We have just returned from a 3-week trip with Adventures Abroad to Vietnam and Cambodia, and a second one continuing on with them to Thailand. Both trips were generally well done, with pretty congenial small groups and very good Canadian and mostly very competent local guides. We thought the pricing was reasonable and most of the hotels (with a few exceptions) were good local 4-star quality and well-located. However, we had one serious exception to this otherwise positive experience, and it was handled so badly by Adventures Abroad that it has given many of our group members serious pause about ever recommending or using AA again.
Our itinerary was well laid-out, with good descriptions of each day's events. We mostly flew between cities, but where bus transport was involved, there was usually an indication of the distance to travel and\or the time required. One of our group, who had particular difficulty physically tolerating long bus rides, had phoned Adventures Abroad in advance of booking and had specifically been advised that none of the bus trips were longer than about 4 or 5 hours. However, AA had booked us to drive by bus between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, Cambodia, over dusty, bumpy roads which had been massively under construction most of the way for some years. The whole trip lasted 7 1\2 hours and when we arrived, tired, sore and dirty from the bone-rattling experience, our luggage under the bus was also so dusty that the hotel bellmen didn't want to touch it.Two members of our group had opted-out of the bus ride and paid for a flight on their own, so they arrived very clean and comfortable. We learned that our guide had warned AA in advance about the horrendous bus ride, but AA later claimed that they didn't expect flights to be available at that time, notwithstanding that our two cohorts had had no trouble obtaining flights.
Such egregious errors happen (according to one acquaintance who has travelled a lot with AA, once on every trip), but it was AA's manner in dealing with our complaints about it that has left a really bad taste in our mouths. Initially, the Product Manager to whom I complained was sympathetic, then he passed my comments on to the Operations Dept. I received no response to my communication from them directly, but when several of our group also complained about this experience, they finally sent a general email offering a $100 credit to any of us for our NEXT Adventures Abroad trip, in consideration of our 'inconvenience, disappointment and in acknowledgement of extra costs, like laundry' we may have incurred. This was long after the fact and was no meaningful compensation for the loss, indignity and extra expenses we had suffered as a direct result of that day. Curiously, though, while telling us that they would, commencing 6 months later, be changing that trip to a flight, I learned that they managed to find flights right away for the same trip leaving a few weeks later, once AA understood the extent of our group's indignation over this treatment.
Almost everything else about these trips was quite satisfactory, and our groups were very congenial, but Adventures Abroad's glib attempt to trivialize our complaints and, when specifically asked for appropriate and commensurate compensation, to fob us all off with a meaningless credit on our next AA trip is insulting. My husband and I had, supposedly, been entitled, based on AA's policies, to a $100 credit on our second Adventures Abroad trip, to Thailand right after the Vietnam trip, but when I queried this with them, that request was completely ignored, as we can likely expect THIS credit to be.