Groupon Tours
 

Has anyone ever booked a European vacation through Groupon? They offer some pretty great deals that seem too good to be true...but groupon is known to be a trustworthy website...
I was just curious is anyone has ever bought a vacation package from groupon and if they have an input they would like to share...thanks

Be sure to CAREFULLY read and understand every detail.

We had a long (sad) thread from someone asking for what to see/do in the various cities on her Groupon trip. Boy - that was a real stinker. Really inconvenient hotels, convoluted intra-Europe transport, and more time traveling than being anywhere.

They can be a bargain, but ONLY if you do your homework and actually know what you are getting.

Type groupon into the search above, lots of threads

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ru-groupon.cfm

Groupon doesn't run the tours, right? It offers tours run by another company.

Which means YOU have to dig down a layer and determine what Groupon is offering - who is actually running the offered tour and does that outfit shine or suck. If Groupon is offering an Abercrombie & Kent tour at an 80% discount, that's one thing. If it's offering a complete package from Fly-by-night tours, that's another.

I may be wrong, but as I understand groupon, they do not actually offer anything except vouchers. The vouchers are provided by companies or restaurants or whatever, for specials on their product (tour, food, nights stay in a hotel. Etc) through the groupon website. They may be a reliable website, but they are not responsible for the quality of food or service provided.

If you book a tour with a company using a groupon voucher, you need to carefully assess the tour and decide if it is good based on the itinerary, hotels, etc. not because it is offered through Groupon. Before you book, look at other websites that try to find good deals. One example is travelzoo just for comparison. Look at the company offering the deal too.

Usually with tours you are lucky if you get what you pay for.

Hotels are often low budget chains at the ned of hell and gone, meals are poor quality americanized versions of local food and you often spend very long days siting on a bus (with a 7 am wake-up call). (Sometimes better hotels are offered as an option at much higher prices.)

Obviously all tours are not this bad - but to get a better one is usually much more money. So search all of the details, including a day by day itinerary before buying anything.

"They offer some pretty great deals that seem too good to be true..."

And you know what people say about deals that seem too good to be true.

FWIW: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3470249.html