Toureast

DO NOT BOOK WITH TOUR EAST THAILAND

This review is for the Thailand branch of the Tour East company, doing business as Tour East Thailand. We booked and prepaid in full ($370.96) for 4 seats on a dinner cruise (via Manohra Cruises) departing on December 26, 2023, in Bangkok, Thailand. We were provided four vouchers from Expedia to redeem on the boat and instructed to confirm attendance with the tour operator at least 24-hours in advance. We did so and received confirmation by email on December 22. The vouchers we were provided instructed us to meet at Sathorn Pier at 7:30 pm and that a Manohra Boat would arrive at 7:45 pm. We arrived at Sathorn Pier at 7:10 pm and waited until 7:50 pm, but the Manohra Boat never arrived. We then took a taxi to the Anantara Riverside Resort (listed on the vouchers as the service provider for the cruise) and arrived at 8:20 pm, only to find the boat was long gone. It wasn’t until then that we noticed the confirmation email we received on December 22 included completely different instructions: the meeting time, departure time, meeting place, and departure place had all been changed. Unfortunately, the vouchers were not changed and since we relied upon those instructions from Expedia, we missed the cruise. This is unfortunately a fraudulent and deceptive business practice. Changing important details about the trip and providing conflicting instructions is confusing and unacceptable. We repeatedly attempted to call the phone numbers provided by the tour operator, but one number provided by Tour East and Expedia ((66) 02 230 0405) never picked up and the other ((66) 02 256 0692 appeared to be out of service. Our taxi driver called the Anantara Hotel and spoke to someone who indicated the cruise had not departed, but when we arrived at the dock at about 8:20 pm, we were told that the boats departed from 7:00-9:00 pm and were done for the evening. This is an unacceptable level of customer service. Tour East Thailand ruined an evening on our holiday. We have complained to Tour East Thailand and Expedia, and shared copies of the vouchers and the email from Tour East Thailand showing completely different instructions and timing. Tour East Thailand believes the fact that they sent what turned out to be the correct instructions for finding the cruise absolves them of responsibility, refuses to admit they were at fault, even in part, and instead simply referred us to Expedia. Expedia was, predictably, less than helpful. The help center drone who responded (likely located in a call center somewhere in Bangalore) just emailed the tour operator, was told that they refused to refund our money because they weren’t at fault, said “that’s good enough for us” and replied that they consider the matter closed because they had exhausted their options. DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS TOUR COMPANY AND DO NOT USE EXPEDIA — THEY WILL RIP YOU OFF AND DARE YOU TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Tour East Thailand will take your money, not provide the service you purchased and then blame you for any problems with the transaction. Expedia will take the service provider’s explanation at face value, do no independent investigation (even when handed evidence that they and/or the service provider screwed up, as in this situation), and consider the complaint resolved. It is complete and utter nonsense.