Avgtravels Reviews 

I have recently returned from the 12 days China tour. I am disappointed with AVG travel company . I paid an extra $3400 to upgrade my flights to premium economy on air China , which I found was not much better than economy seemed to be. I felt at the time of booking that extra was excessive and voiced my concerned to AVG but was convinced that was the price. Because they booked as a group I wasn’t able to check in on line or choose seats , also was not able to claim any Qantas frequent flyer points even though air China is a partner airline. The hotels were great but the whole trip was rush rush rush , the 10 minutes we spent in Tiananmen Square after walking for 40 minutes from where the bus parked in the pouring rain just so the guide could take a group photo then 40 minutes back to the bus , no time to take my own photos of the statues at all, was a joke! Everyplace they took us was the hard sell on goods they wanted us to buy, even lunch at my expense the guide stayed after I had paid to collect receipts which was very suspect. Would I ever travel with this company again , never.

AVG have major issues with financial management. I paid one of my payments twice in error (payment gateway) in December 2024 and am still waiting for my refund in May 2025. Another family on my tour was also owed a significant amount.
This lack of trust worthiness unfortunately overshadows a reasonably good trip.
My advice … Do Not use this company.

I have travelled with other travel agencies before, but AVG disappointed me. Firstly, they changed the travel dates just a few weeks before the trip, which caused my son to cancel his plans to travel since the new dates conflicted with the start of school. Secondly, most agencies provide the itinerary immediately after full payment, but AVG requires full payment at the time of booking and only sends the itinerary weeks before departure. Why is there such a delay?

China was a wonderful, beautiful destination, but our experience in Beijing was disappointing. We were forced to purchase an additional tour of the Hutong villages, with the guide insisting it was a must-see, claiming we would see a river and visit poor families. We weren’t interested in this, and upon arrival, we only visited one family—wasting our money. The guide’s poor time management also affected the tour, as no lunch breaks were scheduled.

Things improved when we moved away from Beijing and joined a new guide, David. He was well-organized and made the tour more enjoyable. We felt more engaged and had a better experience. However, we noticed that more time was allocated to paid attractions like the Pearl, Silk, and Jade factories, encouraging us to spend money, while free attractions like the Great Wall of China were given less time. Overall, I am not very pleased with the agency’s organization and planning.

AVG is a company that has no care for their customers trips and lacks communication skills.

We booked a trip to China in July 2024 for an April 2025 departure only to be emailed saying it was cancelled due to airline cancellations. Ironically they had known about this supposed cancellation for weeks before bothering to get in touch. No flights around our departure dates had been cancelled, my guess is they were too expensive around Easter.

After finally being offered an alternative departure that worked our ‘adults only’ trip had 10 children under 18 on it. When AVG was questioned we just got more lies and excuses.

Accomodation was very far out of the city, spent more time on the bus than off.

To top it off the new travel dates turned out to be over one of Chinas biggest 5 day public holidays so everything was hectic.

The only time AVG ever answered quickly was if you were trying to book optional tours, they happily took more money knowing our trip had already been cancelled.

One optional tour in particular was a complete rip off, we paid $110 NZD and the guide paid 48yuan pp which is roughly $15NZD and that’s being generous with the exchange rate

AVG doesn’t take on feedback and does nothing with complaints, avoid them at all costs, their are other companies that run the same tours

Total Scam company

DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY!!!!

If I could give a ZERO rating I would. AVG travels canceled our tour as they could not 'secure flights' three weeks before we were due to travel! We paid them fully in Jan of 2025. We were told in mid March that we would receive a refund within 30 days....6 weeks later and NOTHING!
I am beyond frustrated - they have our MONEY and no refund appears to be processed. When you ring, you speak to a different person every time.

ALL WE WANT IS OUR MONEY BACK AS WE HAVE RECEIVED NO SERVICE FROM THEM!!!! We have been patient and reasonable - but it is now beyond a joke and we are contemplating taking legal action as they are in serious breach of Australian Consumer Law!

SCAM SCAM SCAM
Don’t book any tours with this company, I’ve been dealing with Scarlett Trinh, she promised my refund 30 days after they cancelled our tour to China! We only found out this information 30 days prior to leaving and only because we phoned them to ask about flights and itinerary, we booked 7 months in advance! They promised a refund in 30 days, that has come and gone, and even with emails no refund or confirmation on when it might come, they are obviously not a very financially stable company as I know lots of people are in the same position! So booking with them there’s no guaranteed they will book your trip even though they take your money! David Dao CEO you need to sort your Business out, as this is an absolute disgrace for an Australian business in Melbourne, I want my $2099.00 back. I’m a single parent and can not afford this.

I would strongly advise against booking with AVG Travels based on my experience with their "12 Day Incredible China with Xi’an" tour.
The communication from this company has been consistently poor from the start. After paying the full amount of $7,516 for our tour in December 2024, we were met with silence when trying to confirm basic details such as flight bookings. Repeated emails and phone calls throughout January and February 2025 were ignored.
The tour was cancelled by AVG on 16 March 2025—just 28 days before departure—leaving us with no time to make alternative plans. While I was assured at the time that I would receive a full refund, I am still waiting to be refunded over four weeks later.
The lack of urgency or accountability is deeply unprofessional. My family and I had organised time off work, planned our holiday around this tour, and now we are left with nothing—not even the courtesy of a timely refund. Despite being told that my refund was a “priority,” there has been no follow-through.
It is now 15 April 2025, which would have been Day Three of our tour, and instead of travelling through China, we are stuck at home still chasing the money we are rightfully owed. The stress, wasted leave, and missed opportunity to rebook with another provider have all added to the frustration.
Given how quickly financial transactions can be processed these days, the delay is honestly a joke. I will now be following through with the department of fair trading.
Note: There is also 2 other groups. A total of 9 people and none of us have received our refund yet.

Extremely disappointed with my experience with AVG Travels. I booked a China tour (12 Day Incredible China with Terracotta Warriors) for April 2025 nearly a year in advance with a group of about 20 friends, paying in full — and even extra to depart earlier on 17 April with a friend, while the rest of our group flew on 20 April. Despite this, AVG failed to book flights for four of us — and didn’t inform us until March, just weeks before departure.

Communication was awful from the start. Emma was our original consultant but rarely responded. Later, Hans took over and requested our passport details in January to confirm flights — but then we heard nothing for nearly two months. When he finally responded, we were told our flights were never booked (we suspect they oversold seats with China Southern Airlines).

AVG then offered completely unacceptable alternatives:
• Change to the “land only” package and pay $1,500 out of pocket for our own flights — which were included in the original package. So they’re making us pay for their mess-up!
• Change to a later date (25 April) that separates us from our group — and falls during Golden Week, a national holiday when most things are closed and it's extremely crowded. Good luck to anyone who got tricked into accepting this.
• Or after constant back-and-forth, take a full refund (though they initially insisted on credit) — as if that fixes the stress, wasted time, or ruined plans.

How is it fair that we're being punished for their mistake, while 16 of our friends (some who booked later) are travelling as planned without any issues? This was meant to be a birthday trip with my sister and close friends — now completely ruined.

Even after agreeing to a refund, AVG said it could take 14 - 30 days to process the request, despite delivering zero service. We did everything right — paid in full and on time — and they didn’t honour their part. It has now been 30 days and they responded that it's on the "wait list"....like WTH does that even mean!!

To top it off, AVG Travels also deletes negative or complaint comments on their Facebook page and bans you if you voice out too much which makes them so misleading and deceptive!!

Avoid AVG Travels. I would never recommend them to anyone.

Company is appalling. Cancelled trip 1 month before China trip was due. Endless phone calls and emails asking for a refund, not getting any helpful information.
Cannot speak to accounts or a manager as consultants say they are not contactable. AVG is a scam Company. Happy to take your money, but wont return when it's needed.
Be warned they don't follow through with what they tell you and your trip can be cancelled without you even being advised.
Do not use them. ...

There is 2 business days left before our flight day to Japan. All paid in full 3 to 4 months ago.
No itinerary received yet and we are really worried this might be a scam.
Each time I ring it is a just a call service even during the week they say their travel company will have to get back to me and it will be marked urgent but we dont hear anything back.

We have just returned from an AVG tour to Vietnam. Once we arrived we had quite a pleasant time. The ‘guides’ we had on the trip varied in their experience and approach, some were excellent while others seemed more focused on selling the extra tours than sharing local knowledge.The standard of the hotels was quite good although none of them were situated in central positions so meant that walking to places of interest was not an option and needed us to arrange transport. The experience before leaving and on leaving was quite a different story though- poor communication with regards ticketing, itineraries and visas. At time of booking we were told that we would start receiving tickets etc 4 weeks out from departure date but in fact tickets only arrived around 2 weeks before leaving( after much communication), itinerary 1 week and visa 36 hrs! The info we received when we booked indicated that we would be flying a full cost carrier but turned out to be not the case and we were booked on a budget carrier- not happy!

AVG Travel

Not a good experience. Hotels were dirty, roaches and unacceptable, not 4 star as quoted and they were far out of main tourist areas, some of the other booked alternate accommodation after seeing the poor state of these rooms. Flights and hotels were changed 3 times before we left-which caused stress. I have not received emails back from AVG regarding these matters.

Unfortunately, our experience with AVG left us feeling like just another number with little to no attention to detail or genuine client care.

The Highlights?

Ironically, the best parts of our supposed 5-star Vietnam tour were activities we arranged ourselves once we were in Vietnam though other agencies

* A street food tour in Hanoi.
* A private cooking class in Hoi An.
* A Ho Chi Minh City show recommended by another tourist.
* A Jeep Tour through Hanoi

The Lowlights?

There were several, but the most notable were:

1. The Sapa Leg of the Tour

The 2 day Sapa portion of our 12-day Vietnam tour was disappointing. We were a group of four (two couples who met at Hanoi Airport). My husband injured his knee during the Halong Bay cruise and couldn’t do the walk through the Sapa village & rice paddy. The other couple (both in their mid 70s) had already informed AVG that they couldn’t do the walk either and were assured that an alternative plan would be arranged.

The ‘alternative’ provided? “Just stay in your Sapa hotel for two days.”

Given the 5 hour drive from Hanoi to Sapa (depending on traffic) our group collectively opted to remain in Hanoi and cover our own accommodation costs which we all thought was fair enough. However, when we asked AVG to allow the designated Sapa driver to drop us at our chosen Hanoi hotel or to pick us up afterward and transport us back to the AVG-designated hotel, the answer was a flat no. We also requested a half-day tour in Hanoi as an alternative but AVG declined.

2. Lack of Communication and Organization

Even before departure, there were warning signs. Getting a detailed itinerary was almost impossible until 1.5 weeks before the trip. While we understood flights would be booked close to departure, we needed approximate dates to coordinate with friends in Vietnam. The number of messages, emails and people we had to deal with to get basic information was overwhelming and chaotic.

3. Requesting ‘Extra Leg Room Seats’

With a very large husband, seat selection is important. We duly noted on our forms that we required extra legroom seating and were happy to pay the additional cost. I spoke & emailed AVG 4 times to ensure the request was received and was assured it would be actioned. 2 days before departure we were told that we could only book those seats at the airport. On arrival at all international & domestic terminals, zero ‘extra leg room’ seats were available and we were told we should have booked them through our travel agent

Final Thoughts

The overall experience with AVG was marked by a complete lack of customer focus. Once they had our payment and issued our tickets, it felt like they washed their hands of us. For a company advertising 5-star tours, the service and care were severely lacking.

I would highly recommend booking your own tours, accommodation & flights or use a more reputable customer focussed company.

Was sceptical about choosing a planned tour, when I usually plan our own holiday adventures.
The price and itinerary seemed too good to be true. !!
How wrong was I !!
From the start, my AVG agent, Nishi, answered all my queries, explained everything regarding the trip and itinerary. Thanks to her patience and reassurance I booked and we had an amazing trip. Thanks so much Nishi.
Everything was perfect. The hotels were great, the tour directors awesome and our itinerary was fantastic with so many highlights. The Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors, Shanghai night cruise to name a few. Everything was taken care of.
Highly recommend Asia Vacation Group and will definitely choose another trip in the future.

I would not recommend this company. If looking at tours I would suggest looking at alternate holiday providers. Their response to enquiries both before & after our trip has been virtually non existent. Our "10 day tour" seen us arrive at our accommodation at 3am on day 2. We were scheduled to go to the Forbidden City on a Monday (it is closed every Monday). The optional tours are overpriced & we were lied to & felt bullied by the tour guide into joining the optional tours. We had chosen not to join the optional afternoon tour in Shanghai. Despite our itinerary clearly stating the tour guide would advise a time & place to meet the bus, if we didn't join the optional tour, our guide told us that we could not get the bus back to our hotel 50km out of the city centre & would have to find our own way back. After asking for advice on returning by train we were told that it was not possible & we would have to catch a taxi - the cost of which would be more than the optional tour.
Overall we enjoyed the tour however will not use this company again.

You're response is rubbish. What is the proof?
There were other members of the tour there that witnessed the conversation.
I have phoned twice & emailed twice before doing this review to discuss these issues & am still awaiting a reply.

Very straightforward making the booking. Feast value

Quick responsive, know there product, good systems, great staff.
Sometimes hard to contact.

I am giving this company a 2 without even going on a trip. I have tried contacting these people through their website, facebook messenger, and phone. When I rung their phone number on website, they said their travel agent will get back to me sometime today. It has now been 2 days nothing. I have tried again, their trips sound cheap and amazing and something I want to experience. Should I trust them. The reviews say they are pretty good. Bot reviews? I am unsure.

I’ve just booked a trip with AVG vacations. Was a rocky start with speaking to someone who didn’t know anything, but realise that the weekend staff just take messages to pass on to people who know a bit more about things. Then we got a guy from Vietnam who we found very hard to understand. I have since made contact with a agent in Australia and we are from New Zealand And the service has been outstanding and easy to understand answers questions very quickly. John Todd from Australia has been very helpful and gives us confidence to make our looking. What are you doing Hopefully can update this once we are back from our holiday next year. But so far so good.