Liberty Travel

i have used Liberty Travel to book flights for about 4 international flights, and I have been very pleased with Michael B every time. The most recent flight booked was less expensive than I found on-line because the on-line booking includes costs for booking seats in advance and for luggage. Because of their agreements, they have lower costs, and the cost of my flight was lower than what I could do on-line. It was also 1 stop shopping for travel accident/cancellation insurance. Their 24 hour number saved us when we were in Scotland and got a flat tire. We were put on an interminable hold by the car company through which we had purchased coverage for such issues. We got through to Liberty who got through to the company and called us right back. Also when a flight was cancelled and we were waiting for 2 hours to rebook, we called the 24 hour service and they gave us our rebooking before we reached the counter in line. Very good, honest service.

Do not use this company. They had created several problems for me many years ago and I swore I would never use them again. I called in November to see if they by any chance had a passport number for a family member ...we had lost that passport and were trying to get a new one reissued. I talked with a very nice person, and she asked me to give Liberty Travel another chance. So I did, and through their incompetence, the names of multiple people in our travel group were entered incorrectly. When flying internationally, those people cannot fly. Had to spend a stressful day fixing that and they were unwilling at first to fix it. Although they were kind enough to work late into the evening resolving the problem, it was a very stressful day and we had to get up at 4:00 AM the next morning ...so little sleep there. Although we had a good time on the trip, use a different travel company.

MAJOR WARNING. I do not recommend Liberty Travel. The travel agents are unresponsive, unsupportive and lack decent customer service skills. I was booking a group trip and needed to cancel because my passport was not going to arrive on time. Not only did I make it clear that I wouldn't legally be able to get on a plane, but they also ignored all my emails, phone calls, and messages because they did not want to explore the options of refunding me the money I put down to hold my place on the trip. I am appalled and incredibly disappointed by this travel agency and their lack of concern for my situation. Imagine if I had a personal issue, a sickness or a death? Would they still not answer or respond to me to assist with my travel issues? The Liberty Travel agents purposely ignored my emails and phone calls. I am not sure how a company like this even exists today when customer service is of the utmost importance.I do not recommend this agency at all. Do not, and I repeat - DO NOT use them.

I recently booked a trip to Aruba and Liberty Travel had me book my own flight as I could get better rates. And upon checking out of the hotel. The hotel inadvertently charged me for the room. And when compared to what LT charged me - LIBERTY TRAVEL CHARGED ME OVER ONE THOUSAND dollars MORE than the hotel would have if I booked directly. THe hotel was also a timeshare location and I had to deal with the pushy sales reps during the stay. Then upon returning home and attempting to obtain Marriott points at least for my stay, I was informed I could not have the points because I booked thru a third party vendor that provides DISCOUNTED RATES. Called Liberty over a month ago still waiting on a reasonable response. Book direct. Shop liberty.

My wife and I decided to take a big (and costly) trip to celebrate our 20th anniversary. I usually book my own travel, but because the trip involved travel in Europe, we decided to book through a travel agency. We wound up booking 3 nights in Venice, Italy, followed by a 7-night Royal Caribbean cruise to the Greek Isles, followed by a 2-night stay in Krakow, Poland, with a tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau. The tour of Auschwitz was on my wife's "bucket list" of things that she wanted to do before death. (We are in our 60's) Touring Auschwitz was our sole reason for travel to Poland. We arrived in the hotel lobby as instructed by the voucher provided for us by Liberty. This was our only day in Poland, and was dedicated to the tour. We stood in the lobby with voucher, camera, umbrella, and water in hand and ready to go. When it was 30 minutes past the time of meeting that was specified in the voucher, my wife called the emergency number that was listed on the voucher. The number was in the UK and we called at our expense. We had to call twice, as the first call resulted in being placed on hold, and the call eventually dropped. When my wife finally got through, she was told that the tour had been cancelled "last year". She immediately burst into tears. We had booked the vacation with Liberty nine months in advance, and it was obvious that nothing on the trip had been reconfirmed or re-booked when cancelled. Liberty had done nothing but the original booking nine months prior to travel. We were both stressed to the max. as the hotel concierge called around trying to get us on a tour ASAP, as we were only in Poland for that one day. Fortunately, he finally found a bus tour that was departing in 2+1/2 hours that had two spots left, and we went on a tour. We paid again for the tour even though we had already paid Liberty. The tour that we had booked was a private tour, and we wound up on a bus tour. We also lost about 3 hours in Krakow as there wasn't time before or after the bus tour to go sightseeing. Liberty has gone to the "extremes" of offering us a small future travel credit as compensation, but we obviously will never book anything with them again, and want cash compensation for the time we lost and the stress on a vacation due to their failure to perform.

I have used Liberty Travel twice, the first time was a wonderful experience the second time not so much. I'm giving them only one star because my travel experience was disrupted due to a mistake made by the travel agent that I used. Now we are all human and we make mistakes so I totally get that but in my opinion when you are trying to make up for a mistake particularly when a vacation has been paid for and you are a big enough company I think the customer service thing to do is to go above and beyond to try and make up for the customer's inconvenience. So my trip originally was 3 days in London, 4 days in Paris and 4 days in Dubai prepaid with transfers at all locations and supposedly everything confirmed. The plan was to fly to London then take the train to Paris and then fly to Dubai. The itinerary reflected our train leaving London at 9:24am arriving in Paris at 12:47pm. Our transfer from the hotel reflected a pickup of 2 hours before the train departs on March 29th. On March 29th the front desk called our room at 7:09am to let us know that our ride had arrived. We got to the train station by 8:05am in plenty of time for our 9:24am train. We went to print out our tickets and to our surprise the ticket person said "You have missed your train." The printed ticket reflected our train departure at 7:55am not 9:24am. The 9:24am train was full, no seats available and the next available train that had two seats was not until March 30th at 6:30pm arriving in Paris at 9:45pm. My thought was are you kidding me right now???? They were very nice and tried to figure out another way for us to go that day but there were no viable options other than flying which was just too expensive. So there we were at the train station with all of our luggage trying to figure out what to do next. Not getting to Paris by 12:47pm on March 29th obviously had a domino effect. Our transfer from the train, our hotel night and an Eiffel Tower attraction that was booked for March 30th at 11am. Also taking away a day and a half leaving us with only two days in Paris. In my opinion that is a HUGE disruption to my prepaid vacation plans based on an error that the travel agent made. Now we are in the middle of the train station looking up availability of a hotel near the train station because we now have to spend another night in London. Found one for $178 dollars that was close. I then called the emergency travel line because of course being in London at 8am in the morning meant that the Chicago Liberty Travel office was not open. Now in my opinion this is all very inconvenient and not pleasurable. So when we finally were able to reach the Chicago office my travel agent was not in yet but her manager was and he said we are sorry and we will look at what happened and get back to you. Not at all offering anything but just that he would speak with the agent when she got in and have her get back to me. So a few hours go by and I have heard nothing so I then reach out again and the agent that I worked with was in so we spoke. She apologized but still offered nothing other than she would ensure that we still had a hotel in Paris and the night that we missed would be credited back, she would ensure that we had a new transfer to pick us up from the train, she would reschedule our Eiffel Tower event. At that point I asked if the extra night in London would be compensated since it was an inconvenience and only occurred due to her mistake. She told me it would have to be approved but save the receipt. Another hour goes by and she calls to let me know that our hotel is set, she is still waiting on confirmation for our transfer and the Eiffel Tower event that we booked is sold out. She offered another Eiffel Tower event that would require us to climb up two the second level. The event that we booked was a pass the line and take the elevator to the top so the option of only going to the second level and the fact that we would have to climb did not appeal to us so I turned it down. At that point I ASKED so what can you do for us to make this up because we are down to only two days in Paris and we are not even able to do the one event that we had you book for us. She said she would get back to me. 10 mins later her manager called me to see what he could offer which was a dinner cruise and a jump on and off bus tour. I told him that was great so he said he would call back to confirm. About an hour later she calls back and said that they were throwing in the jump on and off bus with not a dinner cruise but an hour long boat tour. So we went with that and with the thought that for the two of us traveling that we would get the hotel in Paris and the Eiffel Tower credited back. Several hours later she calls to say she has not heard back on our transfer from the train to the hotel so that we should just get a cab and that she would credit back that transfer to us. Sure, fine but again, now we have to wait in line for a cab which again is taking away from our time to enjoy because that's why we paid for transfers throughout the entire trip; so just another disappointment and inconvenience. Okay, we make it to the hotel by about 10:40pm on March 30th and to our surprise they don't have a room for us!! So I immediately call the travel agent because this time with it being so late in Paris it was in the afternoon in Chicago. She talks to the front desk person and they are able to find us a room but he let her know that when she booked our room she asked for double beds but in Paris that really means one larger bed not two beds.......shouldn't a travel agent know that????? Okay the front desk person was able to find us two rooms that he was not going to charge us extra for, thank goodness, but that we would have to change rooms the next day. I'm sorry but again another inconvenience!! Now, on Sunday I happened to check out the transfer that was supposed to be confirmed to pick us up on Monday, April 2nd to take us to the airport and was not able to find a time any place on the voucher confirming the time of pickup. So I called....again why am I having to do this because we prepaid and everything should have been confirmed. Well, so glad that I did because the company said they had no record of a pickup at our hotel to the airport and that we should call our travel agent to work things out. Of course, so that’s another call I have to make to the emergency number; yet another inconvenience. So I call and they were not able to square things away and suggested that we just get our own cab and have our local agency credit us. I sent an email to my agent to say now not only do you need to credit the one night stay, the Eiffel Tower event but now it's the round trip transfer credited back to me and the person I was traveling with along with the London hotel because of all of the inconvenience that we have gone through. When the refunds went through the agent decided that she would refund me the entire hotel amount for Paris and then split everything else by two. When I inquired she told me "As per our conversation on the phone, we still had to keep one hotel charge since you did still need a hotel night. I refunded the hotel night not used to you since you are the one who paid for the extra night in London. I’m unable refund that Expedia booking since I did not book that for you." The Expedia booking was the extra night in London and we actually never had this conversation on the phone. The conversation we had was the extra night will need to be approved so save the receipt. And for her to make the decision to not split everything by two was not her decision to make. And yes we did stay the number of nights in total BUT for general purpose the right thing to do since we were sooooo inconvenienced is to say you know what, we will pick up that extra night in London for you because it was OUR MISTAKE. To me when you are a large company that should just be a given with no questions asked. If I had booked a room at the Ritz Carlton I get that is over the top and would not expect the agency to pick that up. This was the Crown Plaza at $178, only $20 more than the hotel in Paris. All and all not even a lot of money for me but it's more about the principal.....I'm very disappointed and will not use Liberty Travel again!

I had a difficult time getting my trip itinerary from the agent. She was rarely in the office. She failed to inform me that the joining point had changed so I went to the wrong hotel. She failed to inform Intrepid (the tour company) that I cancelled my transfer from the airport to hotel so there was someone there waiting for me.

There are travel agencies everywhere. There is no reason to use them. I went to Liberty Travel while in NYC. It was the first travel agent I came across and what a nightmare. Ashley was my agent. I began the process with her on May 3. Would not return calls or emails to get the trip booked. Should have been my clue and I should have moved on. I was excited for the two resorts she presented and I wanted to book that trip. She did not begin to book it until July. At that point, we could not do the trip in the order we wanted becasue of resorts already being booked. My 60 year old sister had to fly out on red eye because to change the order of our trip was to travel farther that day. My sister did not have the option to fly to Dallas the day before to break it up due to work. 6 months into this bad deal we could not get our itinerary. Other flights were supposed to be booked to get us to the resorts but that did not happen. From May to October we still don't have this tripped booked and we don't know what to expect. I finally got in touch with her supervisor and she said Ashley is very busy and is working hard. This company has so many bad reviews in multiple travel sites. There is no reason to use them. Sent the supervisor an email saying answer our questions or refund our money. We leave in 2 months it has been 6 months of struggle. Oh and Ashley lost my sisters AMMEX credit card info TWICE. This company has to be in business from people like me who used them once. I can't imagine anyone using them twice. It is not worth it. There are other agencies. This is a 10,000 dollar trip. I don't feel they are any cheaper. It is not worth the aggravation and I am not convinced this trip is going to go well.

Cancelled within the free 24 cancellation policy, was told I would get a full refund. They refunded my ticket but kept $180. I asked what this was and they said I’m sorry if we gave you false information but the $180 is not going to be refunded. They just kept $180 and said it was non refundable. This was after they said on more than one occasion that I would get a full refund because of their free 24 hour cancellation policy. Basically they stole $180 of mine and are just refusing to refund even though I cancelled my transaction with them.