ExploreTrip
Reviews and Complaints

Absolutely wretched company. They basically function as competent scam artists. They sold me a ticket that didn't exist, a man from exploretrip tried to convince me on the phone that booking directly with the airline was a scam (he even 3-way called the airline to "prove" to me that they were scammers since they have a foreign accent), the company phone number doesn't work during normal business hours, in fact, it sends you through a loop of ads and sweepstakes sign ups, there is no communicating with these people.

Two days before my flight I realized that my ticket was fake. I luckily got a new ticket and disputed the charge with my bank. The scam artists conveniently appeared from thin air to provide faulty ticket information and have yet to do anything about the fact that they charged me $930 for a ticket that never existed.

Do not book with them, save yourself from criminals.

Exploretrip forgot to cancel upon my request three flight tickets to New York.

The tickets were fully eligible for a full refund.

I made the request in writing and a full week before the deadline by the Airline. I did not receive a response and reminded Exploretrip by email and made a phone call.

The Exploretrip customer support agent confirmed my email and confirmed he himself would take care and request the cancellation from the Airline that same day. The Exploretrip customer support agent informed me that the refund would be credited to my account within two cycles of the credit card refunds i.e. two months.

I never received the refund and contacted Exploretrip customer support many times. Exploretrip customer blames the airline for the delay, now two years.

The airline meanwhile confirmed that Exploretrip customer support never made a request for the refund.

If I had known how terrible Exploretrip customer support is and how deceitful they treat their customer I would never have booked the tickets with them.

Cancelled my tickets(2 PNRs PNR: 4JZBNB and PNR: 4KF4O3) in Dec 3 2021 and was informed that the refund will be processed to my account in one or two billing cycles. I followed up with them in feb and they mentioned that they have received the refund. I informed them that my card has been expired and was willing to receive it via cheque. In march 2022 i called them again and they came up with the same thing that my card is expired and i told them i am willing to get it via Paypal. I shared my paypal details with them. In April first week i only received refund for 4KF4O3 (THANK GOD) but then when i asked them about 4JZBNB, they said it will now take again 10 working days. Why is explore trip holding my money? Why didnt they process the refund together?

Have bought a series of fligts with them (ExploreTrip). Turkish Airlines confirmation - SJZEZJ. ExploreTrip reference: [protected]

Montreal to İstanbul – TK 36

Feb 20, 9:45 PM–Feb 21, 3:15 PM

İstanbul to Chisinau – TK 271

Feb 21, 8:20 PM–8:50 PM

Chisinau to İstanbul – TK 272

Feb 27, 9:40 PM–Feb 28, 12:10 AM

İstanbul to Tel Aviv-Yafo – TK 810

Feb 28, 1:35 AM–2:35 AM

Tel Aviv-Yafo to İstanbul – TK 785

Mar 20, 10:20 AM–1:40 PM

İstanbul to Montreal – TK 35

Mar 20, 3:45 PM–7:35 PM

Chisinau to İstanbul – TK 272 was cancelled due to war in Ukraine, ExploreTrip never informed me or offered alternatives/help etc. I found out from Turkish Airlines myself about cancelation.

When I asked them to cancel next flight İstanbul to Tel Aviv-Yafo – TK 810, since I can't reach it in time, ExploreTrip refused. They insisted on cancelling all the next flights in the chain. The agent did not know the amount of the refund.

My total flight distance was around 19,000 km and I paid for it 1335.15 CAD. I used only 8,375 km or 44% of the total trip. ExploreTrip announced a future refund of 607.38 CAD which is 45.46% of the trip, instead of refunding me at least 56% of the trip or 748 CAD.

To buy new tickets, I had to pay: 1131 CAD (flight from Bucharest to Tel-Aviv; Tel-Aviv to Lisbon and Lisbon to Montreal). Plus the transport from Chisinau to Bucharest by land, since the airspace was close due to war in Ukraine.

My expense to buy the same tickets is more than 1131 CAD, they announced a refund me 607 CAD (not yet paid), so the difference to be covered as per my expenses is 524 CAD.

Customer service could not connect with their supervisor, could not provide the supervisor phone number, email or their work schedule. Customer service told me he will answer No to all my question, that he is removing his headsets and I can continue talking to myself! And I can assure you I am not a bla bla bla person, I am a person of a few words!

Thank you.

I bought a ticket to fly to korea scheduled in April 2020. Due to corona virus my flight was canceled and i was promised a full refund. Then come September 2021 i get a partial refund of $208.99 instead of the full price of $415.33. Now it is March of 2022 and still after going back and forth with their costumer service i still havent received the full amount that i was told i would get.

1 star is toooo much! Don’t trust your money with them! Buy directly from the AirCompany!

We are a family of four. I work in healthcare. Unfortunately, a week before the trip, I caught COVID. In the following days, my husband and the kids got infected too. So, travelling became impossible/illegal. We promptly let ExploreTrip know of our situation. Did the same with the AirCompany. The cie then changed the ticket to an “open ticket”, to avoid paying no-show fees. All seemed ok.

We then contacted the AirCompany to know how to proceed to re-book the ticket. After providing the proofs of the COVID tests, we were told that the ticket could be re-booked at no cost in our case. We didn’t need to pay for fare differences as well. We had this in writing from the AirCompany. We then contacted Exploretrip, because the ticket was issued by them. That’s when the nightmare started.

We called them on January 21st, and was told we would need to pay the difference. We had to argue with the agent, who even after seeing the e-mail by the AirCompany would provide all sorts of excuses. From “you should rebook with the AirCompany”, to you have to pay the price difference according to the “fare rules” (though again, this was not what the AirCompany said in writing to our personal e-mail). We spent a week calling ExploreTrip multiple times, and getting stalled. We have been told multiple times that supervisors or agents would call to solve the issue, but they haven’t so far. They should be paying us for hours of time spent over the phone with them! Such a big time consuming... stress piling up... We are already going to such difficult time and they are making everything worse!

Our trip is to Thailand. They have very strict COVID rules. It takes 7 days to get the documents ready to visit the country. But to get it done, we need plane tickets, and thus ExploreTrip “goodwill”. We are now risking getting our trip further ruined by ExploreTrip.

Bottom line: The AirCompany was very reasonable with us, but ExploreTrip is just thinking about making the extra cash out of people’s hardship.

Why buy a ticket from ExploreTrip if they use the opportunity to “explore” you when they can?

I purchase a ticket on Oct 11, 2021 for my wife and my 2 years old son to fly to Brazil on Oct 23, 2021, which totally cost $439.80.

Today on October 20, 2021 (3 days before flying date), I just realized that I haven't received the ticket and call the exploretrip's customer service there.

I spoke twice with the representative with the name 'Arthur'.

He said that the ticket was canceled because the payment was denied by the Credit Card company, but then I checked my CC statement online. The money has been deducted on Oct. 11, 2021. Evidently they took the money from the CC, canceled the ticket silently without saying (or emailing), deleted the trip on my account archive and wanted just get away with it. Everything silently, no communication, emails or whatsoever.

Arthur (Exploretrip) said the money has been refunded at the same day (Oct 11, 2021), but the CC company can NOT confirm the refund. I called the CC company (capital one) and they said there has never been refund. B

I called again the travel agent and then he said that his team is working to locate the money.

Further he said that he can now sell ticket to fly to Brazil on this Sat., but it cost $980 (or something near that number).

I am just upset because flying with the child for my wife alone is agonizing enough, let alone in this COVID-19 situation.
And I have been worried about my wife traveling alone.

And now there are already so many worries and now they took the money, we don't have the ticket.
Now I must buy again new 2 tickets which cost $908.40 which was only $439.80.

What kind of business manner is this? Just take the money, drop silently everything and hope nothing happen?

Thank you for your attention,
Indra Harijono

i called about changing my ticket, and agreed to pay 68 dollars but the agent did not confirm my ticket. And now they keep me transfering or holding for long period of time.

Made reservation on 6/20/21 and was told my trip back will be one stop. I was NEVER told that the plane will land in two different places before my final destination. During booking, I was told by the Explore Trip employee (Fly EX Appt) that I can book and cancel with in 24 hours if not satisfied with my booking. Called same day and canceled and got confirmation # to confirm my cancellation.
Got a call the next day 6/21/21 from the return department stating they will refund $1400 out of $2279 of amount I paid. I stated it is not my fault that I was given and told the wrong info. And I want my full amount back. The employee was very discriminating as he was talking to me and asked to talk to a gentleman with very disrespectful high tone. So I asked him to not talk to me like that and get me a manager which he answered with "I am the refund department" and he kept repeating the same information on and on and he did not give a chance to speak and kept interrupting me every time I spoke. I finally told him that I will be contacting my bank to dispute the charges and he needed to be respectful when he takes to me and hanged up, which he was still talking and yelling at me.
He called back and kept yelling "you need to lesson to me"and stating the same information again which I sated to him gain that he needs to speak with a prerational tone and respect his customers all during him talking over me and yelling... So I hanged up and did not answer him again. He kept calling and calling.

We booked a flight with you on Febrary 27 from montreal to cancun leaving march 9, from montreal, returning april 10th, 2020. Pnr uwmqie et20y2700134. WIVOIC, price 987.52$. We paid the amount by a cc, to you, you never advice us that the return flight was cancel, no more flight to canada starting March 24, border were closed. We want our money back, we will not travel soon, my husbad is sick. We want our money because the services we paid for to you was not rendered. You by the law have to give the services we paid for, that is the law. This look like a fraud to us. Waiting for the refund of the trip that you did not give us. Thank you, you sold us a trip that was not available. Rene.[protected]@hotmail.com and [protected]@hotmail.com

Booked a flight with them through a skyscanner offer and was told I had to pay for seat assignment. I was only able to select seats for 3 of our 4 flights and when I called Cathay Pacific to inquire why was told that I should not have been charged at all as we are a family and anyone traveling on Cathay with Children under 12 will sit together at no cost. They said they issued a refund to C&H International and they issued back to ExploreTrip and to contact them. So I did and after 2 attempts (1st waited over 2 hours and 2nd almost 2 hours) I was able to hear a voice on the other end. As soon as I got to saying a refund was already issued the guy just hung up on me. So I contacted C&H International who said they would send an email with all my information and nothing has transpired.

I booked my flight back in April, it is now September. My flight was cancelled through the 'customer service professionals' at ExploreTrip and no one contacted me about it, except through ONE email that went to spam (the only reason I even found it was because I was looking through my entire inbox because I had forgotten what time my flight was). One obviously has to give their phone number when checking out, so ExploreTrip without a doubt had the capacity to contact me that my flight was cancelled.

After many frustrating emails back and forth I finally called their 'customer service' line and the man who was 'helping' me was absolutely unwilling to amend the problem that they had caused. I originally bought my tickers for $208 dollars-- he quoted by $367, at least 100 dollars over anything on any other website I found! (Alaska, Delta, Hipmunk).

I was dumbfounded at the complete lack of professionalism. I myself work in the customer service industry as a server in a restaurant, so I find this completely unacceptable.

I booked a trip (PNR: EUQDWM ), received an email 4 hours later that my credit card was declined. I called my bank first thing in the morning & they said it was because someone on your end put in my zip code wrong. My bank approved the charge. I called back FOUR times & my bank even called once to authorize the charge. You wouldn't process it even though that's exactly what your email said to do. Now the price has increased by $150. Completely ridiculous. Such awful customer service. And worst of all: IT WAS YOUR MISTAKE! I will never use Explore Trip again. I spoke to a Rosie at extension 4142 who hung up on me and a Piper at extension 4132, who raised her voice several times to me before I finally had enough and asked to speak to a supervisor.

I've always used skyscanner to find the best deals for my flights. This time i've had a really bad experience. Booked my flights through ExploreTrip. After the booking they send me the confirmation of the booking and the code of the airline to use for the checkin. Later they sent me email asking the photo of my credit card and photo of my ID. I obviously refused to do that because that sounded a bit shady. I tried to contact them but non of their phones worked. Then I received a call telling they cancelled my flight they spoke in a very rude way and the call was from India although it states that the business is in the USA. During the booking process they didn't tell me that I would have send my card details and my id over to them. They just took my payment over the phone. Like I've said been using skyscanner so many times never had issues never ever any travel agent asked me for my card details and id to be sent. This company is a scam and has to be removed from the skyscanner filter. Not to mention they never refunded me the money.

I had to stay at the airport as "Exploretrip" sold me ticket that has two stops in Germany, I called twice before journey and none of them ever check and told us about transit visa needs. In the last minute i was allowed to board the flight and "Exploretrip" has not control of the situation, They were not even able to help me to travel next day. Lufthansa said they can not control the ticket and we lost whole ticket.

Explore trip is not doing check whether passengers are allowed to transit through some countries and still selling the tickets. Also their customer service do not help to resolve the issue and try to extort money in unfair ways.

Business has moral obligation and responsiblity to sell tickets that customer can actually use. They should ask all questions before letting customer buy the ticket like airlines does.

They have to educate their customer service team to help customers than extorting them for money for "ExploreTrip" mistakes.

I booked a flight on May 22, 2019 then I immediately (10 mins after booking) called their customer service to cancel the flight booking because our companions are not available on that date. Their agent Adolf Wilson told me that the tax will not be refunded. He cancelled the flight booking immediately without explaining to me the amount not to be refunded. He should told me before the amount for us to decide before he cancelled it. They just refunded the amount of fare but not the tax. Why are they like that? They should have explained clearly and they should refund the full amount because I cancelled it immediately.

I've had the worst headache with this bookings. Id have to admit the big inning problems was my fault, I had booked my young child's airline ticket under the wrong name using auto fill in my phone (sigh) the customer service was good from explore trip but the run around and passing back and forth between supervisors was very stressful and took a lot of push on my end to get resolved. Despite Air New Zealand saying it was easy enough to fix with a simple waiver form on explore trips end they still charged me 250 for the service. I thought my problems were over, I felt relieved but here I am again a week and a bit later and my credit card shows a pending charge for 2 days for the airline tickets again? I sat on it thinking maybe it's an odd thing that goes on? I don't know. Then today the amount was withdrawn/posted on my credit card. I have now been charged for the tickets on April 17 and April 23 both for the the whole ticket price, both from explore trip not the airline on top of the 250 name change. I have contacted explode trio but they have just told me to email screen shots of my bill to their billing department. My credit card is now over the limit maxed out. This trip was from Canada to Australia. PNRs: PMNY2A & VBT4CK. I have yet to here back and am so stressed about what run around I am going to get from them this time, or if I here from them at all and need to call a hundred times to figure it out

These guys are a scam. spoke to a Mr Eddy, agreed to charge me 340USD for a date change and when we called to confirm the transaction, he said that now the price is 750USD . That was for a June 27th flight. Then he called and said the flight is not available. But here is the fun part, Flight is booked and confirmed on Delta web site.
These consolidator company is an absolutely scam. the promise tickets and services that they cannot produce. I have already send a complaint to Delta regarding that particular website. Talked to them and they will be looking onto it. Also they did mention large amount of negative comments regarding ExploreTrip.

Just be very cautions when booking anything from them.

I booked return tickets to India for December 2016 with PNR 5W8R23. I had to cancel the tickets due to some personal reasons and was told I will get the refund in 3-4 days. When I did not get the refund called the customer service and was told I will get it in 7-14 days. I waited again. After a month, called them and was given 3-4 days timeframe again. When I did not get it I raised a dispute on my card, after 6 months the card cancelled it stating explore trips terms/conditions. When I called explore trip, they said I will have to use a different card and make a payment of $100 to get the refund back. Did that too, and now 3 years down still waiting for my original refund. I wish I had the time and money to file a legal complaint against exploretrip.

I made a booking through them for a flight from Bucharest to Washington and back. The booking incorporated flights with different airlines and was handled overall by Hahn Airline. The first flight went well.
The return one, which was structured with 2 layovers (one in Dublin and one in Glasgow) and 2 different airlines (Air lingus for the first two flights and Blue air for the last one) started badly as the first flight left with 1 hour delay which caused my mother (the passenger) to miss the second and third flight. Air Lingus gave her another flight from Dublin to Glasgow 5 hours later, but when she got to Glasgow none of the 2 airlines (Air lingus or Blue air) wanted to help her with the final flight. Want to clarify that all these 3 flights from Washington to Bucharest (Washington- Dublin, Dublin-Glasgow, Glasgow - Bucharest) are on the same ticket/ reservation.
Air Lingus which handled the first 2 flights said they did their part and can't do more as they don't have any agreement with the other airline (Blue air). They actually said this reservation is a broken fare and should have never been structured this way because is not offering protection as they don't have any agreement with Blue Air. Blue Air said they don't have any fault that my mother missed their flight, plus their next flight to Bucharest is in 3 days.
I contacted also the Hahn air (the overall "processor" of these 3 flights) and every time they told me the travel agency (Exploretrip) should contact them about this. I spoke with the travel agency multiple times (also sent multiple emails) and now more than 8 hours later I don't have any answer back from them. Every time they told me to be patient as they will try to do something about (they told me this after they "instructed" me several times to call all these 3 airlines from above) and still no answer back from them as of now.
My mother which is 60+ has been on the roads for more than 24 hours now and spent most of this time waiting in airports is very tired and affected by this, especially that she doesn't know anything about when she will finally be able to get home. Thus, I just bought her the first available flight to get to the destination (which is not even a direct flight), but I firmly consider I should be reimbursed by Exploretrip (or Hahn air) for this cost as I bought from them a two-way flight from Washington DC to Bucharest and not only half of it as I got to benefit from.