Starlite Travel Service

This review is way overdue. A friend referred me to Terry at Starlite Travel. Terry planned our tour to Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Hong Kong plus an additional $ 99 tour. The tours went smoothly without any problems and our tour guides were great. Although the $ 99 tour does not include an English speaking tour guide, you can’t beat the price. Aside from the same meals EVERYDAY included in the tours, we really had a great time. We would’ve gladly paid a little more for variety. All of us lost weight because we were tired of eating the same thing!
Terry helped to make our trip easy, fun and memorable. Plus… she speaks fluent English!

Bwaahahahahaha. I found a San Francisco FTR. Ohoohohohoh *evil animé laugh*.
So anyways, onto the serious stuff.
This travel agency has been my parents’ go-​to travel agency for all their Hong Kong trips over the years. I’ve only booked with them through email and with specific hotels in mind. Sometimes I need to give them a nudge but otherwise they do tend to respond same day. Tickets and hotel stubs can be mailed or emailed. Overnighting physical tickets need to be specified and involve extra charge (even though if you’re booking one week before the flight you’d think they’d want to overnight it, they went ahead and sent it regular mail. I was flying out Saturday and it didn’t finally make it into my mailbox until the Thursday before, and the return ticket was messed up). They have limits on what they can charge to credit card in one go, and if the trip costs more than that limit, they will charge an extra fee just to ring the credit card again for the remainder. They also accidentally double-​charged my brother’s credit card one time.
But in their defense, our family put them through the wringer three times in a row. They were also quick to fix errors once brought to their attention.
My granduncle in Hong Kong, long since diagnosed with BOTH Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, had taken a turn for the worse and my father had to take an emergency trip to his bedside. The travel agency was able to arrange the last-​minute change (Dad had originally booked to visit one month later) and we are all grateful that my father could be at my granduncle’s bedside his final moments, halfway around the other side of the world.
Due to Chinese New Year, the funeral could not be scheduled until two weeks later. Dad (now back in U.S.) scheduled yet another trip to Hong Kong with mom for the funeral.
After they just finished booking that…
I found out about the funeral date, was able to request leave, and called/​emailed the agency to request a flight to Hong Kong with different arrival date, but depart back to U.S. on same flight as parents, same hotel, different room (finalized one week before departure date).
And then after that was booked…
My brother found out he could make it out to the funeral too. Had to leave from LAX but get to Hong Kong around same time as me, leave Hong Kong back to LAX on same date as me and parents’ back to SFO, same hotel, different room.
At this point it was all finalized just 3 days before departure date.
Despite putting the travel service through last minute, multiple party hell and some snags in execution, they pulled through. And no dollar amount could replace the ability for our family to be there in Hong Kong for my granduncle’s funeral.
On top of that…
Once I got back U.S. I had to fly out to Hong Kong again just two weeks later.
I find their rates competative and service convenient as long as I know what dates I’m flying, what airline I’d prefer, and what hotel I want to stay at. Hypothetical quote requests (well what if I leave on this date vs. this date, what are $$ then, this hotel vs. that hotel, or advice on what hotels are good) don’t play out so well.