was so concerned that I take a viator tour with "other people that I didn't know" it was laughable, isn't that the point of travel? To get to know new people? I guess for FRIENDLY PLANET the point is to over pay them for tours.
Throughout our time in Japan we were in contact with FRIENDLY PLANET and Katherine who finally admitted that FRIENDLY PLANET had dropped the ball in contacting us and that these issues would be worked through. She also maintained that the Beijing International was a 5 star hotel but this is only by Chinese government standards which (as you can guess) are pretty poor.
The straw that broke the camel's back was our layover hotel in Beijing. 1st FRIENDLY PLANET never mentioned that Air China would be holding our bags for transfer back to the states so the clothes on our backs were what we would have for 24hours. This would have been nice to know since I had medication I needed to take daily in my luggage. Next, Christine (our delightful Beijing tour guide) was dispatched to meet us upon arrival back from Japan. She was instructed to take us to the hotel and make sure everything was okay. We felt some sense of relief at having a person we had come to like and trust with us. We were brought to a place that at first I thought was a joke. This had to be one of the sketchiest places I have even seen and I am from New Orleans. The hotel was gated and the shops and places around it had people just hanging out and watching you and the hotel. When we entered the hotel it was dank, mildew-y, smoke filled and just NASTY. This would made the Bates motel look like a palace. We checked in and went up to a hallway that was narrow danker, meldew-ier and just plain NASTY. Two tarps were on the ground with either blood or paint on it we could not determine which. The room was awful. The air conditioning did work but the bathroom was a nightmare complete with a condom machine and the beds looked like a place of many regrets (my body was not touching it). My travel mate found a bug next to her bed by the wall, we studied it for a while (took a picture) and tried to determine if it was a spider or bed bug….yeah it was that type motel. We were actually very glad not to have had our luggage exposed to possible beg bugs. I walked downstairs to the lobby at about 9:30pm to buy a bottle of overpriced juice (they call themselves a resort so charged and automatic 15% resort fee on everything) and found the lobby full of prostitutes working. We checked out a 1st light and spent the rest of our time at Beijing International airport.
This was unacceptable. We have pictures to support everything we are saying. FRIENDLY PLANET and their Chinese vendor CITS are complete frauds, they take your money, don't follow through and place you in sub-standard accommodations (while calling them 4 and 5 star). I have asked to be removed from FRIENDLY PLANET's email list because they can expect to more business from me or my travel mate. I have also let them know I will be filing this complaint and also going to blog sites that I work with on travel and raising the alarm about them. Buyer beware with Friendly Planet.

Review: I have been planning for a long time to go on a safari for my 50th birthday this year. The Kenyan trip my family and I booked with friendly planet seemed reasonable enough. However, with all the terrorist attacks in kenya the past few months and the terrorists actually warning tourists to stay away or be killed, this is just too frightening. The friendly planet people said that we can exchange our trip for a different one but at a cost of $150/per person change fee!! This is ridiculous because it's not because I've changed my mind and don't want to go to kenya, it's because the threat to my family and my own life if we were to take this trip is too high. The FP staff then ignored my family's emails and refused to contact us until their South Africa trip we wanted to exchange the Kenyan one for was fully booked. In light of the conditions in kenya and all the terrorist attacks, anyone would be a fool to go there now. Even the American embassy, as per news reports have reduced their staff in Nairobi. English tour agencies have cancelled trips to kenya and evacuated their tours which were in progress.Desired Settlement: I think friendly planet, which has been acting in a most unfriendly manner should fully refund my family for our deposits and apologize for the horrible treatment they've given us. We would have been very happy to swap our kenyan trip for one in South Africa provided there was no change fee involved. They really did not take into consideration my family's safety were we follow to through on the Kenyan trip. Hundreds of people have been slaughtered in kenya in the past few weeks. In addition, over a dozen women were kidnapped. The terrorists are specifically going after anyone who is not Muslim. I can only imagine what horrible things the terrorists would do to my sister and 16 year old niece if they discovered they're both [redacted]!

The way FP have dealt with us and this situation has been inconsiderate and unprofessional.

Business

Response:

Dear Revdex.com,In regards to the complaint. Friendly Planet has refunded all 4 the passengers, $600.00 PER PERSON back to there credit card. Already spoke to passengers and is resolved.Please let me know if you have any questions.Thanks,[redacted]Friendly Planet TravelOffice Manager