Contacting RS Tour Dept

is there any discount involved when booking extra nights at the RS selected hotel because you are part of a RS tour group?

Depends on the hotel; some do, but not all.

How long has your call gone un-returned?

I usually email the hotel first, though I might use the online system after getting info about availability and price. I tell them I am joining a RS tour.

They want you to reference the exact words The Group Company
There is generally a discount, but it's hotel specific. If you don't like the price they quote, people often decide to do extra nights elsewhere.

I know others have found it difficult to reach the office, but I have rarely found a need to contact them. This website, and the forum, usually have all the info needed.

Enjoy your tour!
Portugal in 2023 will be my 9th RS tour.

Thanks Liz and Joe for your speedy replies. This helps me out and is much appreciated. You are much faster than RS Tour Dept. I've been waiting two days for a call back.

Hi Dennis,
My husband and I have been on 4 RS Tours. For all of the tours, we have arrived a couple of days ahead and stayed at the first hotel. Not sure if it the same for hotels in Portugal, but I have always emailed the hotel
(I think the hotel's email is included in the info you received from RS). I include the following info in my request:
*Member of RS Tour group beginning (insert date).
*Would like to stay (#of days) ahead of the tour.
*Request to be in same room as tour
*What is the rate
I think most of the employees at the RS Office are still working remotely. You might receive a reply sooner if you emailed the office.
One of the reasons I appreciate the tours is because they are very efficiently run. And I also appreciate "free time" built into the schedule.

I'm sure the RS tour office is still dealing with lots of COVID related backlog and possibly staffing issues as well, although I don't think RS has generally had any staffing issues. I would try sending an email to the office rather than a phone call as it might get answered sooner, but still expect to wait a few days, unless it's an emergency - such as questions about an imminent trip.

Thanks Carol and Nancy. I've sent an email today to the RS tour office; we'll see what happens. I've also taken the advice provided here and sent an email to the hotel. I could have just gone ahead and made a reservation on the hotels website, but I was trying to follow the process mentioned on the RS site (which is a bit vague). I still don't get the significance of referencing "The Group Company" but I'm giving it a try.

Hi Dennis. I am taking my 3rd RS tour (Berlin, Prague & Vienna) in June. I emailed the hotel listed for Day 1 and, like Carol, gave them all the information to reserve the night before the tour starts. They then emailed me back with the room rate. The room was discounted from the rack rate but it was a little higher than I expected. The convenience for one night and not having to change hotels or rooms is worth it. Although the room is cancellable, the hotel asked for my credit card as security. I called them with my CC number; they did not charge it. If I were you I'd reserve my room as soon as possible, especially since you want to book several nights pre-tour.

I did exactly the same thing this September on a different RS tour (South of France) without any problems. On my first RS tour (South of Italy) in 2019 we chose a different Rome hotel because we arrived four days early and liked the location better. We moved to the tour hotel early afternoon the day the tour started.

I haven't stayed in the tour end hotels post-tour because I move on to my next adventure. In June I have reserved a different Vienna hotel because it suits my needs and budget better.

Emailing the RS tour department should get you faster responses. I emailed them with a question a few weeks ago and had an answer the next day. As you can see from the responses and from other posts, many people on the forum have taken several tours and many are very experienced travelers. If you post your questions to the forum, we will try to answer them.

Dennis,
I have had only one other instance where there were instructions to include a specific reference, it's not common.
I assume the hotel makes the request to funnel the email to the person who handles groups.

I've done three RS tours and each time I've arrived several days early and stayed at the tour hotel. Twice I've had the same room before and during the tour, which is a convenience and one reason to let the hotel know you'll be part of the tour. Once I had to change rooms because of limited availability. Like others, I've contacted the hotel directly on its website to make my reservation. I don't know why the RS people want you to refer to "The Group Company" but I've seen that direction before and followed it. Whether there's a discount for tour members is up to the hotel. If the rate they quote is too high, you can ask for a smaller/cheaper room for the nights you're paying for, which may be available. In that case you may need to change rooms the day the tour starts, or stay in your "lesser" room. Generally hotels will move guests' packed bags from the first to the second room, but this is something to clarify with the desk when you check out. And the hotel (or you) may want to settle your individual bill before the tour starts -- one less thing to think about after it starts.

The same goes for staying extra nights after the tour ends -- if you want to be in the same hotel you should make that reservation well before the tour begins. And if either hotel would charge you more than you want to pay for the added nights, you can look for another hotel.

I've found that adding nights at both ends helps me enjoy the tour more, and see more that interests me in the starting and ending cities, which usually have a lot more to see and do than the tour could possibly cover. Plus time to adjust to the new time zone and a chance to rest a little after all the tour activity. Hope you enjoy yours.

Hi, Dennis. I found your post interesting, because we're booked on that same tour, and I didn't remember a reference to "The Group Company," although that same line was in the email we got about another RS tour we're taking in February. I just checked the original acceptance email from RSE about the Portugal tour, and no mention of The Group Company. But I checked our Tour Account page, and yep, there it is. I'm thinking perhaps this is something new?

Like many other people who have posted, we always email the tour hotel and tell them we'll be joining the RS tour staying there when we ask about pre- or post-tour rates. There is usually, but not always, a discount for RS travelers, but we usually spend those nights elsewhere for various reasons. (Location, type of hotel, cost.)

We've usually found that we do better booking directly with the hotel via email, rather than on a website. One time the hotel did tell us to book via the internet, but usually we prefer to book via email. It's just more personal. We find we often have questions about the hotel, the neighborhood, nearby sights and restaurants that we'd rather ask "real people" about. And if you need to make changes to your booking, it seems to me to be easier to work with someone with whom you've already established a relationship.

(I've saved a great thread of emails I exchanged with a hotel at which we stayed in Venice this past summer. What started off very formal and stilted progressed to chatty, friendly, and even joking later - after I had to change our arrival and departing dates four times! I wouldn't have wanted to do that on the hotel's website. And it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun!)

Thanks again for all the great replies. I've sent an email to the hotel in question asking how to reserve our additional days, the cost, requesting same room as our RS tour room, etc. And I did mention "The Group Company". I'm also still waiting for a response from RS tours regarding this subject, but you have already provided me with the info I need to proceed with this reservation. Once I hear back from the hotel and have secured my reservation, I will post the result here to let everyone know the final outcome. Thanks again and happy traveling.

If the rate for the extra days seems high compared to what you find online for other hotels in walking distance then it may be worth asking the RS hotel in a reply if there is a less expensive room available, perhaps one without a view.

On a RS trip a few years ago we booked 2 extra nites in a different hotel because the rate from the RS hotel seemed high. When we were checking out the person at the front desk wished us a good flight home and I replied we were going to stay a few more nites in the city. He asked why we didn't stay at this hotel and I said because of the rate, to which he replied they had non-view rooms available for what we were paying at the next hotel. It is convenient not to change rooms, but barring that I would have chosen to leave our bags at the front desk for a few hours instead of spending the time to go to a new hotel, check in, etc.

dennis.m, to be clear, RS tour dept wont have anything to do with making your reservation for extra nights, or negotiating a rate. So they may not have a useful answer for you. They advise you to mention to the hotel that you're on the tour so that if the hotel has a room, they will try to give you the same room you will have with the tour group. You're advised to contact the hotel directly (not via a booking site), because, out of experience, many of the start/end hotels will set aside a block of rooms for RS travelers some of whom they know will want extra nights.

Thanks again for all the great replies. As promised, here's my final status report. I did finally get a call back from Rick Steves tour department. Julia was quite helpful and answered all my questions, many of which were also answered by replies to this post. Julia did mention that the pandemic has impacted their operation and they are currently short staffed now that travel is returning to normal levels. "The Group Company" is sometimes used as an intermediary in booking hotels for Rick Steves tours. So when booking extra nights it doesn't hurt to mention this as well as stating you will be on a RS tour using the same hotel. I also received a response to the email I had sent to the hotel in question regarding availability, room type, price for the extra nights, etc. The price quoted in the email was about the same as the price shown on their website for the same booking. There was no mention of any discount because this was an extension to the RS tour. The price was acceptable to me and was easiest to complete the reservation through the website. I've now completed the reservation and was able to leave a comment in the website booking request that I wished to have the same room as the one booked for the RS tour.

I am on a different tour in 2023. I have contacted Rick Tours office via email and they have called me. Try emailing and add a note to call. Hope this helps.

The Group Company is a company that specializes in booking suppliers for tour companies and those wanting to offer tours. They can book everything from the entire tour--hotels, coaches, restaurants, tour directors, etc--or just pieces of it. They can develop itineraries or book all the essentials of yours. Whether you are a tour company needing help with bookings for someone who want to offer a bird watching tour of Scotland, they can help.

When I ran tours years and years ago, I worked for a company that operated tours for large tour companies that didn't have operations in the USA and wanted to offer tours there. In fact, we could run the same tour for numerous companies and have passengers from 2-3 different companies on one tour. It depended on where they were from and what language they spoke.

How much RS uses them is unknown but RS is mentioned on the Group Company's website.

The Group Company is a company that specializes in booking suppliers for tour companies and those wanting to offer tours.

Interesting and a little surprising. I thought RS used the same hotels for groups that are recommended in the guides and just assumed they arranged directly with the hotels. And in fact once or twice on tours we've had meals at the hotel where a guest asked if we were part of a RS tour, explaining they had tried to book a room at the hotel but it was filled by the RS group.

I have taken three RS tours and on each tour we stayed at hotels not in the guidebook.

It's possible that RSE may have lost staff during the pandemic and now need help in booking groups. You can't just hire someone off the street and expect them to know how to book groups. It's not like booking an individual hotel room. You have to negotiate rates, room blocks, guarantees and release dates. It's not just surfing to the hotel's website and reserving at the going rate. I guarantee you that the price the tour pays for a hotel room is going to be a lot less than what you would pay on your own for the same room.

It's also possible, considering how much money RSE lost during the pandemic, it might be more economical to let a third party book parts of their tours rather than hire people in their office. RS Tours could lay out the parameters necessary in a hotel or offer a list of hotels, but let the outside company do the work. We'll never know.

It has no effect on the tour from the passengers point of view. You really won't know the difference,

Hey all,

I'm a bit late to the party as I found this while perusing. I'm elevating the issue of how we refer to The Group Company as I agree that this is confusing. We need to change our wording around this to make it clear.

I can't speak directly to the issue about getting through to us, though I do note that this thread was started on a weekend. I hope that Dennis will PM me (click my username <-- ) if he is somehow still having difficulty getting through to us or has any other needs/questions.

Just one note from previous RS tour experiences. Ricks tours in Turkey have to be run though a local travel agency due to Turkish law. So when I emailed the hotel in advance for reservations I used the name of the company Rick uses in Turkey.

Hope that may explain some of this.