Allied International of San Francisco

A three bedroom house moving 1304 miles, they quoted me $ 10,000. Take that quote and shove it up your!!!

We hired Allied for a logistically complicated move: a third of our items went overseas (which Allied had to pack for us for customs reasons), a third went across the U.S. for storage (we packed it ourselves), and we donated a third. The international items and the domestic items had to ship at different times, months apart. Worse, it was difficult for us to know up until the last minute just which items were going where. Bill Ottenweiler was a fabulous resource throughout the move. He seemed to understand as well as we did what we wanted from them and helped us make decisions in a way that I believe was in our best interest and not just the more expensive choice. I also appreciated that he was willing to work with us through weeks of uncertainty.
Also, the price was fair. Bill even saved us many hundreds of dollars by offering to use their warehouse instead of paid storage for a short period of time, even though by that time I was pretty committed to going with Allied. The packers were efficient and quick. Only 2 things were damaged — all my shoes weren’t packed with anything inside them and got crushed, which is a bummer, and the frame of one painting got cracked. We had a lot of stuff, though, and everything else arrived at both locations in good shape. They even helped pack some of the items that we were supposed to have packed ourselves when it didn’t look like we’d done the best job.
There was some confusion when the storage items arrived in their storage location in another state — the partner of Allied who actually drove the truck to its destination initially asked for like $ 700 or so extra above what we had contracted for. One call to Bill, though, and we were reassured that the shipment would be unloaded as planned and that all had been paid in full.
The shipment also arrived at our international location within the time range we had been promised.
Moving is stressful. My experience with Allied wasn’t perfect. But I was asking for a lot – (1) very complicated logistics (2) using multiple Allied partners (both domestic and international) (3) on a difficult time frame and (4) at a relatively low price. I’m giving Allied five stars because I don’t think I could have gotten more and stayed within my price range. If you’re moving internationally, though, make sure to ask for Bill.

in the first week of my new job, my boss charged me with coordinating her relocation from san francisco to NYC. she had run into problems with the moving company she was using and needed to sort out a replacement asap. allied to the rescue! they took care of everything over the phone and via email (key because i am 3 hours ahead of them and was moving a whole house’s worth of stuff for a woman that i have only known for a week). the kind folks at allied hooked it up and my boss was thrilled with affiliate in NYC who did the labor. thanks for saving my job guys.