Tripmasters

Solar Tours, Tripmasters are the same on-​line travel «service» agency. DO NOT USE THEM! They only do bookings or air, hotel and land tours but have NO INTEREST in helping you with arrangements that you want. The «coordinator» I was connected to was Marlyn Lopena. She was absolutely the WORSE! She did not answer my questions, each time she sent back a change, the price went up. She tried the bait-​and-​switch ploy by saying my land portion «went down today», the hotels were unacceptably cheap and dirty and the air fare was ridiculously high! So this went back and forth several times until her final quote was $ 2500 more than her last email! I was stupidly patient for a month until that last high quote for no valid reason. I wasted so much time, ended up booking my own air and hotels and had to pay premium air fare due to my wasted time with Trip Masters. I COULD ONLY IMAGINE HOW TERRIBLE MY HOTELS WOULD HAVE BEEN IF I WENT THROUGH THEM! CHECK OUT THEIR COMPLAINTS AT THE BBB. DO NOT USE THEM!

BEWARE OF TRIPMASTERS (aka Solar Tours)!!! Totally incompetent and fraudulent business with no customer service. We booked trip to Peru in Dec 2015 entirely through
(aka Solar Tours) and it was a horrible experience. The trip cost us a fortune which we paid all up front. They are quick to take your money but after that you will not be able to reach them, even when they make huge mistakes that cost us time, money and lots of stress during our trip…
From the beginning I should have known that this company was bad when they refused to do any business over the phone and said all questions, changes, etc to my itinerary had to be done by email. Then it takes them several days to respond to any email and usually responses come back incomplete and in broken english. When I tried calling to speak to a supervisor they always said one was not available.
In Peru we found out that Tripmasters had contracted out Condor Travel and Tours to provide all of our services, including booking hotels, car, train and air transportation, and guided tours. When we arrived in Cuzco from Los Angeles we could not find the guide who was supposed to be waiting for us. We had to wander around the airport and ask around before we finally found the guide who must have showed up late. Then later our guide in Machu Picchu was disappointing as his accent was difficult to understand and was so low energy that I would have rather read a guidebook.
On our way back to Cuzco from MP Tripmasters/​Solar Tours totally dropped the ball. We spent hours traveling by train, then met our guide who got us a uncomfortable taxi back to Cuzco. He jumped out of the cab about 20min into the 2 hour drive at night and said the non-​English speaking taxi driver knew where the hotel was in Cuzco and would take us there. When we finally arrived to Cuzco the driver asked in bad English is I knew where the hotel was. Of course I didn’t so I had to give her the address of the hotel from my confirmed travel voucher from Tripmasters. She seemed confused and made several calls before we finally convinced her to take us to the hotel we had confirmed. When we got to the hotel we found they did not have our reservation. I showed them the travel voucher which clearly stated we had reserved for and paid for a room in that hotel for 3 nights, but the hotel staff did not find anything. That began what was several angry hours calling and arguing with Tripmasters and Condor Travel on the phone in the hotel lobby. It turns out that Tripmasters had booked us at a different hotel, even though I had emails and a travel voucher confirming that I was booked in the hotel I had originally chosen. Condor Travel argued with me saying that I would have to go to the other hotel which I refused on principle and because it was a much cheaper hotel on the outskirts of town, far less than what we had paid for. I finally had to put my own credit card down and book us into the hotel that we had already paid hundreds of dollars for. It took three days of emails, calls and arguing before I finally convinced Tripmasters to pay for the hotel directly.
As if that wasn’t enough, at our very next stop in Puno, the private car we had booked with Tripmasters did not show. We waited in the dark empty train station before finally realizing they had abandoned us. We had to carry our heavy bags through dark unfamiliar streets to find a taxi and hope they didn’t take advantage of us to get us to the hotel. That was over a week ago and although Tripmasters admitted they had failed to deliver the transportation we paid them for, we still have not received a refund. When I call and email they keep saying they are working on it and will get back to me.
This company should not be in business. They do not do their job, they don’t look after their customers, and they have do not care about providing service. I emailed TravelZoo about our terrible experience in hopes they will stop posting their travel deals on their site. I’ve never had a worse experience with a company and if you don’t want to get ripped off and have added stress and frustration to your vacation then STAY AWAY FROM TRIMESTERS /​SOLAR TOURS.
BTW, if you go to the Solar Tours website it states they’ve changed their name officially to Tripmasters Inc, likely because of all the bad reviews they’re getting from angry customers.

There isn’t a venue to provide reviews to European Destinations (ED) on a venue like this, so I’m posting here. We’ve booked two trips through ED.
The first was our honeymoon in 2010. We visited London, Paris, and Rome. The trip cost about $ 3600, and it was outstanding. The flights, train tickets, and hotels were all prearranged and there were no surprises. My only criticism is when you book a trip early, they take your money immediately and don’t contact you again until you are weeks away from your trip. Unless you’ve traveled with ED before, you wonder if you’ve been scammed.
The second trip and the reason for this review is we recently booked an Xmas 2015 trip to Barcelona and Paris. Everything went smoothly until the Nov 13 Paris terrorist attacks. Given that we were traveling with a toddler, we decided to cancel our trip (~1 month before departure). We contacted ED and told them our intentions. They came back with a quote that stated we would be penalized ~$ 800 for our airline tickets. We were expecting a refund within 6 – 8 weeks. However we were shocked to find that ED refunded ALL of our money back, including the $ 800 penalty*.
*NOTE: We didn’t buy the travel insurance but did get refundable hotels. I don’t think normal travel insurance covers terror attacks anyway.

If i could give these low lives negative 5 stars I would. These incompetent people made unauthorized changes to my itinerary then refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing or issue a full refund of my fees.
It took them 3 months to respond to my attorney general complaint in choppy english where they basically called me a liar and denied anything happened despite the fact I filed a police report !!
They never responded to my lawsuit and didnt show up to court. Now I have to figure out how to get my judgment enforced because I know they wont pay me.
So if you want to book your vacation with a company who couldnt care less about legal compliance, protecting their customers or operating with even the slightest amount of integrity give these offshore crooks a call.
They also go by
Tripmasters
Latin destinations
European destinations

Immediately after purchase. No refund for medical emergency.
Booking Reference #: 633 117
My wife and I are now in debt after medical emergency and they won’t refund even though we purchase only a short time ago. It’s not like they don’t have enough time to resell the package.

Vacation was fabulous. Condor travel in Peru and Belmar in Brazil were first class. The agents were always there on time for transfers, with first class transportation. Our hotels and staff at hotels were 5 star all the way. We only stayed at Belmonds and JW Marriotts. The people were so accommodating. My issue was with TripMaster. I will never use your company again, or recommend to my friends. The local agents in the United States were not at all helpful. We wanted to add another person to our group of 4. Once you collected our $ 14,000 plus, the agents did not help. Phone calls took days to be returned, or were never returned. Occasionally an email was sent, not at all helpful. Your company has terrible customer service, once fees are paid. Rochelle was our agent in DC. She did not try to help us once she collected her commission. We wanted to add a 5^th person after a family tragedy. But was not able to do because your agents wouldn’t help us. We could not change anything on our own, due to booking with you. I would never recommend your company due to extremely poor customer service.

RUN away from this company and its secondary company Tripmasters, com I booked a trip to Europe with them and have had nothing but problems The airline they offered me is split between two different airlines one being Belgium Airlines (which reviews are horrid) I cant check in to my international flight in my home city cause they don’t have a desk there I have to fly United who partners with them out of home city to Washington. I have an hour to deboard plane and check in to a international flight which cant be done. Not enough time. Solar tours sets up the connections Not me. When calling to change flight to Washington they said I had to pay $ 350 for their screw up of offering an airline that doesn’t exist in my town (which happens to be the number one airport for visitors) They have customer service help over seas. Static lines and heavy accents which are hard to understand. When I asked for supervisor I got run around. I will take legal action if need be but I highly recommend staying away from this company. No matter how good their deals are. They take your money, book you on wrong flights and you are screwed! NOT to mention they are out of MD and I just had fraud on my account after I purchased the trip. Fraud was out of MD Says a lot about this company

Be careful when you book tours with this company. They operate several websites, such as
Check their online reputations on these before you send the money. That is the mistake I made. I found out after I made the payment in Feb. Called them to cancel. They first quoted ~$ 600 cancellation fees (due to airline fee), and then delayed my cancellation, raised the cancellation fee to more than $ 1,800. They said that’s the fee they paid for non-​refundable tickets. But when I asked them to show me the airline confirmation ticket #, they didn’t exist with the airlines. They couldn’t show me the proof that they incurred these fees either.
I am filing complains with BBB. Also, plan to go to small claim court if it doesn’t get resolved.

In May 1, 2014 my wife and I made reservations with Solar Tours to visit Rome, Florence and Milan which included Hotels, Train Tickets and Transportation to and from Train Stations. The trip was acceptable and the hotels not the best but acceptable. On the way back from Milan to Rome I found out that they booked us with 2 hours stop in Florence.
I found out that we can go to Rome without laying over in Florence so I called the Solar Tour agent and was told to go to the Train Station and have the tickets stamped NOT USED and I book my direct route to Rome and this I did so that I will mail back the unused tickets to Solar to get refunds. In Rome we were astonished how could Solar Tours book us in Taormina Hotel that didn’t have a Lobby and it was just horrible and the scary characters we saw really scared us. We didn’t check in and immediately I booked and paid extra at Hotel Napoleon. Upon our return I wrote to Solar Tours attention Ms. Gloria Garces at 5361 Partners Court, Fredrick, Maryland 21 703, via Fedex. I followed up by calling every few weeks to know the status of our refund but no luck as I was talking to someone in Filipino. Finally I decide writing on October 2, 2014 requesting refund by USPS and checked my letter was delivered on October 9, 2014, 12:19 PM.
I have one last option to sue them in small claims court and write to TV stations so that others will not deal with this company.
Voltaire E Warda
Millbrae, CA 94 030
Best regards
Sincerely,
Voltaire E Warda
Millbrae, CA 94 030
650−868−7627 (Cell)
650−652−4743 (Fax)

SCAM!!! I’ve traveled with versions of Solar Tours (e.g. Europeandestinations, latindestinations etc.) for 10 years. Each time I buy «cancel anytime and for any reason» insurance. There was a military coups in Thailand so (obviously) I’m less than inclined to go. Of course I’m now having problems getting my $ 3,900 for the flight returned. I’m a lawyer so I’m going to sue the hell out of them, but I will also NEVER use them AGAIN! Orbits and Expedia have great international travel options. Go with them. Solar Tours is a RIP OFF!!!

A few years ago I found
and from there I started to think about my 1^st trip overseas, what did I want to do, where did I want to go.
Well after figuring all that out, I starting planning my trip and in the process learned that Solar Tours works under European destinations or is European destinations, but either way it didn’t matter to me, everyone I spoke to was so friendly and helpful yes most information is on the website but so is their phone number and if you have questions call them, that’s what I did.
I completely finished booking my package last November, I was going on a tour of London, Paris and Dublin, the package included hotels, international flights, Eurostar tickets, other flights needed and whatever else you could think of. I received all my paperwork for the trip within a few days from final payment.
Time for the trip came and everything was flawless, each hotel had my reservations, my flights were great, even with Eurostar, just flawless!
I would highly recommend them to everyone and wouldn’t mind using them again.

We made reservations to Costa Rica this winter through Latin Destinations. Be careful as to what they promise and send to you. In Arenal volcano area, we had booked 3 cottages for 2 nights in a nice spa and we got our confirmation and vouchers for it. But they had booked us for only one night. We had gone out sight seeing and came back in the night to see that our rooms were no longer ours and we were stuck with no place to go as it was the Christmas vacation. Calling them did not help. After 5 hours of trying to find alternate accomodations, finally the hotel was kind enough to get a small spare room for us to spend the night.
Although Latin Destinations promised us compensation for this, after making numerous calls, Latin Destinations and their parent company Solar tours still have not got back to us. Their customer service is poor and they always say that they will get back to us within 48 hours and never do. We lost a lot of money because of them.
Based on our experience, we will never use them again. Avoid using them if you want a hassle free vacation.
Ramesh krishnan

A friend and I booked a trip through Travezoo to: Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. Travelzoo’s three country deal included Solar Tours as their tour/​travel agency.
Everything went relatively well with drivers and tours until our flight home from Budapest was cancelled.
We received a note at our Budapest hotel that there was a problem in the Budapest airport. I called Solar Tours to see if our flight was still happening and if we should still wait for the driver that we paid for in the morning. The travel agent assured me that the flight was not cancelled and that we should wait for the driver.
The next morning at 3 Am we waited about a half hour for our driver and he never showed up.
I called Solar Tours and they said that the driver did not show up because the airport was closed, and that if we need to call a taxi, we will be reimbursed for it.
We called a taxi, got to the airport and waited in line for new rescheduled plane tickets. All of the flights had been cancelled up until 7 AM. There had been an electrical fire the previous night.
After submitting a claim for the cost of the driver, we were denied by Solar Tours.
They said that it was not their fault that the driver didn’t show, it was the airlines fault. They told us to call our travel insurance for reimbursement.
I was also charged for the multiple international calls back and forth that I had to make to Solar Tours. They had me on hold for each call.
If they hadn’t lied about sending a driver the previous night, I could have saved money on that second call.
I don’t recommend this company! They blame their mistakes on other people.

** did update their biz info — but in case it’s not updated by Unilocal.the site is
***
We’ve had very good experiences with Solar Tours for the past 2 years.
They specialize in wholesale travel packages (buy large quantities of travel services so they can sell at lower than market price) — their prices are very competitive. Deal sites like
scour sites like solar tours to find their deals. ST services Asia, Latin America, Caribbean, and Europe.
We love how flexible and easy they make the whole planning process.
You can go through their website or talk to them on the phone –
just enter the destination (s) you want to go to and they’ll populate several choices for you. If those don’t fit your needs, you can customize. Not sure if they have an in person office (doesn’t seem like it).
We’ve typically made little tweaks to their packages — e.g. add /​minus a few days here and there. Their suggestions are really good and they typically give you 4 – 5 choices of airlines, hotels and transportation means. You can arrange land tours as well — we did not since you can get better deals on the ground (esp last minute ones). They also have tons of itineraries for your researching pleasure.
We’ve been to Spain and Costa Rica for the Christmas seasons, and have had positive experiences. The hotels are as advertised and cheaper than what we could’ve gotten via priceline

etc etc. Airfare is definitely very cheap with very reputable companies (for Spain, we flew Swiss Air and for Costa Rica, we flew United — and we were able to claim flight points). Spain trip was less than 3K for 2 people for 6 days in Madrid and Barcelona (RT airfare and hotels). For the time we went, plane tickets cost about 1.2−1.3K pp RT on other sites we looked at. Costa Rica was just a touch more but it also included more areas, more days, more hotels, and a 4×4 rav4 that we drove around.
If you run into any trouble while on your trip, you can contact them OR they have out of state travel contacts which will guide you, as needed.
Very recommended for any kind of travelling … backpackers, couples, families … !!