Already left a Yelp review about this company, but saw there was another entry associated with them so submitting another. This company seems like a complete fraud. We bought 4 tickets via a Groupon deal about 2 months ago and scheduled a balloon flight for the morning of 8/18/2012. We arrived at a parking lot in Healdsburg at 6AM where we were scheduled to be picked up at 6:30AM. There were roughly 20+ other people in the parking lot waiting. We waited for over an hour.. We were never picked up. Phone calls to the company go straight to a voice mailbox which is full. I emailed a complaint letter to support@balloonwinetours.com and have yet to hear back from them 4 days later. The company's web site has been down since before our scheduled flight. I did get a refund from Groupon and opened a dispute with my credit card company for the "taxes and fees" charge made directly to the company. read more

I purchased 7 vouchers from Groupon over 3 months ago and from the start I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. The whole experience has been horrible and very unprofessional. Very unfortunate since it was going to be a wedding celebration. After purchasing the vouchers I tried to make my reservations and had several problems doing so. They had the numbers entered incorrectly and then the system was done repeatedly for maintenance. It was impossible to get anyone on the phone and it took them several days to respond to emails. After about 3 weeks of trying to make reservations I was finally able to do so. Originally I was told the flight would leave from St. Helena at one time and then I received an email saying that the location and time had changed. Luckily Groupon was very helpful and they've refunded my vouchers. Now I need to work on getting the taxes back. read more

We arrived at the meeting place at 545 am on 8/24/2012 and waited for about an hour and there was no one there, but another couple. We were worried since no on else was there. We called the phone number to try to make sure that we didn't miss the meeting spot but the voice mail was full. I emailed and no response. Then someone said it was a scam and they do this type of thing all the time, where they tell people to meet and not pick them up. I decided to read yelp reviews while waiting for our "ride". And it was confirmed. It was a scam indeed. I was upset and disappointed to say the least. To get up at 330 and not to get the balloon ride. =( I received an email from them later saying that they were no longer in business and that all reservations were cancelled. Damn it. How come no one said anything BEFORE we were forced to get up that early? I got my money back from Groupon and now waiting for credit back from AMEX since I had purchased another voucher for my husband. Shame on them for doing this to people. read more

what other People said is very true. I hope you will see this review early enough. My husband and I just went to there this morning. As so many people said, No body shows up to pick us up. There was another 10 people with us waiting there. This is a scam. I was so disappointed. I called groupon to get refund. They didn't ask much. Probably a lot people called already. and I called my bank to report a fraud because I paid the tax though the balloonwinetours.com when I get my reservation. I hope the bank can catch them. I hope less people get cheated on this scamming business. Many people believe groupon when they say they went out of business. but how come they keep doing this every month and then go out of business it is obviously an intentional scam :( read more

Scam! Like the others, our reservation was cancelled due to the business "no longer operating." Thank goodness we didn't book a hotel room or drive up there to find out first hand since we received the email notification a month prior to our trip. Living Social refunded our money, but we have yet to get the "tax" we paid directly to the company upon making our reservation. We were already suspicious when the Living Social deal said it was a Napa balloon ride that originates in Napa, but the actual balloon wine tours website listed some back lot in Healdsburg as the pick-up point. Big thumbs down to Groupon and Living Social for not vetting their vendors properly and also allowing this type of scam to recur over and over again. I've learned my lesson and also very cautious about buying anything on Groupon and Living Social again that is not originating from a known/trusted vendor. read more

If I could give negative stars, I would. The other reviews pretty much sum up the experience we had. Showed up at the parking lot at 5:30 with no one in sight, waited for 20 minutes, then we saw the suspended website and all the negative reviews on Yelp. At this point, we know we had been duped. This is a complete scam that was encouraged by Groupon, LivingSocial, Zozi, etc. Fortunately, my vouchers are being refunded by the deal sites and my credit card company is refunding the taxes/fees that were charged directly by Adventurist Air. However, this does make me wary of buying any sort of deal in the future since it doesn't appear that any of these sites vetted this company. I would encourage anyone who requests a refund from Groupon, LivingSocial, etc. that they inform other people who bought the vouchers that Adventurist Air is no longer in business and that it was a total scam. Sounds like the same thing happened in SoCal earlier this year but these sites continued to promote these deals: http://www.pe.com/business/business-headlines/20120220-temecula-air-balloon-operator-leaves-customers-in-cold.ece read more

We did the living social thing like many of you did. I had a whole trip to Napa planned around it with my mom. They went out of business and never refunded the "reservation fee". Taking people's money and not providing a service is really low. I will be hesitant to purchase any more living social deals for a long time (shame on them working with a company that scams their customers like that). From the reservation process through getting my money back was a huge headache! For those of you who went though living social, you can get a refund through the living social website (just go to the my vouchers section and there will be an option for that). You will have to dispute the reservation/tax charge that you paid directly to the balloon folks with your credit card company, this is usually quick and painless. Just tell them what happened and they will credit your account and go get the money back from the company that took it. Ugh. I'm just glad this is over. Negative stars for balloon wine tours and a big black mark for living social! read more

Just got an email from google offer - $149 for a hot air balloon ride over napa with bubbly ($370 value). It looked very familar so I clicked on it and long behold its the same scam artist company trying to scam more people! The only thing they changed was there name but the phone number and address is the same. Beware! read more

read the reviews. its a scam. we thought it'd be nice to use the vouchers my wife received as a gift for her birthday a few months ago. we figured a good time to do it would be a week before our one year anniversary. big mistake. we drove from 2 hours away, and booked a hotel for the night. woke up at 5am to get ready, and arrived early. there about 10 other people there waiting. after the scheduled time to be picked up (630am) rolled around... we kinda got the hint around 7am. after a couple people drove off, we asked why they were leaving? oh their site is down, and someone called where they bought the tickets and they were informed that the company went bankrupt the week before. oh really? how nice. we were able to get our refund through living social, but thats messed up. whos paying for the hotel and gas? and time? its a scam, and obvious. lets see how many people buy tickets still.. cause they'll be able to. read more

I too am having a difficult time using a voucher, but mine was purchased through Plum District. Website has been down since purchasing the voucher (which was less than 2 weeks ago) and I have yet to receive a response, email or voicemail, from Balloon Wine Tours. Sent a request to Plum District to see if they can find out what is going on and/or get a response. If they cannot, then Plum District will hopefully make this right and provide good customer service by issuing a refund, NOT give credit to use towards future purchases. read more

What a disappointment!! I can't believe this unethical company has been taking people's money and not holding up their end of the deal! Their "temporarily" suspended reservations website that I couldn't access for weeks should have been a red flag. Their phone # that kept going straight to voicemail, should have made me think twice. After wasting my time trying to get in contact with the company to make a reservation, I noticed all the negative reviews online. Thank you Yelp and TripAdvisor! I called Travelzoo, where we bought our vouchers, and they refunded our money immediately. Bummer--we were really excited about our first hot air balloon experience! read more

We purchased 2 balloon + wine limo tours through Living Social in April 2012. We scheduled our trip for August 19. We received a confirmation call in July, telling us where to meet (some random parking lot at an RV park) and when (5:30 AM). We received an email shortly after, telling us to meet at 6:30 instead. First red flag. We had not received any more communication from anyone at the "company", and when we tried to call the phone number to confirm, it went straight to voicemail, with directions to go to the website (which was down) or to email (which they have not responded to). The voicemail box was full (of irate messages, no doubt). I found a different number based on Washington state online, and was able to leave a message there, but I still haven't heard back. We showed up on time before dawn, and we found 20 other people in the parking lot, similar voucher holders, but no limo, no pilot, no balloon, and no representative from the company whatsoever. No one had heard anything from the company in weeks. Everyone had the same story: no answer from the phone, website down. We stayed until 7AM. No one showed up. We managed to get Living Social to return the money we paid for the vouchers. My credit card company refunded the $56 in taxes I paid upon booking. Do an internet search for "balloon tour scam" and you'll see that this situation is not unusual. I guess I (and probably hundreds if not thousands of others) were fooled into thinking that because Living Social or Groupon had put their name behind this company, they would be reputable. The thing that burns me the most is that I wrote 2 reviews and 2 complaint emails to Living Social and all they did was write back a form email, saying "thanks for your input." No personal response, no apology. Basically a big "FU" from them. So right back atcha, Living Social. I will never buy another voucher from you again. Update: Should I feel guilty about this? Nah. Flame away, friends!! http://www.facebook.com/JimKnight999 read more

We bought two Groupon vouchers and made an appointment. At this time we had also to pay for the 2x tax of $34.48 which was calculated based on a $370 price instead of the $149 Groupon voucher price. We went up to Healdsburg the day before, booked a hotel, and had some quality time doing biking through the nice wineries around. Then we got a text message from the that the balloon ride has been cancelled due to fog. We had already booked the hotel in advance and thus returned back to San Jose the next morning. I was very disappointed. Groupon refunded our money, but not the taxes we had to pay in order to make the appointment. read more

TOTAL SCAM do not book this they make you pay taxes direct to them which you cant get back even after your groupon/livingsocial/etc refund all phone numbers are disconnected such a disappointment and this guy who runs this so called company will get his fair share of karma in time.....just you wait buddy. read more

I missed my balloon flight in July, so please read on. There was a message that something about this company, Balloon Wine Tours operating under Adventurist Air in Lewiston, ID, was a scam. I was excited to see that Groupon had a special for a hot air balloon ride in Healdsburg. I purchased two tickets in April to surprise my husband for his birthday in July. I made the reservation and was surprised I was charged a sales tax of $24.68 each. Did not think twice about the tax except it was quite high and that I was charged for taxes when I did not go on my ride yet. I also received my email confirmation after the reservation and made a note to myself that launch time was at 6:15 am. Two weeks before, I received an email with a waiver and another confirmation. Since the confirmation forms looked alike, I did not look at the launch time twice. On the morning of the launch, we woke up at 4:30 am and checked out of our beautiful suite to go to Healdsburg. I confirmed the time last night on my first confirmation with the pickup time and address and filled out the waivers. My husband drove up to there and of course, we got lost since it was very dark in the rural area. No one was around and it was hard to find. We were to meet in a storage lot. We arrived at 6 and saw the limousine with a basket of wine glasses next to it. My husband and I jumped out of our car. He was so excited to go. We looked into the limo, but it was empty. There were other cars in the storage lot. I went to get my 2nd confirmation and checked the launch time again. Balloon Wine Tours changed it to 5:30 am. My surprise balloon ride for my husband went down the drain. I was upset, but my husband calmed me down. Since we had checked out of our beautiful suite, we decided to head back to San Francisco at 6:30. I called Balloon Wine Tours and left an email, but did not get an answer. I called the main number and the gentleman said the customer service will call back. Two days later, Brittnie of Balloon Wine Tours, finally got back to me and told me that I would be able to go again, but I would be charged the sales tax again since I did not cancel. This was their policy. Brittnie also sent an email to me with the area code 216 phone number in Lewiston, ID in case I needed to reach them quicker. I called this number several times since I could not reschedule on the website. It was not allowing me. Another woman, Julie, finally answered and told me she would call me back to rescheduled. That also failed. Several days later between no reply email and no phone calls, I left them a message that my Groupon did not go through. I finally got a returned call and was told that my Groupon order was reset and my taxes were reimbursed. Now I can reschedule my flight. Between the back and forth, I was very frustrated. I did not know what I thought of this company now. I did not like it. On August 18th, I called Brittnie back and told her I wanted to reschedule my balloon tour for the first week of October. I told her that the website charged me about $34.68 a person so she was able to change it to $24.68 a person. So I was set to go. I checked my email and only received a confirmation for one person. I called Balloon Wine Tours and emailed them that I wanted to confirm my husband on the balloon ride too. No answer. I emailed again. No answer to voicemail or email. On August 21st, I received an email from Groupon that the company was closed. I was not shocked, but was happy that they could no longer scam customers. Got my refund and taxes back from Groupon and my credit cards. Balloon Wine Tours, operating under Adventurist Air in Lewiston, ID, was a scam: 1. Charged for sales tax and take the money when you have not ride on the balloon. 3. Cannot even figure out to schedule on website. Nothing works. 4. Customer Service was the worst. If there were no stars, this company would be there. I would put them at the bottom of the pit. read more

i can't believe there are still Groupons that are being issued for this. Thank god for Yelp since the reviews helped me prevent a total disaster. Funny, all one has to do is Google the name of this "new" company and the Yelp review shows up right away. Apparently Groupon doesn't Google. Meanwhile, I'd like to know how they vet their merchants, since this is one of 4 Groupons in the last month that either don't call back or, in this case, don't exist. In my case, I bought the the Groupon deal as a gift to my girlfriend, and since the link on the Groupon site to make a reservation linked over to "balloonwinetours" that didn't load, I knew something was up. I Google'd the name, and of course the address was somewhere in Healdsburg, not Sonoma (2nd clue). Third red flag was that the phone number of the "business" was disconnected. I immediately asked Groupon for a refund, and thankfully they did so. But more important, why is Groupon still giving out business for this?!?! What is their vetting process anyway? read more

Scam. Received confirmations from Adventure Enterprises LLC and emails regarding waivers etc. Our group just received another email stating they were no longer operating and our reservations are cancelled. No mention of refunds etc....Disgusting. read more

We had the same horrible experience as everyone else, except we called the day before to confirm and had the number disconnected. A quick Google search conformed the rest. Fortunately we were still able to get on another balloon tour which was excellent and get a full refund. We had bought one voucher with Living Social who refunded us and another direct with the company on a debit card. Our Bank (BoA) were able to refund the second transaction in full as well as the tax for the first one. Good luck to all getting your money back. Definitely contact your bank or credit card company as if you never got the service you can claim back in full. read more

This is a scam. The web site info was gleaned from another web site. No one showed up to the meeting area and the Healdsburg police have an incident report from the day before and will add the group of folks that were there with us. Travelzoo gave me a refund and I protested the charges on my credit card, which I had reissued just in case they were collecting numbers. read more

This place is a total scam. I bought 2 vouchers from livingsocial in April to use in Napa Valley, CA. Even with the discount I spent hundreds of dollars to make my boyfriend's birthday special. The first thing that annoyed me was when I went to schedule the flight for the hot air balloon, and thought I had already paid for it, they charged another $40 a person for 'tax'. Then I got an e-mail with a waiver for health problems with no attachment. I emailed them to get another copy and never heard back. After the fact I realized the initial address on the voucher was different than the address they sent us to in the e-mail confirmation. The address was in Healdsburg, CA, which is literally in the middle of nowhere. We woke up at 5AM to drive down this scary road in the pitch black to find that a business never even existed at this address. After driving around for 15 minutes and stopping at anything around with a light on we saw a few cars parked in this random parking lot. We pulled in and they were all waiting for this tour. Long story short...the website was down, we tried to call the number and the mailbox was full, and it ended up being a total scam! There weren't any signs for the place, no one showed up to pick us up, no one ever called, and apparently the same thing happened the last couple days to other people. There were about 20 people there, which further proves it was a scam because that many people can't all fit in a balloon. After reading reviews, which I should have done beforehand, it seems as if hundreds of people were schemed out of money from this place. I didn't check because livingsocial has never steered me wrong in the past. We are all in the process of filing lawsuits/complaints with the police and our credit card companies. The biggest disappointment of all was that we thought we were going to be taking a sunrise balloon ride over Napa Valley with a limo taking us to wine taste and we ended up really disappointed. The Company name is Adventurist Air LLC, which is apparently based in Lewiston, Idaho, and owned by a guy named James Knight, who you can find on facebook if you would like to give him a piece of your mind if you were one of the victims. On Facebook he also calls himself a 'child of god'...more like a child of hell for screwing over so many people. Since he was in the paper in his town for being a success we should all write to them and tell them how much of a con artist/fraud he really is. read more

My wife and I are the latest victims. I only wish I had read the reviews prior to departing at 5am this morning and I had assumed that they were a reputable business, especially when I purchased them from Travelzoo's daily deal site. I should be getting a refund through my credit card company, however, they can't replace the hours wasted this morning and the months of excitement leading up to this event. My wife was very disappointment and really bummed. It seemed like a perfect day to go hot air ballooning. I only hope that the owners of this tour are investigated. read more

My trip was planned for this weekend and I wanted to call them to find more information...and then I found this. I called Living Social immediately and was able to get a refund that's in the process. The voucher "expired" on Sept 30, as the lady who helped me noted, but she still put in a full refund of $358 (for 2 vouchers for $139 plus wine tasting deal was a total of $179/person). I'll have to wait 3-5 days and check my account to make sure, but the lady who helped me sent me a confirmation email regarding my refund and such. What is this "reservation fee" you guys are talking about? My card was charged $358 and nothing else... read more

Wow...just received an email today that this company is out of business and won't be honoring any reservations! Our flight was scheduled 2 days from today...way to give people notice NOT! I can see from the other reviews this has been going on for a while...so I think I'll head up there anyway, but I'll be stopping by the police department to make a complaint for criminal fraud charges instead of taking the flight! I think the business owner needs to be investigated. They don't even start flying until June and they are out of business already? But they've been collecting flight fees since April... read more

I don't think this business was a scam as much as it was poorly managed. Here's my story: it started when I bought tickets for my wife and I through Livingsocial. I went online, booked the flight for early July, and got my reservation email. A few days later I got a voicemall message regarding overbooking. Before I got a chance to call back to discuss my options, I got an email stating that my reservation was cancelled, my taxes and fees were refunded, and my voucher was reset so that I could get a refund. They also offered a free flight. I took them up on the offer and booked another flight for one week after my initial reservation. Some time later, I got another email stating that the pick-up location had changed from St. Helen to Healdsburg. No problem, I hadn't booked a hotel yet so I didn't have to cancel. Booked a hotel a mile or two from the new site and I was ready to go. The day before the flight rolled around and my wife and I got a group text regarding driving directions to the pick-up site. I know it was a group text because every reply to the original message was also sent to my phone. A good nights sleep, and a couple dozen text messages later, the morning of the flight arrived. I was still getting text messages from lost people, which was somewhat helpful because my wife and I were also lost. We made it to the site with time to spare, though, and the balloon was there ready to go. But, there was a problem; the flight was being delayed due to visibility. It really was quite bad that morning (less than a mile) and it never got better before our launch window had passed. The flight was cancelled then and there and I got a text stating that everyones' taxes and fees were refunded. That was kind of a let down. We drove an hour and a half to get there and payed for a hotel room. No biggie, though, since we still had a free flight. I booked a third flight for our one year anniversary. I got confirmation from the business and booked another hotel room. Flight set, hotel booked, plans made, we waited patiently for the day of our third scheduled flight. Four days before the flight, I got a misleadingly titled and terse email stating that the business was closed and all reservations were cancelled. Awesome. On the plus side, I'm not out too much since I already got a refund. The down side: I have a hotel reservation to cancel on three days notice and anniversary plans down the drain. Like I said, I think this place was a legitimate business and all prior email correspondence was prompt and cordial. They probably just took a lot of missteps managing the business and went under. I hope everyone that booked with them is able to get a refund, and I strongly discourage anyone from doing business with this company, if it happens to resurface. read more

I did not get to experience the balloon ride scheduled on 08/09 on my wife's Birthday due to fog conditions.I was not able to book it for the whole of August and September and also saw that they increased their taxes from $25 to $34 when I tried to book for October. The company closed down while I was still negotiating a date for a balloon ride.Although thankfully I did not lose any money and got my refund from groupon the 1 star for ruining a wonderful experience that I was expecting and the trouble I had to go through for booking the event .Balloon ride still remains on my to do list :( read more