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Here are the details of how Viator (and their parent company Tripadvisor) pocketed $600 without providing anything to me and my family: I booked a Rome tour through Viator for my family of four. It was quite expensive. I went to the Viator web page and found a tour on June 17th.
Viator is a consolidator, an agent. They represent the local companies. I, personally, have not ever had a problem in multiple countries on multiple continents booking thru a local agency - often researched thru Viator, but booked directly with the local company. Not all tours have run due to lack of numbers, but tgat policy has always been clear and I have received sufficient warning to book ...
With Viator you can book either private or group tours. I usually see if they have the provider listed and go directly to the provider website to book if possible. For With Locals you are booking a private tour for your party. You can pick your guide. Depending on the guide/city some have a written bio and others have video bios. I prefer the video bios as you get an idea of their personality ...
Viator is a third party that sells tours operated by other companies. I would read the reviews of the tour before committing. I've used Viator 3 times - once in Mexico and two times in Croatia. The quality of the tour really depended on the local operator but my experience has been quite decent across all three tours I took (I read the reviews first so I knew what to expect). The reason I ...
Get Your Guide, like Viator, is a third-party website. Quality can vary from tour to tour in that situation, because different tour operators/guides are involved. Get Your Guide is a lot newer to the party than Viator. You can draw your own conclusions about what that might mean for a customer. Both of those companies take a substantial cut from the person/company offering the tour, so either ...
Viator just sells vouchers/tickets (and sometimes more expensive than booking directly). You're on such strict timings with shore excursions, it's not worth the risk. For a stop in Vanuatu for example, I found a highly recommended day tour that bases tours around the times your ship is in port, I've communicated directly with the company to ...
What warnings about Viator? I must have missed them. I live in the USA and have booked via Viator and have never once had the least bit of trouble with Viator. You do know that TripAdvisor and Viator are the same company, don't you? Tripadvisor bought Viator last year. I do prefer to make reservations directly when I can and skip the middleman (which is what Viator is). I posted the Tallinn ...
Viator has absolutely no control over anything that happens on the tour. You'd be much bettter off booking directly with the local company which you can find by either going to the local city forum on Trip Advisor or probably just using Google to find them. Why add another layer between yourselves and the tour itself.
Viator doesn't conduct any tours, so I'm not sure why you're asking for reviews of Viator. If you provide more details about the tours you've signed up for, perhaps someone will recognize one of them as something they've done. In addition, it has been suggested on this forum that Googling key phrases from tour descriptions sometimes allows you to find the company actually running the tour.
If Viator wants Discover to pay to resolve this matter, that is between Viator and Discover. I will continue to post unsatisfactory posts on every available travel forum and plan on filing a small claims action in Volusia County, Florida.