Panda Travel

Panda Travel is the best travel agency that I’ve used here in Hawaii. I’m not sure how they are able to provide not only exceptional service but also reasonable prices on quality packages. Their 7 day Hokkaido packages are so cheap, it was such a deal at a little over $ 2K that I don’t understand how they make any money at all. I’ve been to Japan/​Hokkaido on my own numerous times and spent way more money on airfare and accommodations alone. Seriously, check them out online before booking your vacation!

I am a vegetarian and cannot eat meat because I’m on a renal diet for Chronic Kidney Disease. While all 38 people are eating steak with sashimi donbori, I’m having only rice on a plate. I will never travel with them again.

I had an absolutely horrible experience with Panda Travel today. I arrived at their office in high spirits and I was excited to work with someone to discuss vacation options and I left feeling like they didn’t want me as a client.

I see their ad every sunday and wonder how can they offer such low prices. Check their website they must get wholesale ticket in a lot from the airlines. Case in point I am going to Disneyland, and tickets were 904 dollars on expedia. Quick trip to Panda’s website and same exact ticket on Delta 587 dollars. Cant beat that. Will be checking all of my ticket prices first on Panda Travel from now on.

We called Panda today to book our annual Asia trip and because of horrible customer service we will go elsewhere.

Booked trip to India with family to see my son and new fiancé. Travel agent didn’t tell us we needed Visa. We were detained for 2 hours without food or water and deported at gun point. Never saw my son and had to go to Korea. I asked 3 separate times if we needed anything for our travel to India, and 3 times I was told no. It cost me an additional $ 8500 to get back to India and 5 days lost on our trip. Thank you Panda… never again!!!

I am a self-​proclaimed travel-​savvy guru. If it were possible, my full time job would be to vacation for a living because I am an expert at it. So its safe to say that I don’t typically buy from travel agencies because I can usually put a vacation together cheaper on my own.
And then I stumbled on an ad for a 9-​day Disney-​Vegas combo for just $ 800 pp. Ridiculous! It was during the BUSY fall break in October AND the weekend of the UH-​UNLV football game in Vegas. No doubt, if I tried to even find a hotel in Vegas, it would have been difficult and costly. Panda gave us a hotel and meal coupons!
Paid a small deposit online and then the full balance about 45 days prior to travel. They sent me my itinerary via email and then one month before travel, a packet came in the mail with detailed info.
The one drawback was that I wasn’t able to web check in online using the Hawaiian Air website. This mean, no seat changes, no premium seat options and we had to be at the airport a little earlier to check in physically. Panda says 2 hours.
Aside from that, our accommodations were exactly as stated and no hiccups that Panda could control. Our hotel at Disneyland was perfect, our Luxbus transfer was great, and we stayed at Main Street in Vegas which sucked but that wasn’t Panda’s fault.
Using Panda’s saved me a lot of time searching for great deals and instead I was able to focus that time on finding great activities for our kids to do while we were traveling. We had one of the best family trips ever and our kids loved it!

I do most of my travel bookings through the major travel websites online. I am not much for going to a travel agency because I am not sure if there is a cost savings going that route. However, Panda Travel is the exception to that rule.
I have booked a few times through Panda’s online website. It is not always the cheapest option, but I have found on a few occasions where Panda has beat the major sites by a little or in a few cases quite a good deal.
Granted, I would only suggest using Panda if your travels are related to going to and from Hawaii. If not, stick with the major sites as their pricing is better. But sometimes you can come across a good deal on Hawaii related offerings. I found a great price on Panda’s site for my parents flight to LA this month that was $ 200 less (each ticket!) than what I saw when searching on Kayak. Flights to and from Hawaii are generally quite expensive in the summer, so I was fortunate to come across this bargain.
The only pain with ordering through the Panda website is that you can not select your seats using their system. Though my dad was able to head to the Kapahulu Avenue location to get seating assigned for the trip.
Also if you are doing an interisland trip in Hawaii and need a hotel as well, it is also worth checking Panda to see if there is some cost savings compared with booking elsewhere.
It is not always the best option, but it definitely is worth checking with Panda to see if they have any good Hawaii related deals as you might unexpectedly find a bargain through them.

Hands down cheapest price on RT flights LAX/​LIH on Kauai and somehow a week long car rental was in the price, still cheaper than any flight by itself on Kayak. Saved hundreds of dollars, glad someone told me about them.

My father had recently booked a 2 week vacation to fly to Vegas for a few days and then over to San Antonio. Unfortunately, once he landed in Vegas, he became sick. He spent one night in Vegas and decided it was best to cut his trip short and return home. He canceled his hotel reservation in San Antonio due to being sick and purchased a new ticket to fly back to Honolulu.
The day after he came home, he went to see his travel agent at Panda Travel to ask for a refund because he was sick. His agent, S. Brown, told him that he could not get a refund. This is where it’s upsetting, she didn’t even TRY to get him a refund, or at least a partial refund. So he took matters into his own hands and called the hotels and they told him to contact expedia. Long story short, I contacted them and was able to get a partial refund for Vegas and a full refund for San Antonio. We are now in the process of contacting United Airlines to see if he could get a refund for his unused tickets. We even have a doctor’s note.
S. Brown didn’t help out at ALL. He was sick and that didn’t matter to her. She just wanted her commission.
Definitely NOT using them again.

I have booked packages and airfare with Panda for a couple of years now. I usually use Kayak to find good deals as well as Priceline and Hotwire. For airfare I often use Kayak to look for a la carte car rental and airfare. Often Costco is the cheapest for car rental or one of the car rental places listed with that search engine Hawaiian budget car rental (there’s a few similar websites). On occasion, Panda was cheaper. Today I was sad that Delta had a roundtrip flight from LAX to LIH in July for $ 1133.03. I played around Panda and I was SHOCKED to see the same flight (route and dates) listed for $ 438.03. Yep, that much cheaper! I instantly booked.
I later realized I should have checked to see how much a package would have been with a car (I already planned on getting a condo so I didn’t need a hotel). Their website doesn’t seem to allow straight out rental car searches (you can call though). That’s why –1 star. In any case I called up and spoke to a male operator (completely forget his name but this was around 4PM Pacific time on April 3. He was finding a car for me. I stated that it was cheaper as a package. He gave me the package price =D
They have a few rent a wreck places in Kauai for $ 25 a day. By renting through Panda, I am getting a clean, newer car (I have rented from a rent a wreck before with a broken CD player, and heard some mixed stories regarding the cleanliness and maintenance on some… I don’t want to spend part of my vacation on the side of the road to save a few bucks) for $ 6 TOTAL for my stay. Not $ 6 extra a day, but $ 6 TOTAL.
I will go wherever I get good deals, but the customer service on Panda for me has been great and once in awhile I have gotten better deals than booking direct. People on Tripadvisor are shocked I got that flight that cheap for July =D

This review is long overdue, but we had a great experience with Panda Travel. While booking our package on line, their system had a bit of a hiccup, and had me pretty worried as I was booking travel for four people, and I couldn’t tell if my card had been charged or not.
It was well after 7:00 PM. on the West Coast, but I immediately called their toll-​free phone number, was able to speak with a LIVE person! The agent who assisted me was able to find my booking record, and complete my reservations over the phone. I immediately received an email confirmation for the entire booking.
In addition, the airline made several minor schedule changes prior to our departure date, and each time we were promptly notified by Panda. On one occasion, I needed further clarification and confirmation on the rental car, and once again was able to call and speak directly with an agent who was able to assist and reconfirm all of our arrangements.
A flawless experience — Mahalo, Panda!

Just used them to book my upcoming trip to Hawaii after not being able to find good deals online. Saved me a lot of money on a vacation package, plus were very helpful in getting my seat assignments that I couldn’t get online. Shows me that booking online is not always the way to go.

Recently purchased inter-​island tickets for my family from Panda Travel internet booking service to fly on Island Airlines. Island Airlines was great but they re-​scheduled both our flights for different times weeks in advance and Panda Travel did not notify us of either flight change. Inter Island Airlines said that Panda Travel does not furnish them with any contact information by which to contact Panda Travel passengers. One failure to notify us of a flight change is acceptable but two changes without a phone call or email from Panda Travel is unacceptable and extremely poor/​lazy business practice on Panda Travel’s part. Obviously, we don’t wish to do business with Panda Travel at anytime in the future.

Wow, it looks like no one has written a review of Panda for over 3 years. Let me just start by saying that I have used both the local office of Panda Travel and the website
and have had nothing but great service and prices from them. If you’re from Hawaii you’ve probably heard of them (they’re the largest and oldest travel agency in Hawaii) and you know they are a big company that does what it can to make things right for the customer. I made 3 trips to the mainland from Hawaii last year and found the flights I booked on Panda were cheaper than anywhere else online. On one of the trips I booked with them I needed to change my flight at the last minute and was bracing for a major price hike and hassle, but somehow the Panda people were able to quickly make the change for me with only a minor increase. What a relief! Also, I don’t know how they do it, but whenever my brother books his travel to Hawaii, he gets a package on Pandaonline that is cheaper than the sum of its parts. Compare for yourself and see, but I count on Panda to save me some money every year.

Made online reservation with Hawaiian Airlines for Air, Room & Car.
Called the Hotel a week before our arrival date & was told that we only had 1 room booked (even though I booked & paid for 2 rooms).
Called Airlines, was told to call Panda.
«DANA» answered my call. And thank God I got him on the phone! He was SO helpful & kind & sweet. He listened to my concerns, put me on hold & called the Hotel. Only on hold for like 2 minutes. Dana assured me that the Hotel did infact have my reservation for both rooms & also put me on hold again to confirm with the hotel the bedding arrangements that we would prefer.
Dana is awesome! He did a fine job from the minute he answered the phone. I wish I could clone him. Ask for DANA if you have any issues.

we’ve had good service from Presca in booking our last three trips to Japan here. I learned about Panda from my pal Ken always goes here first for trips between Honolulu and Tokyo.
We usually try to book the JAL «Trendy Pack» deal that included round trip airfare plus accommodations in a the Park Hotel Tokyo in Shiodome — the hotel is really nice and new, and the package only costs slightly more than the cost of the airfare by itself.

You can’t trust these guys, they are lying scumbag crooks!
My mom booked a flight through these guys in April 08 to go to Hawaii over the summer. They set her up with a flight on ATA. Three weeks later ATA filed for bankruptcy. When my mom called Panda they didn’t offer to give her money back or provide another flight. In fact, they told her she had to go through credit card company (Discover) to get a refund. On top of that they lied to the credit card company and said they offered to give her another flight option, when they didn’t.
Non-​refundability on a ticket occurs when the customer changes plans and can’t make a flight (as was their policy when my mom purchased her ticket) not for services not rendered, whatever the reason.
After the ATA/​Aloha bankruptcy Panda changed their policy as an ex post facto CYA. I understand the ATA bankruptcy wasn’t their fault, but trying to rip off sweet old ladies for services not rendered is a low-​life strategy.
Kamaaina spirit my ass. They will be polite to you over the phone, but will still try to rip you off! These are the kind of people that give Hawaiians a bad name.
Do yourself a favor and steer clear!

Pretty knowledgeable travel agents and got a good price quotation for airfares. Try them if you want friendly kamiana like service.

The largest travel agency in the state of Hawaii, they specialize in interisland travel as well as Las Vegas, Asia (esp. Japan and the Philippines) and China tours.
The staff are helpful and friendly. You can either call them to make your bookings or go into the offices yourself.