My Experience Working with Rewards Travel China via Groupon

I have had multiple travel enthusiasts reach out to me regarding the trip my boyfriend, Jeff, and I took through Rewards Travel China (RTC). Our vacation was a 10 day, 5 city vacation to Northeast China, which included the following cities – Beijing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wuxi, and Shanghai.

The many inquiries I have received sparked my travel writing passion to create an article specifically related to my experience working with Reward Travel China (RTC). The following is a detailed description of the process leading up to my trip, as well as my experience during our 10 day vacation. So, let’s start from the beginning, shall we…

I have always had a great desire to visit China. This is why when I saw the incredible $849 deal on Groupon for a 10 day, 5 city group tour, I jumped at the chance to go! This Groupon Getaway was a real steal of a deal. The deal displayed an unbelievable list of amenities and inclusions; if I had not already purchased from Groupon Getaways before, I surely would not believe it. My strong longing to explore China, mixed with heck of a budget option via Groupon had me hook, line and sinker. I purchased two Groupon’s and began the booking process with RTC.

Visiting the Great Wall of China

Purchasing the RTC Groupon:

The purchasing process consists 2 simple steps:

1. Choose your departure location (there are currently 16 US departure cities to choose from with this specific Groupon)

2. Choose your travel dates (there are 24 departure dates currently listed with this specific Groupon).

The Confirmation Process:

Immediately following your purchase on Groupon, you will receive an emailed confirmation letter with instructions as to your next steps for booking your trip (this is a common feature for all Groupon travel purchases).

The 3 main points you will want to pay immediate attention to once you receive your confirmation letter are:

1. The synopsis of your trip, located at the very top. Within this paragraph you will find basic information regarding your trip and the dates you selected during your Groupon purchase.

2. The Groupon "Redemption Code," located on the left hand side of the letter.

3. The “How to Use” paragraph located on the left hand side of the letter. This will tell you how to contact the travel agency or company who owns the Groupon. As indicated, this specific Groupon was through RTC.

Booking & Scheduling:

The confirmation process with RTC consists of the following emailing the RTC community email with the following information:

- Your redemption code

- Your departure location and travel dates

- Your drivers license /State ID

- Your passport ID page

(Passport and ID/drivers license provides 2 forms of identification)

Once received by RTC, they will email you an informational package that lists the details of your 10 day China tour. They will also email you a very detailed itinerary with free tours and optional tours for additional purchase.

Pay close attention to this portion of the details. In order to purchase additional tours /shows, you have to navigate to a specific RTC web page (link provided in emailed information package) and submit payment for the cost of the tour/show.

Note: There is not an itemized list to choose from. You have to insert the cost from the tour options list that is provided via email. Add the total cost for the number of individuals attending. For example, Jeff and I both attended a show in Shanghai that was $60 each. I submitted payment of $120.

Now, after submitting payment, you have to email your RTC representative the confirmation of purchase and specify in the email what you paid for; i.e. "I paid $60 via the RTC tours page for 'ERA - The Intersection of Time' show in Shanghai.

Your RTC representative will send you a confirmation regarding your purchase. Once your final itinerary is distributed (I received mine 3 weeks prior to departure). The additional tours you purchased will be highlighted. The additional offered tours/shows for purchase that you did not select will state "Declined" next to them on the itinerary.

Chinese Visa

During the booking and scheduling process, you will be instructed to apply for a Chinese Visa. You have the option to do it on your own via the Chinese Consulate website; however, I strongly recommend utilizing the RTC team. They are specialists at this; they do it every day.

By working with RTC on your Chinese Visa, you get a sense of security that it is being taken care of accurately. It costs an additional $190 each; however, it is well worth the purchase. Why? The greatest reason is that your Chinese Visa application must be submitted to a US or Canadian Chinese consulate by hand. RTC facilitates this for you, as well as monitors your Visa application process while it is with the Chinese Consulate.

Other reasons why it is a benefit to utilize RTC in this respect are that you get a very detailed sample application for guidance, as well as email and phone communication if you have questions. RTC's sample application helped me to safeguard our applications, which was a great mental relief.

A client of mine purchased the same Groupon and was forced to complete her own Visa application and she was a nervous wreck the entire time. Her travel partner and she were departing from different locations in the US and for a reason that I honestly am unsure of, RTC was unable to process there Visa's together because of this. She informed me that this caused her to have to complete the Visa process on her own, which she found out that she actually could not do, and had to enlist the help of a travel agency near the Chinese Embassy in New York to assist and hand deliver. This ended up costing her more than $190 each. If you can use the RTC team for your Chinese Visa, please do, it will save you in more ways than one.

Keep in mind that when you submit your application, with it you must physically send your passport. Why do you have to physically send your passport? Your Chinese Visa will be inserted within it on one of the blank pages. See the below link for help with understanding the Chinese Visa application process.

Standard processing time for your Chinese Visa is 4 weeks, door to door (ours took about 3.5 weeks). Make sure you leave yourself plenty of time before your vacation to complete all the steps to secure a Chinese Visa. It is important that you do not have any international travel plans during the time you will be without your passport, or it could interfere with your Visa.

If you must travel outside the US and/or Canada within 4 weeks of your China travel dates and you have not yet submitted for a Chinese Visa, there are options for expediting this process; however, it will cost you. Click the link below to learn more.

Understanding Chinese Visa application process

RTC Communication:

After purchasing the 10 day, 5 city China Groupon and after finalizing our booking with RTC, the communication by RTC was a bit spotty. I did not feel ignored by RTC really, there were just times that I had to reach out twice before receiving a response. I discovered that this was largely because they were preparing a rather large group departing sooner than the one Jeff and I were in. The employees were focusing much attention toward this group and after they got them on their way, they would transition their attention to the January departures. I totally understood this. Just note that they are a very busy company and are regularly preparing travel groups, so if they take a few days before responding to your email, this is likely why.

With that said, bout 3 months from our departure, RTC assigned a new travel representative. Casey was very good at communicating with me, any changes, requirements still needed, and just attentive to my communication needs and quick to respond to emails.

RTC in China:

The size of the group determines the number of RTC tour guides assigned to each trip. Our tour consisted of 64 individuals. This number was broken down into two groups of 32 and each group of 32 had a tour guide assigned 24/7.

Sarah was our tour guide for the three days we were in Beijing and Marco was our tour guide the remainder of the trip. Both Sarah and Marco are incredibly intelligent regarding Chinese culture and history; especially Marco. Some of the additional information he knew was very impressive.

One thing I learned about tour guides in China is that you must go to a four year college and be accepted into a program that teaches all the "need to knows" on being a tour guide in China. China does not mess around when it comes to their tour guides. Plus, obviously, you must be bi or multi-lingual.

Both Sarah and Marco provided excellent communication and proved to be incredibly kind, caring, and respectful. I felt like they truly wanted us to enjoy our time in Northeast China.

Neither Sarah nor Marco ever pressured us to purchase anything at the Government factories that we visited, despite their commission potential.

Brief story about Marco:

During our first night in Shanghai, a lady in our group fell and cut her hand to the point of needing stitches. Marco took the woman and her husband to the nearest hospital and assisted with the language barrier and paperwork. I know the husband and wife were truly thankful to have him.

What You Should Know Before Booking:

Keep in mind that you are paying $849 (or whatever the cheap travel price is for your departure location; some locations listed under the Groupon we purchased were as low as $649) for a 10 day tour of Northeast China; you are getting quite the trip for such a small price point.

Included:
8 days worth of free tours, plus additional tour options for purchase.
9 breakfasts
7 lunches
Daily transportation
5 absolutely stunning hotels
10 days worth of English speaking tour guides who will assist you far more than just explaining what you are visiting
1 Round trip international flight
1 domestic flight from Beijing to Shanghai
Plus, if you do not live in Boston or Portland (the international departure locations for this Groupon), you will receive a round trip domestic flight to these cities. For example, we received a flight from Detroit to Boston in addition to the international flight from the US to China and the flight from Beijing to Shanghai.

I wanted to share the above because there were some complaints from individuals on our trip who did not care for the proximity of the hotels to the busy parts of the cities.

Example - In Shanghai, our beautiful hotel was about 30 minutes from the big city and in Wuxi, our spectacular hotel (seriously, our hotel in Wuxi was a phenomenal experience; I had never before seen a hotel this extravagant in my life) was outside the cities night-life district. Obviously, hotels directly in city center Shanghai will be far more expensive - Upwards of $300 or more per night. In order to keep the Groupon costs low, it is virtually impossible to have hotels inside city center in some locations.

Another complaint was that we spent a lot of time traveling via bus.

This is true; however, there were 32 people to each bus and we had to take our luggage with us each time we left a hotel. Other than our one domestic flight, bus is the safest, most convenient, and cheapest route of transportation between cities. I really do not see how we could have gotten from city to city, and various attractions within each city, any other way. Sure, the bullet train would be a great option to go from city to city; however, I learned that the bullet train only stays stopped for 2 minutes and this could make for difficulty getting everyone on and off with 10 days worth of luggage in hand.

Good to know info:

Sitting - If a lot of sitting (sitting on a bus and airplane) is difficult for you, this tour may not be the best fit.
Walking - There is quite a bit of walking in Beijing and in a few other cities. That said, a couple of ladies in our tour did choose to use wheel chairs and RTC provided two additional gentleman to assist them during the heavy walking days.

Check out current China Groupon deals!