Well, I should'nt be so hard on myself if I can't speak Mandarin, right? LOL. So wouldn't recommend for non-Asians, or if you are looking for any specials. Elva barely could speak English but managed to get a quote from her for NY, Feb 19th Departure fr Van, so that's nice. But not the price of $585, all in. About 4 agents here. no amex read more

Tian Bao Travel - Travel Services Near Me - Burnaby, British Columbia

Highly dissatisfactory experience (including a scam) I don't normally write reviews, but I am extremely upset right now because we've been severely taken advantage of. I am still overseas, in China, as of the time of writing this review. We just barely finished our 6 day tour two days ago. I couldn't find the Tian Bao Travel Agency page for my local establishment, so instead I'm writing out my thoughts for this very same unethical company in a different location. As other reviewers have mentioned, throughout the duration of the tour, the tour guide takes you to many places to buy overpriced tea, pearls, jade, and silk goods. You may think that you have the restraint to not purchase items that you didn't even intend to buy in the first place, but the unassuming tourist can easily fall prey to their pushy ways and sweet talk. The tour guide and his accomplices have very practiced mouths and know exactly what to say to encourage heavy spending. They play upon your psychological weaknesses. Each day, a new salesperson native to the city you are visiting "fattens" you up (so to speak) about a product famous to that city. This benefit and that benefit (for health products like tea) or how husbands should spoil their wives (for jade and pearls) or Chinese people really value health and spending now is better than it being too late (traditional Chinese herbs). My family and I all agreed that we wouldn't buy jewelry or silk because we have plenty and are in no need, but the aggressive salespeople at these stores and the "buttering up" resulted in thousands of dollars spent. When we attempted to say no and fend off certain salespeople, they persisted and wouldn't relent and said things along the lines of "health being number one" or "ignoring health now could cause regret later" while knowingly selling us products marked up by several times. My dad would reluctantly agree just to leave without being rude. The tour guide and these city natives would pretend to be our friends and say that they'll try to fetch us the best price. In retrospect, they have so many customers, it must be something they say to everyone. The kicker of it all is the scam on the last day. We were sold fake items at a "lower" price on the pretense of being friends and being Chinese (and not foreigners). This article (written four years ago) retells it accurately: https://medium.com/indian-thoughts/how-we-got-scammed-out-of-100-000-in-shanghai-fbfbc6954549 Almost all of the elements of this story are exactly what happened to us (and at the same jade store). All in all, do NOT join this travel agency. They have unscrupulous business practices and prey on people of all ages, worst of all the elderly. (We joined the 6 day Jiangnan tour visiting the following cities: Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Shanghai) read more

TianBo Travel/Compass Holidays: My 29 year old son and myself did a father son trip on the China tour, 9/25 thru 10/4/2018. We ended up on a bus with 39 strangers that all had a love of life and a love to laugh. We all realized what a great deal this trip was and rolled with the punches. We enjoyed China Eastern Airline very much. Great service, plenty of room, good entertainment options, etc. the only hitch was a 6 hour layover in Shanghai. We knew we had enough time to take the mag lev and the metro and get to the Bund for a drink or two. That worked out perfectly. Compass picked us up in Beijing around 1:00am as the flight ended up being delayed. They took roll, there were 9 of us on this routing. We were driven a short distance to a business hotel located not far from the airport. We were told to meet in the lobby at 8:00am. My son and I had not signed up for any of the optional tours as we wanted to explore on our own. We've been to Beijing before. Our tour guide Michael was excellent and worked with us. We proved to him that we'd be where we said we'd be at the appropriate time so that we didn't keep a whole bus waiting. My son and I were the only guests going rogue if you will, so he just asked us to not make a big thing out of it and work things out with him. The bus in Beijing was very nice and the driver was excellent. The hotel, Bright Effect, was within 20 minutes of the 798 Art District. The last day we had a morning free and took a taxi there. It was a very vibrant district, full of young people, with art work on display and for sale in every medium you could think of! Highly recommend. After 2 full days in Beijing, we were off to Suzhou. New tour guide Vincent was also very good. We were met upon arrival in Shanghai and loaded on the bus for a 2 hour ride to Suzhou. This bus was not as nice! Windows dirty, no tray tables, no USB charging ports. We said something that night and by the next morning the bus was much cleaner and the windows were spotless. AC worked well. Good thing as we spent a lot of time on this bus. We had a local tour guide in Suzhou, Jenny. She was very, very good. We had a local guide in Wuxi, Fayfay, also excellent. Wuxi was our favorite city. High tech university city but very beautiful with Lihu Lake and all the greenery that surrounds you. Wuxi had the oldest most tired hotel though, Swiss Belhotel, but it had a great breakfast and room service. Compass for some reason keeps the hotels a secret and I think that's because they are booking last minute. The last 2 hotels were brand new, Holiday Inn in Haungzhou and Hampton Inn in Shanghai. While the locations are not convenient to subway stations or the center of town, they were very new and clean. Many of the built in tours include "shopping" opportunities, but none of them were ever high pressure, locked in a room sales pitches. Most were quite interesting. The jade factory is the same one that Viking River Cruises took us to in 2008. The red ware teapot factory, the tea plantation, the silk factory and the fresh water pearl factory were all very interesting and I'm glad we went to them. As I stated earlier, this busload of people were so much fun. All from the US with the exception of one couple from Vancouver. Everybody was amazed with the country and the people and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. We ranged in age from 14 to 82 and wheelchair and scooter accommodations were made as needed at each locale. I really can't recommend this trip enough for what you pay. My son was not quite as satisfied as myself (would have rather had less bus time and more free time) but all in all it was a lot of fun and Dad paid! read more

If you are an English-speaking traveler and trying to book a trip on the 10-Day Silk Road + China Orient Express, be aware. If you ever dream about a luxury train ride going through the China's northwest and Gobi Desert from Xian to Urumqi, do your research and book with other tour companies and make sure it is truly English-speaking tours. This particular tour offered by Tian Bao is not equipped to handle non-Chinese speaking guests, even though we paid $300 more because the tour operator said they had to hire English-speaking tour guides. Tian Bao, similar to many travel agencies, is just the booking agent. The Silk Road and Train Tour itself is operated by an outfit, based in Beijing, called OTITS (Ocean Times International Travel Service). However, Tian Bao and OTITS are so tightly connected so when we, the customers, raised issues during the tour, they cover each other's back and never resolved any concerns we brought forward. In our group of eight English-speaking customers, four had booked through Tian Bao and the other four booked through other travel agencies. We travelled along-side with at least 140 Chinese-speaking customers that were subdivided into 6 or 7 groups for the 10-Day tour period. We raised five issues during the trip with the tour operator, OTITS: (1) For the first 4 days, our group of 8 did not have a National Tour Guide, while the other Chinese-speaking groups all had a specific National Guide assigned to them and assisted them. No one explained the logistic of the train ride (supposed to sleep 3 nights on train), such as luggage handling, and what to pack to take on-board, etc. Therefore, most of the time we were in the dark and just blindly following other groups. This lack of assistance, undoubtedly, created many confusion and frustration for us. On day five, a group of 18 people from Australia merged with us and brought their National Guide, so we finally don't feel like "orphans" or "misfits". Tian Bao should have notified us when we signed up for the tour, that the smaller size group may not warrant a National Guide. At least we would then have the opportunity to decide whether we could split or absorb the additional cost for a guide or just cancel the trip. Two elderly travelers in our group were impacted the most, as they had to handle hand-carried luggage up and down the train station stairs along with their canes. (2) False advertisement. The train itself is far from "Luxurious" and the hotels (except for 1) can hardly classified as 5-star hotels. On the so-called luxury Orient Express train, we didn't want to use the bathroom unless we absolutely had to. No one dare to take the shower; we were given plastic slippers for the shower room, when I put them on and started walking toward the shower room, water (probably from previous user) were squishing around inside the slipper. After the hotel in Xian, we were given mostly 3-star hotels at best. (3) Below standard meals. Thought we come to China to have good Chinese food and it turned out to be big disappointment. All meals provided were mediocre and without much taste. Although the quantity were abundant, the quality was really lacking. We voiced our opinion, then French Fries and Fried Chicken Wings got added to our table. Unbelievable. (4) We raised our concerns with OTITS tour operator fairly early on during the trip, their tactic was merely dodging and delaying. Except for adding French Fries and Fried Chicken Wings, the tour manager never gave us a straight answer on any issues. The evening before we end the tour, a dozen of us (now added a few frustrated Australian guests) requested a meeting with the highest ranking tour manager and went over these issues. He appeared sincerely apologetic and vowed to improve in the future tours. Although a little late for us, at least he acknowledged that the tour has a few flaws. (5) This tour is not well-designed for English-speaking only guests. Many dinner programs were only conducted in Chinese. Most English-speaking guests hurried to finish their meals and left the table. After I returned from China, I wrote to Tian Bao listed the above issues. Their response was very disappointing and never showed any sign of apology. They claimed that because they never printed anything about the National Guide in their advertisement, so it is their discretion whether to assign one or not. In our case, they unilaterally "decided" our group did not need a guide. They also said the train was the best for that route and the food was best they can offer from that part of China. They said that travelers going to that region "should" lower their expectation, as that part of China is still being developed. I almost fell for that until our neighbors just came back from the exact same tour we did but with a different tour company/operator, they said the accommodation couldn't be any nicer, and everyone was extremely satisfied. Humm, think we booked with the wrong company. read more

I booked a Japan tour with this company thru my travel agent for travel in August. They advertised the tour for 499USD and 260USD for tours and attractions. We only spent $12USD for the tours and attractions. I been on 5 other tours in Asia that charged for tours and attractions. We were satisfied because the other companies actually paid for tours, shows and attractions. We complained to our agent and received this lame response from Tian Bao Travel "The activity fees include the admission tickets, bus rental, tour guide fees, parking, gas, etc. It is a part of the tour fee. This is how all the special Asian tours are marketed and sold. We hope you can understand this, thanks.". If this covers all the above what does the 499USD cover ? Isn't that the tour fee. In my opinion this is false advertising. I will be complaining to the Better Business Bureau. I strongly recommend you do not use this company to book your Asian tours. Besides the Tour and Attraction fee, the tour bus was overcrowded and understaffed. They had to put the luggage on the passenger seats because there was no room in baggage cargo. We also had to have dinner at a truck stop because the tour guide did not have anything booked for dinner that night. It was definitely the worst tour I been on but ended being the most expensive. Jerry from Vancouver read more

I joined the China Jiannan 7 day tour (中國江南七日遊) thru Tain Bao/ Compass Holidays, it was a lower fare tour stated for beautiful sightseeing and banquet. Unfortunately, it was a shopping tour with lot of pressure from tour guide and stores of jade, tea, pearl, silk, & mattress, etc., 3-4 hours each day were kept in a small room of each store, those sales introduced their products and stayed side by side of you until you buy something. Tour guide even made you felt guilty by continually telling you those stores support the tour, so it's better to buy something as appreciation of their sponsorship. 80% of the tour members were retired Oversea Chinese from US, Canada, Australia. Lot of them were pushed to spend US$10,000+ for those products. Due to so much time being hold inside those stores and commute among so many cities, the actual time for sightseeing were limited. I will not recommend this tour unless you just want to find a place out of your house and you believe you have superpower not to spend money for those you do not need. read more

All I can say is avoid the tian bao travel agency like the PLAGUE! They do nothing but waste people's time in stores and force them to buy things. We spent 3 hours in a mattress store because people refused to buy anything. This agency is a money hungry company and they need people to buy products until they reach their required quota. This agency should be ashamed of themselves! The time spent in actual tourist destinations and scenic routes are maximum 30 minutes for 90% of the places visited. The rest of the time is spent in shops. All I can say is please do your research before attending this tour. They will claim authenticity for their jewelry but don't be fooled! While this tour is cheap to an extent; the time wasted is definitely not worth it! I would've rather payed for a more expensive tour than waste my time doing nothing but sitting in a shop while being harassed by workers. However, if you still choose to attend this tour; you have been warned. read more