Gil Travel

great experience, so happy they were able to extend my trip and made it very painless.

I saw a trip that interested me and tried to call for information. I could not speak to a live person or leave a message. Their recorded message instructed the caller to fill out the form on the web site. I did so and received a message back asking if I was looking to join a group tour. I responded Yes and asked if was possible to actually speak to someone. They responded with a link to the web site where I could find group tours. Obviously, I was already familiar with the web site since I had filled out the initial inquiry from the site!

Clearly, this company has no interest in customer service. If they won't even speak to a potential new customer who, I would think, they'd be trying to impress, I can only imagine what would happen if was I already booked on one their trips and needed to get in touch with them.

Don't waste your time!

The agents at Gil Travel were great in helping us coordinate our daughter's Birthright extension flight. We were aware that we would probably need to pay a difference in the fare. They offered us several flight options at different price points. Once we made our selection, they emailed us the confirmation and actually managed to get us a lower fare than the one originally quoted.

My daughter is going on a trip that required her to use Gil Travel if she wanted to extend her stay. She initially contacted them six weeks before her departure date and was told she would hear back from them in ten days. When she didn't hear from them, she reached out by e-mail, their website, phone, and Facebook, and only received back automated messaged. When they finally did send her information, via e-mail on a Sunday evening three days before her departure, they required her to respond within a day. By the time she saw the e-mail, they had cancelled any arrangements and told her she would have to handle it herself.

Other people on her program reported similar lack of communications from the company, which appears to be completely incompetent and lacking the ability to respond to queries. If they expect to take six weeks to respond, they shouldn't expect people to have to respond within 24 hours and if a response is needed that quickly, Gil Travel should pick up the phone to call their clients.

Absolutely terrible customer service. Every review written here is true, I had the exact same experiences. It's truly a shame that Birthright partners with them.

Wow. If I could, I'd give Gil Travel 0 stars. Do not recommend to anyone. Who uses travel agents these days, anyway? Especially with sites like Priceline / Orbitz / etc?


1) Old school

Paper files? Only one person in the office had access to my file. When I would call for information on my trip, they couldn't look it up on a computer and provide me info I needed. If I had a question, my file had to be "tracked down", and sometimes I would not get a response for days. I can overlook this if their customer service was good. But... See #3


2) Unorganized

This trip I'm going on in a week has been in the works for MONTHS. I only received my itinerary last week (2 weeks prior to the trip) WITH errors. Even after I pointed out the errors and the uncertainty of the itinerary, it STILL came back with errors. RED FLAG especially for international travel. Not to mention, we had ordered a car service MONTHS ago, to be told today that a) they did not arrange it and b) the car service is now sold out.


3) Rude

I had called and called and left numerous messages, to no avail. No call back? I'll just email them. For my sanity (due to the obvious lack of attention to detail), I preferred a paper trail anyway. What response do I get from my emails? "I am very tired of seeing all your emails." Copy/pasted directly from my inbox. Kid you not. What kind of customer service is this?

I started with Contact Us on their website. I received an email in response, and I provided details for a proposal for a group trip. I was told that the trip planner would get back to me upon her return from vacation, which would be soon. I waited 10 days, and wrote again. I received an email asking a few more questions, with an assurance I'd receive a quick reply. I waited another several days, I wrote again, and received no response. They clearly don't want my business.

Terrible service, lousy communications. Had to call often to find out info. Overcharged me on some things then had to ask for my refund even when they said they would take care of it. Never use these guys as there are plenty of good travel agents out there.

I second the two earlier reviews. It sucks that birthright makes people use them. They so little work that I thought I had contacted a fake agency. Rude and incompetent staff with no communication skills whatsoever.