Road Scholar

Don't buy. Road Scholar cancelled our trip, but refused to pay for our airline tickets, even though we had "cancel for any reason" Insurance. Road Scholar claim that since they cancelled the program, they can also cancel the insurance. Note too, if you purchase and need to cancel, you don't get your money back, only a voucher for future travel.

This is the worst tour company that you could possibly consider - if I could give them less than 1 Star I would - have you ever worked with someone that was so stupid that Road Scholar made stupid look smart well Road $#*! fits the bill. They don't return calls - they don't return emails, they do nothing - I am out over $1,000 because they are incompetent - after many many many phone calls Brandy said she was just reviewing my complaint and was just going to call me to tell me that that did't do a thing and she would call me back after 2 months. But she played the death in the family card - that should give her what 2 weeks - ok what about the two months - if you were screwed out of $1,100.00 because Road Scholar booked your flights advised you to cancel because they was no way the Safari was going to happen. Then you get charged $1,100.00 for flights that were unable to fly. But that's my fault because Road Scholar told me to cancel flights before they were canceled. $#*!ING IDIOTS.

My wife and I were scheduled to take a Road Scholar trip departing on March 14 to Israel. This was the time Covid 19 was breaking out all over the world. Since my wife and I were of an age where medical authorities were warning against travel, we decided to cancel the trip on March 5. We thought by that time Road Scholar would have canceled the trip as there were clear indications that Israel was going to close its borders. When I spoke with RS, I was told because it was so close to the start of the trip I could expect no refund but that I had purchased Trip Insurance and should file a claim. We did this and after 6 weeks were told that their trip insurance did not cover Covid 19 but that RS would provide a credit for future travel and I would receive a letter confirming that within a week. Three weeks later after hearing nothing I called RS. I discovered that Road Scholar did indeed cancel the trip as of the 9th of March and that all people still registered received a full refund but because I cancelled 4 days prior I could not receive a refund. I was told I would still get a credit for future travel and that would arrive shortly. It is now June 3 and I still have not heard anything from RS. While I realize Covid19 has been very difficult for travel companies, its now 3 months since I cancelled and I have not heard a word from RS. Frankly I am very disappointed given there reputation. If indeed I ever receive a credit (which at this point I not confident I will) I would be hesitant to use it given my experience with this booking. Buyer beware!

We just had a program (Croatia, coastal voyage, May 5-17,2022) cancelled - and are trying to move to the same trip at a different date. I wish there was a way to "transfer" funds from a cancelled trip to a newly booked trip. Instead, I've just paid an "extra" deposit and am hoping to have things taken care of when the call I placed (2-1/2 hour wait, but I understand that) is returned. We love Road Scholar and appreciate all that you do and all the hassles of this crazy time, but more flexibility in your website would be appreciated.

1. Allow customers to filter out trips with grandchildren. In the search I just did, half the trips were for grand parents only. A real nuisance. (This should be an easy IT fix.)

2. When a customer searches for a trip, both AVAILABLE and SOLD OUT are shown. Please just show trips that are available.

3. In the page for each trip, there's a tab for "Travel Arrangements" or similar name. For those many of us who arrange our transportation ourselves, it would be VERY HELPFUL if the closest airport were always shown along with APPROXIMATE cab or shuttle fare.

Recently we were asked to change the dates of an upcoming trip to Croatia/Slovenia due to low enrollment. The Travel Change Team and Travel Arrangements Team quickly made the needed changes and kept us fully communicated via emails during this process. I was particularly impressed with the flight schedule which was customized to our requests. Thank you Road Scholar!

I entered my phone number in the form requesting to be on the waiting list but got a message that I entered in the wrong format. However, I could not determine what the correct format was after it was entered "incorrectly". I found the website very slow to respond and had to try many times to get enrolled, even though my roommate had indicated that we were sharing a room.

I booked my very first trip with Road Scholar. Before booking my flight, I was told by Road Scholar that Road Scholar would transport me from the hotel at the end of my program to the airport in time for my flight. The program ends in a location that is almost 4 hours from the nearest airport. I called to confirm my travel plans and was told the Road Scholar transportation arrives AFTER all flights to the east coast have left. When I tried to find a solution to this issue, I was hung up on twice and NO ONE could offer any solution. There is NO transportation from the hotel which is in the middle of no where to the airport in time for ANY east coast flights unless I take a 600 taxi! I was forced to cancel my trip and they kept 200.00 of my money. I am a widow and this was my first experience with Road Scholar. Not customer friendly. Not helpful, but glad to keep my money. Very sad.

Booked a Safari Sept 2020 - Road Scholar could not tell me in July if Road Scholar were going or not, flights not flying, 14 day quarantine in Kenya? Booked British Airways through Road Scholar $4,000 lost $1,700 on flight. They were no help "oops" can't help you. Rebooked Safari to 2021 for 6 people after everything was guaranteed I was sent letter that I was 2nd on waiting list. No wonder they are non profit - because of poor service they couldn't make a profit

This has been the worst business transaction and I will file it under two words "Unethical" and "Extortion"
I have been trying to cancel a trip to the Netherlands in the Fall of 2020 since March 2020. I have emailed them and Road Scholar respond acknowledging what I want to do and advise that I call them. I call them and they do not answer and there is NO OPTION to leave a voicemail. They have the gall to send me an invoice in June to pay the balance of the trip! This organization needs to be investigated. 1) We currently cannot travel to Europe due to Covid-19,2) I gave more than four months notice of my desire to cancel. 2) They refuse to give back the $250 payment I made AND want me to pay for the trip in full by July 2! Road Scholar NO MORE!

It's been three months since my RS bike trip from Deggendorf to Vienna. The dust has settled, I've cleaned the mud from my clothes, and now I can evaluate the trip in a more objective manner.

I guess I should start by asking this question: would I do it again? I would love to say yes, but knowing what I know now the answer is a likely no.

I made my own travel arrangements and spent a few days in Munich and the immediate area before going to the Gasthaus in Deggendorf. That was all good. Bavaria is lovely and clean and the people are friendly and seem happy.

Upon arriving in Deggendorf I was told I must provide my own helmet. That was the first I'd heard about that. Seems I didn't get a vital information packet. This necessitated a frantic taxi ride into town (at my own expense) to a bike shop. Luckily I bought one and made it back in time for an orientation ride. After that things settled down and a nice meal was had an I got to meet my fellow travelers.

The bikes Road Scholar provided aren't my style. They are heavy, slow, and the saddles are catch as catch can. Some good, some not. There was a lot of grumbling about the saddles. Mine on the other hand worked fine for me. Didn't make up for the helmet mess, but one has to move on.

The actual biking, the lovely scenery, the food and beer were all great. Our group leader was quite good at her job. She may have been one of the best things about IBT, the outfit that RS contracted for the cycling part of the trip.

The educational aspect was less interesting than I expected. Churches, cathedrals, monasteries, a concentration camp. What more can you say?

I had a couple of good evening adventures where I went out with a couple of people to hear music and stroll around. Drank too much beer.

But there's not much one can do about the weather. We had some dreadful, chilly rainstorms with strong headwinds. The last two days in Vienna were total washouts. But, to be fair, we had some glorious days as well. Some of the vistas and villages delightful. We all had a very good time and lots of laughs.

But, here's the rub. You can't choose your fellow travelers. Some of the personalities were right out of a Hunter S. Thompson story. Autistic New Yorkers. Cancer survivors frantically trying to pack it all in before the end comes. One domestic abuse survivor who was like a life force sucking vampire. Lovely woman, but eegads, could she drone on! A 95 old man who road an ebike and was a true miracle of nature. And then we had Canadians. Three couples. I have nothing bad to say about them. Very nice people.

Which brings me to my one, very subjective observation. You might think that after two weeks together one or two friendships might be formed. But no. That's not why they come on these trips. They come to get away from something, to be distracted, to have a long party. When it's over, it's over. The RS veterans all knew the score -- once we said goodbye there would be no emails, no follow-ups, no promises to stay in touch. I think it may have something to do with being over 60 and facing one's mortality. No time for that. Once I returned home and the reality dawned on me, I felt a bit sad. This was a shared experience, but then again it wasn't.

And that is why I won't do another RS trip. I'd rather go on a trip where there are some younger people with a different energy. It's too much money to shell out to return home depressed.

Generally, the site if easy to use. The main problem I encountered is that a trip that showed "Limited availability," was, in fact, sold out. I encountered this on several attempts to book on the same trip and date.

Also, it would be helpful to know the cost of the insurance protection before I paid for the trip. The cost factored into my decision on whether to book the trip.

Finally, I wanted to print the collapsed list of days and locations on the trip. But I was only able to print the expanded list of trip activities, which was a lot longer and used more paper than I wanted.

Dishonest. Others have ranked Road Scholar as poorly as I have. My partner and I were initially placed on the waiting list for a trip to coastal Maine. To hold our place we needed to make a $200 deposit. Not being told that we were accepted for the trip, we made other arrangements. Only yesterday, when I phoned Road Scholar to cancel the reservations did I learn that we had been accepted for the trip. I was told Road Scholar would notify me later of the change. But they forfeited the $200 with alacrity.

I have had an account with Road Scholar since 2013. The email was *******@earthlink.net. I tried to log on to my account with that email but received a message that the system had changed, and to enter my email and a link would be sent to me so that my password could be reset. Because of my spam blocker, I would not receive that email until this evening. Then I tried to call in and was placed on the "hold" que. When the call was returned I was in a place where I was unable to take the call. I tried again, and held for an hour. I almost gave up with RS but my travel buddy had enrolled in our trip and was depending on me. I finally opened a new account with a different email address and did enroll in the program in Oregon. Road Scholar does not have my travel history with this new account. I would like to reconcile the two accounts but I am not going to spend time on hold for that. I would like RS to call me when possible to straighten this out and get my RS account associated with my original email.

Road Scholar is the most "deaf" organization I've ever dealt with. First, Road Scholar never think of the customer, just their bottom line. All rules are to their benefit. I cancelled a trip almost 1 year in advance and they could only say, you agreed to lose your $1200, too bad. How about referring your friends or giving us a donation? Also, provide us all your friends & families emails so we can bombard them as well. I'm so done with this company/non-profit. Buyer Beware!

I have already enrolled along with my husband starting afternoon of Sept. 30th. I bought and paid for the "cancel for any reason insurance". Which I thought refunds the whole amount of the trip if I cannot make it, not gives a credit for another trip. My husband has cancelled but I am looking forward to the trip and will travel alone. The email which I have called about and questioned, says I don't have the insurance. As to the website, I cannot put my picture in, I also have been unable to go on the message board to say hello to my group. I wanted to chat with them to make sure that I was physically capable of doing the trip. Third, I have tried to put in health information about mobility and cannot get it put in. I am good for walking some miles but cannot do a fast five mile hike anymore. Fourth, I could not get information in about food and called and had to have the representative put it in as I could not, the site stayed locked. Fifth, I had expected my airfare to be settled for the program before the cancellation date without penalty because I have no idea how much airfare will cost me. I have been told you are busy but I need to know how much the whole trip costs and thought I should have that information before I passed the no cancellation penalty part so I could see how much the whole trip costs and make sure it is affordable. I do not have the road scholar catalogue in front of me and have to rely on the description of the representatives that I have talked with who have been very nice but gave one gave me wrong information when my husband decided to cancel.
I am looking forward to this trip but am finding Road Scholar to be a bit disorganized. I received an email about airline itinerary but it did not carry any information about flights in it so I called and spoke to yet another representative who tells me you are all very busy. I understand that but I need to know what is the expense for airfare. I hope my experience of questionable service for website and airfare is temporary and look forward to having a wonderful trip.

We recently traveled to Madeira for a medium rated activity level trip. Our guide was fantastic, providing enthusiastic and knowledgable information about the natural features and flora of the region as well as sociological and political contexts of present day life on the island.

Unfortunately, my wife became ill the morning of our scheduled return flight to Lisbon, from where we were to make connections to fly home (U.S.). Our guide was extremely helpful and communicative regarding our circumstances, but the process he was instructed to use to support us in this situation was seriously flawed.

He gave us an 8 page Road Scholar instruction sheet outlining the process by which we would be covered for expenses of our delayed and rebooked travel. The process is administered by something called "On Call." It turns out that this outfit is the same as "Emergency Assistance Plus", a travel insurance company.

We were required to seek medical care and have the attending physician fill out FOUR of the pages (in English) with results of medical examination, including vital signs, blood test results and a medical diagnosis. One form was essentially an affidavit requiring the physician to assert that the patient was unfit to travel. All four required signatures, email and telephone contact numbers.

Our guide advised us to go to the local public hospital emergency room, which we did. The situation at the hospital was chaotic to the point of nightmarish. My wife on a gurney with an I. V. in a hallway with other patients, most of whom were in much more serious medical issues. We observed one poor soul not 5 feet away who suffered a seizure and was bleeding from his mouth, probably from biting his tongue. It took fully 5 minutes before any medical staff intervened and attempted to navigate his gurney through the maze of other beds in the hallway.

Needless to say, the likelihood of ever even being examined by a Dr., let alone having him fill out a 4 page form, was an impossibility. We left the facility and ultimately made our own arrangements for return travel to the U.S. at considerable $ expense to us.

Upon contacting "On Call" upon our return, their response was to again send us the Road Scholar 8 page form originally presented to us. It seems that it is necessary now to get a Portuguese doctor whom we never saw and who didn't examine my wife to my wife to provide 4 pages of information from our home in Colorado.

We admit to our naivety in going to a public hospital in a foreign country, but given that many Road Scholar trips take place abroad, the process they've contracted for through "On Call"/Emergency Assistance Plus is a joke. We were hung out to dry with zero returned communication for hours. The communication we received was useless at best, and if it weren't so insulting, it could be considered ironic.

We've been looking for new places to travel to, but didn't really know where to begin. We heard of roadscholar and searched it out online. What a great service! I love that Road Scholar take you to places and plan the trip for you, including fun physical activities as well as sightseeing and cultural learning adventures. We traveled with some great people on our trip to Scotland which made the whole vacation that much better. It was amazing and we can't wait to book our next trip!

I did the San Miguel Allende (SMA) trip and it was just okay. It started out bad when no one was at the airport to meet us at the time we were told to be there. The airport was about two hours from SMA so this was not a small issue. I finally called RS and the person showed up an hour late with the attitude of "I'm here now!" The lectures were old and canned from a US expat who screamed in a small room. I am hard of hearing and had to remove my hearing aides because of the pain caused by his large lecture room voice. I asked the tour director to ask him to moderate his voice and she said there was nothing she could do. Less than a third of the people went to the lectures because there was so little content. This was during the entire immigration and border detention problems! What a wonderful opportunity for current events. Why aren't lectures done by real locals - it would be so much better than hearing it from a US perspective. That is all we get at home. Essentially there was little education on what was billed as an educational tour. The tour director was very disorganized to the point of walking us a couple miles to the wrong restaurant and then walking us all back. It was very hard on the elderly participants. You were on your own if you had food allergies in spite of the fact that RS asks about this in advance and I also informed the tour director. She showed up at my table almost hysterical about 10 minutes after I was served something I was allergic to. Luckily my travel companion tasted it before I did and took my dish away. One local guide mentioned the plays he was in, and recited from them, ad nauseum, while we sat in the hot sun and learned almost nothing. RS could not even manage to send me a review form and finally just took my review over the phone. This was not what I had expected and it turns out others were very disappointed too as everyone was give a $200 credit toward a future trip. I will give them one more try and am hoping the tour is not cancelled due to COVID-19. I had heard such good things about RS. I was very disappointed.

Very slow and buggy website. I often must try multiple times to log in to my account. Often when moving from web page to another., the web page displays a revolving circle which often never loads the next page. I have taken to opening a new window each time I want to navigate from one page to another. This is like time travel back to the days of the dial up modem and I'm doing it with a brand new Mac and/or iPad Air.

Excited to see Alaska... so excited about this trip! Catalog said "Moderate Pace". OK... good... means we are going to move our bodies. Well, what a disappointment to learn this certainly was not going to happen! Unfortunately not all travelers could even do a low paced activity... a real damper for those of us eager for actjvity. Shame on you Road Scholar for misleading us to think this would be such an adventure. Some people had difficulty getting on and off the buses... walking for some was difficult! Pretty unfair tactics. A couple meals were served in hot, windowless hotel conference rooms. Hotel in Anchorage was pretty horrible and not clean. Have diet restriction and on 2 occasions group leaders (2) had not taken this into consideration... and I don't think Road Scholar really cared! One leader, I felt, could not wait until she returned home! In making my arrangements with Road Scholar I was asked on several occasions to get in touch with someone with my question... representatives for RD just didn't seem to have their information at hand... these were pretty basic questions. A very disappointing trip... too bad for RS... friends who travel were waiting for my critique... they won't be traveling with Road Scholar.

There is no updated information on the travel risk for the country we are going to on this site. It is currently a Level 4 country and no indication of plans to cancel the trip or when that decision might be made. Consequently, I have been forced to be insurance to cancel for no reason. This is the third trip I have scheduled through Roads Scholar - the other two were canceled due to COVID. I would like updates on the situation and if and when we can expect this trip to be canceled. The first, understandably, was canceled less than a day from departure, I believe with the second that it was a month.

My husband and I discovered a trip that would complement a necessary road trip to Texas. Most other dates were already full, so I telephoned, but the office was of course closed on a Sunday evening.

When I tried the online enrollment, it was fast and easy! So we are assured our place. The necessary road trip is now something we will really enjoy!

My first trip with Road Scholar 5 years ago was well run & the trip was as advertised. With the next trip taken 3 years ago the activity levels were changed after booking and there were a couple of service issues pre trip trying to get questions answered thru their call centre. I considering taking another trip with RS this fall and my experience with their customer service area has been long and painful. I asked that an issue be escalated to a supervisor for review - and after over a week & follow up calls from me still no response. I would not recommend the current RS.

Please read the Only reasons for cancel for any reasons with insurance.
I lost $1100 due to the COVID crisis. Road Scholar cancelled the trip and I lost all my airfare costs. Gratefully I did not have a lot prepaid to RS because I wasn't refunded my deposit.
I will NEVER book a trip with RS again. The insurance mentioned on their website is SO misleading.

Still has bad print outs -- not paginated well. Faster than usual. Search feature still needs a LOT OF WORK. If one uses "quotes" around a word in the search string, there should be no results without those terms. Rumor has it that there are plans to provide a "NOT" search so we can eliminate non-desirable trips (e.g. NO FAMILY NO CHILDREN). Can't get that done soon enough for me!

The first time I tried to enroll I have difficulties at the last part with a message keep coming up saying there is something wrong with the information I provided. I keep checking and reentering all the data correctly but still the message keep coming up. Quite time consuming and frustrating. I have to wait till the next day and this time it works.

I'd love to be able to select on a time period, for example, what trips in the US are available from Mar 1 to April 1. Doesn't seem like that's possible. Seems like have to enter more information, like where exactly I'd like to go in the US. If I could see what's available, I would let availability of trips be my guide. I'm currently opening each destination and checking the dates.

It has taken me much longer to pay for the trip. In fact, I still have not made the final payment. The whole process is just a little confusing. Especially about paying with a paperless check. I am familiar about using Bill Pay when I have the info about the recipient. However, at his point, I do not have any info about RS account. Sorry.

The enrollment function per se is excellent. The information is clear, and the flow is logical. However, I would like to suggest some improvements to the function for researching trip options. (1) When the webpage loads additional trips to a list of search results, it should not scroll down. As it is, you have to scroll back up in order not to miss some options. (2) When you return to the search results after viewing one trip, the page should go back to the point in the list where the viewed trip is, not to the top of the list. Thanks for your consideration.