Audley Travel - UK Anmeldelser 1 112

I have been thinking about taking my children to Bali and didn't know where to start with all the planning so I got in touch with Audley Travel. Ross is so knowledgeable on Indonesia and suggested which route to take through Bali, where to stay and what day trips to do and shared his experiences of the country with me. He also always called on the day he said he would and at exactly the time we had arranged! I would highly recommend using this company to help you plan your trip of a lifetime.

Our trip of a lifetime was put into turmoil due to the war in the gulf, we had to rearrange new flights as unfortunately our original ones had to be cancelled. Joanna at Audley was so patient, calm and so helpful with us, saving our holiday and didn't mind that we asked the same question 3 or 4 times, we cannot praise her enough or her colleagues who were all a pleasure to deal with. Thank you all again.

We have just booked a trip to Canada. Leo was very knowledgeable and very helpful, especially as we made some changes to the original plan before booking.
We had a very useful Teams call in the final stages, which made the experience very personal. In addition, we are picking his brains about our trip to Venice next month (not an Audley trip!) as he is a Venetian! Extra points for that!

I have just returned from an amazing trip to Vietnam and Cambodia.The trip was planned meticulously by Ben Harwood who was amazing throughout. He planned everything from start to finish and his recommendations were spot on as I was able to see and do so much in the required timeframe. His attention to detail is also second to none. This is the 3rd time we have used Audley Travel as well as recommending them to many family and friends who have also had the same amazing experience. They only work with the best people in the country you visit (tour guides, drivers etc) and really do provide a VIP service. You are made to feel very special from the moment you land and are looked after in every way. Thank you Ben for making a bucket list trip come true. You really are a credit to Audley Travel.

Sharon at Audley paid special attention to the details of our holiday requirements and followed though with advice gained from personal experience. If this attention to detail continues throughout the holiday we are in for a wonderful time.

Our travel coordinator (Becca) spent a lot of time with us understanding what it is we liked, wanted to visit, likes and dislikes. She then formulated a suggested itinerary, which we finessed together. Having just returned from our 5 week Australian adventure, my wife and I said there was no part of our trip that in hindsight we would change/adjust/delete. The whole trip was perfect.

We have just returned from a wonderful holiday in St Lucia organised by Audley specialist Stacey Lockhart. We were fairly late booking but she came up with two great hotels which really suited us. She was so helpful and friendly and kept us well informed throughout. Definitely an A+ experience!
We have had several holidays with Audley over the years and have never been disappointed.

Sabreen created an incredibly exciting and varied itinerary for our trip to Japan! And was very understanding of our budget which meant we had a tailored trip without worrying about going over budget! Highly recommend her personal knowledge on Japan!

We are so happy that we chose Audley for our trip to New Zealand. From start to finish it was an excellent experience. The thought of having to organise a one month itinerary was quite daunting but Elly at Audley was great at understanding what we were looking for and created something that turned out to be perfect. We had stopovers in Singapore which worked really well, especially on the return leg. The choices of hotels were all good, as were the selected venues and trips. When people ask what were our favourites, we always struggle to choose 🤔 . We will definitely choose Audley for next big adventure.

We have used Audley Travel for all our long distance trips. We cannot praise them enough for their knowledge of the countries we’ve visited. On our recent 30day trip to New Zealand Amy Waters was our point of contact and organised all the details of our flights, accommodation and hire car. Her knowledge of each area we visited was exceptional and her suggestions for things to do and places to eat were spot on. When a flight was changed Amy and the team sorted it within 2 hrs. Knowing the level of efficiency Audley provides ensured we were able to enjoy our holiday stress free.
Thank you Amy for giving us such an amazing holiday.

We had a wonderful trip to Kenya. Theresa had put together a perfect holiday for us, taking into account all that I had requested. In fact, it exceeded our expectations.

This is our first time travelling with Audley, having used other travel companies in the UK and we were deeply disappointed about the amount of issues incurred. We chose Audley based on its vast destination offering and advertised expertise on Malaysia. To start with, I don’t think there was much understanding about what we were after. Perhaps that’s the reason for having properties that were significantly sub-standard but insisted on being included.
The finalised itinerary was sent late (one week before departure), with least transparency of cost breakdown (purely comparing to peers like Carrier, Kuoni etc). Consequently, airline and car rental reservation codes had to be requested ad-hoc. It turned out that not having that access meant that we had lower luggage allowance than we requested and paid for, one of the car rentals had wrong details (hence we could not drive the car). What we ended up missing was how many redundant items were included just to inflate the final bill. We realised locally we had a guide paid for accompanying us on the transfer ride without ever visiting the respective cities (without ever being request), we had two half days of included tours that had paid-for transfers despite having a rental car unused in the parking lot. On another occasion, on another sleepy beautiful island visited, Audley booked a lavish transfer for us from the hotel whilst having again a car rental.

As a silver lining, the agent who helped us was very responsive and helpful when we needed changes of flights, booking last minute a night in another destination etc. Upon our return, our feedback was proactively requested and investigated, and our concerns were carefully listened to rather than dismissed, which we very much appreciated.

From the initial enquiry leading to a prompt response, the flexibility with our itinerary and then the support that Audley have with their ground crew is worth a five star review. Not only was there flexibility in the planning stages which Mark helped us with particularly with his personal knowledge of the resort and hotels that we were going to, But flexibility during the holiday itself. I think Audley have gone to a great deal of trouble to choose partners in Cambodia that understand the requirements of clients and the need occasionally to change itineraries.

We had a fabulous bespoke trip to Thailand and Cambodia. Every detail was perfect.

We thoroughly enjoyed recent trip to Sri Lanka! Huge thanks to the two Ella’s (Craig and Dunn), for organising such a wonderful trip. It was a pleasure working with Ella who ensured our requirements were met and was always responsive to any requests and tweaks to our itinerary.
Sri Lanka has something for everyone and we can highly recommend a visit!
Audley work with great local partners which all add to the success of the trip.
Sampath, our driver/guide was incredible and made our holiday an unforgettable experience.
Thanks again to Audley and Ella Craig for another amazing trip.

We have just returned from a 3 week holiday to New Zealand. A very special thanks to Amy from Audley Travel for all the planning & care she took in organising this holiday for us : the hotels & lodges were amazing , the excursions excellent. It was perfect!

I’ve just returned from an amazing trip to South Africa and Safari through Audley travel. Everything about the trip was perfect. Pick up times the lodge stayed at were all superb. Thank you Robyn for organizing. We will definitely be returning.

We enjoyed a wonderful holiday in Thailand, and Audley’s attention to detail and recommendations were absolutely top class. We moved around at the perfect pace for us, with exceptional local guides and transport, and their hotel and excursion recommendations were on the button. Highly recommend.

Friends and family have had good experiences with Audley Travel in the past, so when I spotted a tour of Jordan and Egypt on their website, I thought that they would be a good choice for the holiday we wanted to take this year.
Yes, we’d left it a bit late with only two full months to go before our preferred dates, but I’ve booked holidays at a lot less notice than this. And the whole point of Audley is that you “Speak to a Jordan specialist to start planning your tailor-made tour…” [direct quote from the web page advertising this itinerary], surely, the specialists would be able to tweak the tour a bit if needed, and we did have some flexibility in the dates. So, after avoiding all the wretched AI agent pop-up boxes that infest the website, I filled in the contact form and waited for their specialist to get in touch. Would it be Sophie, or perhaps Jumana or John, who all feature on the web page? Spoiler alert, I never got to speak to any of their specialists.
To be fair, I got a call in response to my contact form within a few hours. Her name was Tabby and she was not a specialist. She seemed to belong to a call centre whose role was probably to screen out timewasters and connect customers to the real travel agents. Tabby explained that unfortunately the specialists had told her there was no availability on the Nile cruise element of the tour in April. I expressed surprise, since there had been availability to book direct only the day before (I had been browsing to see if I liked the look of it). No, she assured me: all sold out, every one, for the whole of April.
I know now that it was a barefaced lie.
I immediately checked and there were three suitable cruises available in our date window on the exact vessel featured on the web page. Thinking there must have been a misunderstanding, I phoned back. Tabby was in a conference; she would phone back in 20 minutes. I gave her an hour. She didn’t call. I phoned back. Tabby was in another conference. Oh really!
I spoke with one of her colleagues, who launched into a lengthy defence of how the role involved a lot of conferences… When I could get a word in edgewise, I explained that the cruises were indeed available and could we now proceed? Er no, she said. The specialists had advised that there was no availability of ground handlers for April.
Honestly, I have no idea whether any of the excuses are true. I’m not even convinced their “specialists” exist. To judge from my experience, Audley Travel are not actually a bespoke travel agent, they are just a fancy package tour company. And once their packages are sold out, the answer is no.
If want to book a pricey off-the-shelf package a year or so in advance, perhaps Audley have what you need. On the other hand, if you actually want to talk to someone who can research availability and put together a tour to match your dates, you will need a proper travel agent. I’m off to see if I can find one…

True to their word, the Director's assistant phoned me a few hours after their response was posted and expressed sincere dismay for the careless impression their handling of my enquiry had created. The outcome was the same, though: Audley have nothing to offer for when I want to travel. The explanation was at least much more honest and coherent: they have sold out of their allocation of discounted rates and cannot get any more, even though the cruises are still available.
My conclusion stands: this is a fancy package holiday company, not a travel agent capable of a truly bespoke holiday.

My wife and I have just returned from a memorable holiday in South Africa organised by Megan Capon at Audley. Having talked to her at length about what we hoped to achieve she prepared a fabulous itinerary that gave us a really great time. We have used Audley before and always found them to be first class and staffed by people who really know their stuff.