Swain Australia Tours

Pros: courteous, professional, knowledgeable, flexible.
Cons: none.

I must say that we have not completed this trip, but I felt compelled to write a pre-review.

We are planning a family vacation to Australia with 6 and 8 year old boys. We have been planning this vacation for two years.

Initially,...

Pros: Very responsive and great choices of hotels.
Cons: None

We planned to follow friends' recommendation and use Swain for our Australia/New Zealand trip in March 2005. When we first contacted them and were assigned an agent, all was well. When we started to book, they were caught up in the bankruptcy and we ...

Pros: None
Cons: Poorly run. Extra expense. Not reliable!

Swain Tour Company is poorly run and a major rip off. We traveled with our family to Australia and the customer service while planning was suboptimal. The person who planned our trip changed part way through the process and the communication was poor. We were booked into hotels that were more expenisive with this company than if we had booked on our own or with another company. The hotels that they selected were also poorly planned, for instance one hotel was out of the city without a means to get into the city [we didn't have a car].... warning! Select a different travel agent!!!

Pros: Nothing
Cons: Expensive,not trustworthy or truthful Located in Pennsylvania!!!

This company purports to be a "Australian Tour Company
but is located in Pennsylvania.

I had no idea about its previous bankruptcy and stranding paying customers but I can tell you that as an experienced traveler, this was the WORST experience with a tour company that I have ever experienced.

All my pre planning was a waste of time

The tours we did take were vastly overcharged and could have been accomplished ourselves at a fraction of the cost

Pros: None that I could find
Cons: You can do much better by your self on the Internet.

My local agent sent my travel request to Swain without my knowledge. When the itinerary came back the price seemed high. My hotel and rent a car request had subsitutions and they required 100% payment in advance. I asked for an itemized billing and they (Swain) refused to give me one. So I started shopping on the internet my self. I saved $3542 on airfare, plus booked my rental car company instead of their's and avoided a $2000 cash deposit, and then I got the hotels I wanted for less then the substitutes they were offering. Everything they had ordered was high commission to them and poor quality to me.

Insist on a itemized cost breakdown, don't accept less then brand names for hotels or rentacars. And don't believe they will save you money unless they can prove it. And don't ever pay in advance.

I told my local agent never to use them again.

Pros: Responsive, professional service.  Knowledge & local connections.  Price.
Cons: The flight to Australia is expensive, but they found us a reasonable price.

We travel frequently around the world, and have now travelled with Swain Tours several times.  We hadn't experienced Australia with Swain until our last trip.  It could not have been more perfect!
With offices in both the United States and Australia, they had everything covered coming and going. 
Every recommendation that they made for "do's and don't" became clear each new place we went.  They were spot on, and obviously had done this many times before.  Swain Tours also saved us money hotels, etc.  We couldn't come close to matching their prices on our own. 
Australia is such an incredible trip - it was nice to feel like we were steered in the right direction, and were doing everything right the first time.  We would (and do) recommend Swain for any of their destinations, but it is easy to see that they got their start in Australia, and noone knows or does Australia better!