TravelByJen.com
Reviews and Complaints

Company lies about usage and fees at the hotel. They stated we could stay here on our check out day and enjoy the day and booked on us a later flight. Come to find out you cannot stay at the resort unless you pay 100 additional dollars per person. This business is a scam and not professional when it comes to being truthful about the devices provided. There is no support when calling and no one helps. Had to ask for travel documents multiple times until it was received.

We booked a vacation for 4 adults to Costa Rica in April 2020. Travel was to be in the fall of 2020. That’s when we were forced to cancel due to Covid. At that time we were given a “credit”. We live in Canada and were unable to travel out of the country until November 2021. We then attempted to book a trip on the spring of 2022 but could not find anything that fit our dates. Now Jan 2023 I tried to use our credit for $ 1,300.00 but was told that it had expired. We are now out $1,300. Thank you Travel by Jen. I hope you enjoy spending our money.

Also the customer service department should have someone working there that understands people’s needs and frustration.

Completely ruined our vacation. Our travel agent did not notify us of our change in departure flight, so we came to the airport at 4m for no reason. (Well, I guess it was practice for the next day / morning flight). I talked to the supervisor, and she said that flight changed, and we should automatically be sent an email to let us know.. Neither me nor my SO received any sort of email from jet set or Spirit. We checked spam folders, everything, and nothing was there. Regardless, I would expect a phone call to notify us... that would take 2 minutes, maximum, and good "customer services".

Screw up #2: when we got off our inital flight to go to our connecting flight the following day, we were told the plane already departed... So, we had to geta hotel in Floriday and get a flight the next day (that's another unexpected $200 expense for food, shelter, and taxi). When we finally get to out all-inclusive hotel at the DR, the front desk has us down for a different room (1 full bed), when we were told 1 King) than what we booked. Our travel agent was emailing my SO the whole time, so we assumed it would be sent to her, yet again, nothing. We had to call the travel agency and have them email our real reservation. To top that off, we had to pay an extra $160 for the day we "missed" / due to travel agency's fault. Absolute disaster that lingered with us the whole vacation. ... As you can see where this is going, there is no need for this travel agency. My SO and I wound up doing the majority of the work ourselves. Our 2k vacation turned in to a 3k vacation just like that. I feel like I just wasted my years' worth of vacation time, constantly stressing to make sure everything was set.

TBJ, some advice; tell you agents to call its consumers to make sure they have everything they need or have any questions. It is a lot quicker and easier to understand over the phone rather than email ever other day.

I was originally booked a package through Travel by Jen in January 2021. However due to our schedule changed we can't go. Even though it was said clearly the package can be FULLY refunded/credited. It is NOT.

The moment I booked my package with Travel by Jen, our travel date was actually 8 months later in August 2021. I got an eDocument asking me to sign it and asked for my credit card info. I called them and asked and was told in order for my reservation to be booked, I have to sign the eDoc. Then I read through the document, it listed the full package amount asking me to pay. Even though when I booked the package it said clearly I didn't need to pay the land part until June. I emailed them back and asked, and quickly they revised the document and still asked me to sign it. After read through the detailed footnotes, I didn't sign the document. And as I expected, my reservation was booked without any problems. This decision was a great saver for me later.

I thought everything should be fairly straight forward. Since our plan change due to the kids' summer schedule. and I was only charged for the air tickets. After I canceled my reservation I did see my credit of $1870 which is less $25 from my originally booked amount. It's probably a booking agent fee. And I was told this credit is all mine and I can use them anytime.

Here comes the surprising part when I was trying to USE my airline credit. I contacted the airline and was told I can't use it because the third party agency won't release my credit. Then I called the agency again and was told I have to pay $50 per ticket which is $200 for my case in order for me to use the airline credit. I asked the agent who's charging me the fees and was told Travel by Jen. In another word, they use this trick to grab $200 from me. This is their so called FULLY CREDITED? Such a scam. I'm not going to use any of these agencies in the future.

When you call these ppl are so rude and have no decor, no manners, taLk to you like your not the customer. I booked a trip to Mexico and lori Susie my excursion agent lied to me about the info for an excursion that was 100. Then while I learned about it while in Mexico and I kept trying to get in contact she does not reply. So I just cancel wiTh the resort book another excursion on my 5 day stay and when I got baCk I called/ said I would get the refund in 2-3 business days. Three weeks past no returned. I called again, the agent was so rude aNd nasty to me. Never again and I'm reporting this to the BBB bc I still don't have my refund! Liars!) my friend said she used them and they did the exact same thing when she went to Costa Rica

Horrible agent and service, you don't want to use them if truly want a delightful vacation. They are not an honest business, they make penalty fees on the customer by selling the fraud packages which they can deliver the whole package.

We purchased their all-inclusive packages to Los Cabos for July 4th including flight, shuttle, and all-inclusive hotel. After 3 months, we paid in full on our trip, they tell us the airline has canceled their direct flight, need to put us on a 12 hrs transfer flight from LA to Los Cabos. You kidding me! We have toddlers and seniors on our travel group certainly can't handle this new travel schedule they force us to take. So we request a full refund, they said we need to file cancelation with the airline directly on our own and hotel has a penalty of $100 for each passenger. We called over 10 times waited for 1hr for each time to the airline, after 5 months, we still haven't got the refund from the airline. Travel by Jen is nor responsible for their customers at all. And they make our penalty money when the trip is canceled not due to customer's fault. They make you sign all the documents which state they are not responsible for 3rd party and the trip you paid is not refundable. This is totally a fraud business model.

Their business sells the travel package which they can't even deliver and claim this non-refundable either use it or not. This is a joke then. Anyone can put up the package with non refundable term together to fraud customer by saying that they are not liable for what they sold.

I booked a trip with "travel by Jen" to the Dominican Republic in February, to depart in October. The travel agent, Dana Cardona, set me up with airfare, travel from the airport to and from the resort, a five night resort stay, and insurance on the trip. In about May, I recieved an email informing me that the first flight had been changed. I never received another email from her, so we planned to leave the airport at 9, instead of 10. We arrived at the airport at 6:10 am, to make sure we had time to get through security and what not. (Neither my fiancee or I have taken a vacation like this, so we didn't know how long it would take.) Any case, we went to get our boarding pass, and it told us we were too late to check in for that flight. Turns out, our trip had changed again at some point in time, and the flight had left at 6:05. Delta was wonderful, and put us on new flights with no hesitation. We were quite frustrated at this point, with the travel agency for never even informing us of this change, and now we were going to end up in the Dominican 2 hours later than we were supposed to. As soon as we got through security and were waiting for a flight we called them. They were not open, but we left a message with the extension we had for Dana, which was now Kin Guillen, explainging that for some reason we never received communication about a change in the flight, and that we would be in the Dominican at least 2 hours later than scheduled, so make sure the taxi service knows this. We didn't hear back from them all day. I received an email from Kin at 4:59 (at which point we were still in the air, so I didn't get it til we landed), askling if everything worked out ok? We landed at 6:30, and called right away, wondering where our taxi service was. No answer, but we left a message and a Matthew called us back in about 10 minutes - (mind you we are now on international roaming). He said they sent someone at 4, when we were supposed to be there, and it wasn't their fault. We could either take a taxi or wait two hours for someone from their service to pick us up, and it is a two hour drive from the airport to the resort. Ask how much a taxi is--- $85! After a half hour of arguing, they agreed to refund only the amount I paid in the original agreement. Which, yes, i'd of agreed too, if they had met any kind of stipulation a travel agency with an agent out on "medical leave", would do! (And yes, by this point, they claimed Dana was out on medical leave, and was not fired, even though her extension was owned by someone else...) They still have yet to admit that they did anything wrong, looking to blame Delta or the taxi co for the problems htey made. They have yet to make me feel like a semi-important customer, let alone an important one-- but rather they made me feel like I was the person responsible for causing all the problems, when they could have at ANY POINT IN TIME betweeen August and October informed me that the original travel agent was out on "medical leave" or that MY FLIGHT WAS CHANGED. These are horrendous people to deal with. Do NOT EVER TRY to work with them. I still have YET TO SEE A REFUND OF ANY SORT, and it's been 6 days.

This is a letter I just sent Groupon concerning Travel by Jen-

Hello Groupon,

I just wanted to write and let you know about my recent experience with a travel agency I found on Groupon called Travel By Jen. My husband and I purchased a trip to Costa Rica via groupon by Travel by Jen. We called the number on the groupon and ended up purchasing the trip over the phone so I never received any sort of actual groupon for the trip. However, the trip was called Groupon 88: Costa Rica Volcano and Beach Getaway with Canopy Tour, Car and Air.

The day my husband and I called to book the trip was great! The woman we spoke with, Sasha, was very polite and answered all our questions and was wonderful. She then charged my card for the trip cost and that was the end of any and all customer service. Dealing with this company after the initial phone call was an absolute nightmare. They do not answer their phone after that first call. I don't know how they know but they somehow know not to bother with a caller who's already paid them. They absolutely will not return voicemails. The only way we could get any response from Sasha was to send her an email and days later when we got a response, she would only answer the questions she wanted to answer and didn't acknowledge the rest.

The day my husband and I booked the trip we were told we had 24 hours to make any changes to our reservation. A few hours after hanging up the phone we decided we wanted to change our return flight to another airport...another airport in another country...so a big change. Within 12 hours after we booked our trip we called Sasha. And called Sasha. And called Sasha. To no avail we called Sasha. We couldn't get anyone to answer the phone nor return our voice messages. FINALLY Sasha calls us back and says we will have to pay around 500 additional dollars per ticket to change our return flight. I reminded Sasha that she told us we could make changes within 24 hours. At that point it had been more than 24 hours because we couldn't get anyone on the phone to talk to us. I told her this. Which she already knew of course. You'd think she would apologize to a paying customer for her mistake and laziness yet instead all she said was that she would check with the airlines and see if there was anything she could do. 3 days or so later, we finally got her on the phone again and she informed us that it would be an additional 400 dollars per ticket to change our return flight and that was that. No apology for not being able to adequately do her job. Nothing. So, this meant that my husband and I had to make our way back to Costa Rica from Panama to fly back home. Which was a lot of time and effort. But what was done was done.

So, the day before we leave I decide to email Sasha with a question about our canopy tour- the one that is included in our groupon. I noticed in my travel documents that it says canopy tour however there are no other details. Of course Sasha doesn't get back to me for 4 days.

In the mean time, we arrive at our first hotel in Arenal and I ask the front desk if they have a canopy tour scheduled for us. They have no idea what I'm talking about. So again I email Sasha. No reply.

By the time we get to our second hotel in Manuel Antonio 3 nights later, she finally replies and informs me that she will do what she can to set up a canopy tour for us however we were suppose to go on the tour in Arenal. I told her that I asked the front desk in Arenal about said tour however they had zero information on it...because she had never set it up. She then told me that if I was so concerned about it then why didn't I get the front desk to call their local travel agency partner there about it. Really? Not only did I not even have any information for this supposed local agency out there, but it is not my job to track down someone to plan a tour that I already paid someone else to plan for me. That was HER job. That is what I paid a lot of money for THEM to do. I am on vacation. I am not going to waste my time tracking unknown people down via unknown numbers. But Once again, no apology from Sasha. Not her problem.

So finally by the last afternoon we are there-we were there 4 days and 3 nights- she emails me and says that the local travel agent will be calling us at our hotel to set up the canopy tour. Calling us when? I don't know. Just anytime. Whenever. So you know what that means? That means in order to catch this persons call we would have to sit by our hotel phone until this person decided to call. The first time she called we missed her bc we went and got lunch at the hotel bar. Did she leave any sort or message with a phone number? Or course not. All she said was that she would call back. Well, it was our last day there so I wasn't about to waste my hard earned vacation sitting in my room waiting for a call from someone who was clearly as inept as Sasha. I sent Sasha one last email asking her WHY this woman was calling me at my hotel instead of emailing me being that was the mode of communication that I had been using to communicate with Sasha the entire time and the only mode that made any sense other than directly calling me. Once again, zero reply from Sasha.

So we never got to do the canopy tour that was included in the package we paid for and Sasha made sure to let me know it wasn't possible to reimburse us for that cost. With no apology, of course.

After getting home I googled Travel By Jen and read all the terrible reviews. Day late and a dollar short right. That was my mistake. One that I will never make again.

We also met a group of ten or so people from Chattanooga while we were there who had also purchased the same groupon from Travel By Jen and who also had a nightmare of a time with them. They worked with Samantha. However they actually got in touch with Samantha while they were there via telephone and got her to give them the information for their canopy tour...bc it was of course not set up like it was suppose to be when they arrived.

So all this is to say, it would be my opinion that Groupon is way too good of a company to work with these incompetent people. And when I say iincompetent I mean a complete idiot could do the quality job they did. I did all the math myself after I booked this trip as well. They boasted a $400 or 40% savings. Don't ask me where they got that number bc after doing the math which included the same flight, car, and hotel, it was a $20 difference. So clearly a $20 savings is no where NEAR a savings worth having to deal with these people. They want your money and that's it. They have zero pride in their job and have probably never heard of customer service. Which is kind of a big deal when it comes to being a travel agent.

So, that's about it. Thank you Groupon for being the type of company that strives to be better than just the bare minimum. Companies like Travel by Jen make me appreciate the quality ones just that much more.

Sincerely,

Summer B

I booked a vacation with travelbyjen.com and they quoted me one price. One that I confirmed on a couple different phone calls before booking 2 months before my trip. I never received any confirmation materials before departing to Costa Rica. Didn't get the vouchers and itinerary until arriving at the airport. It wasn't until near the end of the trip that I realized they never booked my last transfer. After waiting for this to be fixed I get an added charge of over $200 to my credit card after the trip. This was their mistake that they failed to fix. They have been passing me around to different agents for months to fix, but still haven't. I have worked in customer service so I can't understand how a company in a service industry can be so unprofessional and about righting a wrong. If I was told the price by the agent when they were "fixing" it while we were in Costa Rica, I would have just taken a local option for the transfer. I travel a lot and was comparing agencies based on price. This one came up lower because their mistake which they came back and tacked a charge on for later. I urge you to avoid this agency if possible and go with one that is more professional. If you're just booking based on price, you'll end up owing more in the long run. Still waiting.