Excel Travel

AVOID!!! After numerous mishaps, I will suggest to stay away from Excel Travel. From the onset, the first leg of our trip I chose the hotel, and told Excel to lock in the rates, I was told I had a «confirmed hotel room, all done», but I insisted on the actual confirmation number, right silly me. Four days later, I receive and email stating the booking never went through and the same hotel would cost me $ 500 more for my stay. I could not afford this and was forced to switch to a different hotel. Secondly, After our flights were booked, I had to review the airports and found out we were going to be sent to the WRONG ISLAND, I wonder how that would have ended up. Insisted they reissue tickets for the correct flight, figured it would be the last incident, I was wrong. Arrived at the last stop of our trip, and since I booked months ago, my credit card had been stolen due to fraud and I was issued a new one. Excel was aware of these credit card numbers as well. I arrive at the hotel, and my confirmation from Excel stated «Your room is reserved with our credit card, and is guaranteed upon your arrival», I was informed that the hotel emailed Excel a few days ago that my credit card was declined, and Excel had 24 hours to fix this, they never responded, my room was given away, and the hotel was booked for that evening, what a shocker. Excel was supposed to book with their own credit card, as they stated above, that never happened and we missed dinner, and breakfast the next morning checking out and heading to a new hotel which our assistant found for us, speaking the native tongue to the hotel manager to quickly remedy our situation. I can’t stress how lucky we were in that instance, my wife was ready to kill me, and furious we missed two meals, wasted countless hours correcting Excel’s mistakes. During the entire process, excel was not apologetic, nor were they willing to take blame for the issues that occurred. Never will I use this travel agency again.

I contacted Excel Travel to plan a trip as a graduation gift to myself. I wanted to go to Alaska with my mom and was looking for a full service tour that would give us a little of everything. We worked with Ted and he was very very helpful. He made flight arrangements for us to visit relatives in LA before the trip and basically took care of everything.
Everything went smoothly and was one of the best vacations I have ever had!!! I will definitely work with Ted again.

A big «Thanks» to Excel Travel for arranging our recent trip to Patagonia. The hotels and food were great. The trip proved to be a joy — seamless, well planned, an excellent adventure. My husband and I have enjoyed Excel’s services for 20 years as we traveled to Russia, China, Morocco, Vietnam, Cuba, Ireland, etc. They are now planning a trip for us to Norway.

I have been using Excel Travel for years and have booked several trips. I always use Mickey (never needed to work with anyone else) and she recommends the best resorts. My husband and I are huge foodies — we want quality not quantity and we are always on a strict budget. Mickey is extremely thorough and patient with us and gets us the best place at the best price. She just booked us again last week to a new place in Jamaica. Super excited! We like to explore new places and depend on her recommendations. We have loved all our vacations through Mickey. I have referred all my friends to her and now we all use her expertise.

I started using this travel agent because they used to donate round trip tickets to a nonprofit organization I’m involved with. I booked long trips w/​them w/​no problem, and my husband used them for our honeymoon. If you get Ted or Patty, they were very helpful.
But I don’t know what’s happened to them recently, if they are too busy or understaffed or what, but we tried to book a beach vacation over spring break and the travel agent who I never dealt with before, (Micky) was so incredibly rude and just kept telling me how last min. it was and then never got back to me. I even followed up and then nothing. If you can’t help me, at least be polite enough to say so so I can move on. Don’t lecture me and then not help me.
We decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and try to contact Ted directly this time since he helped us before and we didn’t hear back from him for a few days before that same awful travel agent contact us to say he was out of town. I kind of wish we got an automated response at least.
Fortunately we don’t use travel agents that often, but when we do we won’t be using these guys anymore.