genoajim

We are considering a European trip with Grand Circle Travel. Their option for including the air travel appears to make sense from a pricing perspective. However, I am concerned about how they might route our flights. For example, flights to Eastern Europe can take anywhere from 14-24 hours depending on the route, number of stops, and length of layovers. I just wonder how good a job they do of selecting reasonable schedules. If anyone has experience in this regard, I would love to hear about it. Thanks in advance, Jim

nytraveler

Well it depends on how you value money over convenience. Look at flights yourself and see what it convenient and what it costs. Then ask about their options. It's not a mystery.

jrjcolllins

We have traveled with Grand Circle and Overseas Adventure Travel (their sister) and would never use their air again. We always seemed to get really early morning flights and connections that did not make sense. For example, when we took OAT to Peru, I asked them specifically not to route us through Miami (as I had heard they do) since we live in Oregon. Two months prior, my son had flown from the Northwest to Peru with a change of planes in LA and I requested the same thing. They said they would "try". Well, guess what, we were routed through Miami. Their tours are fine, but we have not used their airfare since.

Barbara_in_CT

I am booked with GCT to Budapest on British Airways from JFK to Heathrow to Budapest. The return trip is from Prague to Heathrow to JFK. I have two hours at Heathrow on the way over and four hours on the way back.

I don't see any problems with these flights and the price including two weeks in Europe was unbeatable. I presume that the low cost is because they buy flights in bulk.

suec1

What trip are you considering? We took a river cruise from Budapest to Prague - all in all a great trip. We had planned to do the air included option but ended up using miles but I would say MOST people on our ship used their air and had probably used them before. Your probable air intinerary will be given to you shortly after booking (at least ours was) so that will give you an option to see what they will do for you. Ours was so so - early departure from Prague and 4 hour lay over in Paris - we ended up being able to book a direct flight home from Prague so we burned up some of our miles instead. Again, you can go ahead and book the trip and see what they give you (this is assuming you are booking quite a few months out) - I think the air would "lock in" at final payment so you would have until then to see what you could get on your own.

halfpint

I have traveled with Grand Circled= 18 times, the last three were the river trips and I always use their air simply because if there is a change of plans on their end, a delay, perhaps different date, you are locked into your other air plan and Grand Circle is not responsible for that part so I have always played it safe. Also that way, you have the transportation to the airport from them, otherwise, say from the hotel or ship, you have to make your own arrangements. There have been some funny flight arangements occasionally, however have always felt more secure that way, my insurance for instance with the Grand Circle trip also covered my flight arrangements. I just go for the security. Have fun. Halfpint.

irishface

I have traveled twice with GCT. The first set of flights was great--Boston-Frankfurt-Warsaw and return was Budapest-Frankfurt-Boston. The second trip was fine going outoston-Frankfurt-Ljubljana. coming back was a nightmare-Dubrovnik-Frankfurt-Dulles-Boston. Looking at a map makes no sense. Only a two hour layover at Dulles and the flight was late and my luggage wnet missing. Those whose luggage showed up promptly had to run to make their flight. My luggage finally showed up and I missed my flight. No GCT rep there to help and finally got a flight to Boston at 9:30 pm. I was not a heppy camper.

However, the GCT trips were so great that I got over it. If and when I travel with them again I will book far enough in advance so that if I don't like the flights, I can book my own.

NeoPatrick

I have looked at several OAT and Grand Circle trips, but didn't want the airfare as we were going to include those trips on a much longer trip where we were already going to be there (with FF tickets), but in every case we checked -- they would not give any discount if we didn't use their airfare -- it was included anyway -- making their trips rather expensive for us. Do some of their trips give an option not to include airfare?

sandys

We have traveled with both GCT and their sister company OAT a total of six times. We have always had them book our flights, and have been very satisfied with the connections. (We fly from San Francisco.) Their tours are a great value for the money, including the air portion. I've never been able to do better on our own.

On one of our trips - to Croatia and Slovenia - I found a better connection than on the preliminary itinerary they provided, and called them requesting a change in our return itinerary. They happily complied.

Another instance of their commitment to good air connections was on our trip with OAT to Australia. We received an $80 check from OAT around a month before the tour. We couldn't understand what the check was for so we called them and found out that since we had very long layovers in Los Angeles, more than they normally try to arrange, the check covered $25 per person for dinner before our flight to Australia and $15 per person for lunch on the return trip. Wow!!

If you have any other questions about GCT or your destination (if we've been there), feel free to email me at: [email protected]

NeoPatrick

I see this older post has been revived. I've been researching OAT and Grand Circle lately. It seems that what I find is not too surprising. If people are traveling from major centers like Miami, LAX or SFO, or New York where there are many options, they seem happy with their connections made for them. But those from other places seem to encounter many odd routes and long delays at airports. I remember one report that praised the tour but the poster claimed it literally took them two full days to get to Africa with most of that time spend sitting in various airports.