J & V Travel Service

My mother and aunt have been returning customers of J&V travel services. They were always happy with their trips that Lily organized. However, this Unilocal review is for their most recent trip and their encounter with Vivian.
They recently purchased an 8-​day tour on 11÷12−11÷19÷2015 to Shanghai, Wuxi, Nanjing, Suzhou, Water Village, and Hangzhou through J&V travel Service. This was a shopping tour hosted by Grand Holidays Agency. They purchased everything from silk blankets, tea, to jewelry, including rubies and jade bracelets. However, upon returning home, they discovered that both the $ 300 USD Jade bangle and a ruby stone pendent ($ 50 USD) were fake. They later found that their fellow travel mates also spent thousands of USD on fake items. They brought this up to Lily, who then told us to prepare a formal complaint letter, and they’d be willing to pass it along to Grand Holiday. We wrote the letter as advised and politely asked Vivian (Lily was busy at that time) to take our letter. However, before hearing their explanation, Vivian threw a tantrum and yelled at us for wanting to submit a complaint letter. She said in Chinese «this trip is cheap, you have no right to complain. I won’t hear it.» When we politely asked her to calm down and listen, she yelled even louder «I’m not yelling, my health is good, and therefore I am loud.» Does that even make any sense? While she was writing our rebate check (the trip included a rebate upon returning from the trip), she screamed that she was already giving us money, and what more do we want? Um. hello… This rebate was Grand Holiday’s marketing strategy to hook travelers, not a compensation check from J&V.
I’m not one to write many Unilocal reviews. However, there are a few things very wrong with this travel agency, and we would hate for more tourists to be scammed like we and previous tourists did.
1. Customers are expected to make purchases throughout the shopping trip. However, this travel agency should have notified travelers that they would visit factories that produced fake gems. It is unlawful to be selling imitation stones as authentic gems.
2. Vivian was rude, unreasonable in all sorts of ways, and generally refused to listen to our concerns. Seriously, Vivian, you were not only yelling, you were screaming at us.
3. J&V travel agency is the liaison between tourists and Grand Holiday. We wanted our concerns to be heard by Grand Holiday. Vivian not only refused to take our letter, she screamed at us for being an inconvenience to her.
We reached out to many previous tourists, whom many had the same story to tell. Some have been scammed thousands of dollars. My mother and her aunt have been lucky to only lose a couple hundred dollars. We hope that this Unilocal review can help deter more people from being scammed. We will not be returning to J&V for our future travel services.

Wow, J & V made what I thought would be a anxiety ridden process easy as pie! I considered going to SF myself and filing the paperwork but in the end, that’s a long drive and a long day. I wanted someone to make sure my papers looked good beforehand to prevent a rejection. J &V did exactly that! I am traveling with my son and I thought I had everything in order. Thanks to them I knew I also had to send a long a copy of his birth certificate and Dad’s BC (I assume to verify parentage). Paying the little extra to have them obtain my visa was money well spent. I highly recommend J & V. My once piece of advice since they are a busy little agency, is that YOU call to check on the status and if your passport is ready for pick-​up.

Awesome business. No hassle to get my Chinese traveling visa and they found tickets for my plane ride $ 50 cheaper than online!

Why too many people say vivian is good. This person does not organize very well. Messy her schedule all the time. Even though some one say she is one of the owner, she is not good at manage her schedule. Be careful the careless service in this company. Many people complaints their mistake all the time. Please double check with them, if you really need their unprofessional service.

I recently purchased a trip to China from this agency. Originally i was gonna give this place a 4 or 5 star given the warm customer service and the fair price. However, their way of processing payment is totally messed up. I gave the agent my credit card information in February and they never charged me anything, even after the air ticket was confirmed and issued. I felt a bit insecure about the viability of the air ticket for not being charged, so I went to remind them many times and they just kept saying oh just wait another week or so. And now it’s already been two months and last Saturday I went there again and the agent finally looked up the record and said she forgot to charge me when issuing the air ticket and now she can no longer charge my credit card no more and asked me to pay by check instead. wtf?! First of all, I don’t understand the concept of not being able to make a credit card transaction after the air ticket is issued. I thought credit cards are chargeable whenever as long as you have the card info? that’s why all those credit card frauds happen out there… Second of all, I feel like they should’ve looked up this error sooner because I did ask them quite a lot of times why my card was not charged yet. And if they were a bit more professional and attentive to details they could’ve prevented this problem from happening. Now i don’t even know where to get a check anymore… it’s not like everyone has checks nowadays you know…

I have used them many times and worked mostly with Vivian. This is a no frills shop but she has been efficient and helped me several times book complicated flight schedules. When I go to Taiwan I often take a side trip to Thailand or other Asian countries so the multiple –stop itinieries are almost impossible to arrange online by myself. Vivian has always helped me arrange these trips with multiple stops at very reasonable rates. We also used the Visa service here and it was totally worth it to save a trip to SF,

My parents don’t speak much English and used Vivian and her crew since I was a kid. I have personally used them a few times. I personally think they give awesome customer service. Especially being an old school Asian business. This means they’re not rude and pushy on selling you something.
If you need a last minute visa, perfect place to go. I dreaded the idea of driving to embassy in SF. Toll, parking, and TRAFfIC.
As for the vacation packages. The tour guides are inexpensive but the downside is they speak chinese. Not a probelm for me, but if you bring someone that does not understand… you will be the translator assuming you understand. Some guides do speak english and will translate.
They do have english tour guides but they may be slightly more expensive.
The true pro is they are knowledgable. Cant put a price on experience. When I traveled w them… no issues. I just show up and everything was taken care of.
I definitely would recommend this place.

I met the «V» from J & V. Vivian was great.
I was running late from a meeting in SF and their hours ar 6pm. It was 530, so I called asking if it was too late. They said they closed at 6pm, but since it was just a China Visa thing, it would be quick.
I got there around 610 and they were still busy on the phones and talking with other customers! Talk about hard working.
She told me to stop worrying and that what I was trying to do was simple and I should be careful when driving. So she then took my stuff, asked me two questions, filled out the rest based on her experience working with the embassy and told me to pay when I returned to pick it up.
Painless and in less than 10 minutes to process. Easiest money I’ve spent in a while. I’m coming back here for all my visas in the future.

Lily rocks re: China visas! We just got back from a great trip to Beijing. I like to save a few bucks – even just one buck – and was planning to trek to the consulate but my smart spouse said «check out visa services!» Lily suggested a few changes to my apps that streamlined the process and consulate review (smart cookie!). Totally worth the $ 20. I would have spent that on parking alone!

I can only speak to the Chinese visa service here, but I thought it was great and totally worth the extra $ 15 (on top of the $ 140 visa application fee)! The cost of a round trip to/​from the East Bay to the Chinese Consulate in SF would have probably cost that much, not including the wasted time commuting and waiting in line for a couple hours!
To prepare me for my trip to Shanghai in a month’s time, I took a nice stroll through crowded Chinatown, picked up some bok choy as one does on a busy Saturday morning, and rolled up to J&V Travel. I was immediately greeted at the door by Lily. She was really friendly and efficient in explaining the process to me. In fact, as she entered my information into the computer and printed out my receipt, she even managed to answer some questions from another customer over the phone and organize two other visas at the same time, while switching effortlessly between English and Chinese. If that’s not efficiency, I don’t know what is!
I had my application filled out and ready to go, which I highly recommend to make things easier for everyone. However, I didn’t have the 2“x2“photo because I heard they did that here. They do, and for only $ 5! They also use this vintage polaroid contraption to take the photos in what looked like an interrogation/​storage room.
I was in and out in 10 painless minutes and returned six days later to a shiny new multi-​entry Chinese visa. Thanks J&V Travel!

5 star service! thank you very much!

5 star for the visa service. (I haven’t book travel through them — so can’t comment there)
You know. it’s very hard to find non-​english speaking services on Unilocal,but luckily, thanks to other Unilocalers who took their time to Unilocal this place, I managed to find a decent priced travel agency & avoided the hassle of going door to door in Chinatown & price shop. Bunch us of @ work are going to China to visit another coworker. We either drive into SF & wait in line @ the Embassy to get our travel visa, or we find an agency to do it and this place was perfect, with lovely service, price & humor.
Price: there’s a fix price that the Embassy charge, but this agency’s service fee is cheaper than a lot of places. Some place in San Jose was $ 20 over & this other place in Berkeley was $ 100 just for service.
The ladies there answered all my questions for the phone & requirements. (I called a lot, cause I hate parking in Chinatown) If you need passport pictures, they do for $ 5 only! The reasonable turn around is a week & we knew not to push our luck & procrastinate so we turned it in 3 weeks before our trip. But J&V still gave us one week turn around so we picked up our visa w/​2 weeks to spare. The ladies are really nice over the phone & will check the status of your visa if it hasn’t came in on a promised day. They speak perfect chinese & good english. ½ of our group was non-​asian & they were treated with kindness when all of us went into fill out forms & dropped off our passport.

I never thought to write a review for one of the travel agencies I have used over the many years…
My agent there is Polly, she doesn’t speak much English because I have referred many of my English speaking friends there to get great deals, and they will end up being serviced by Vivian, the owner…
This place has a great deal on tours throughout Asia…
I usually purchase flights on Singapore or Cathay, best service around…
From my last trip, we purchased a tour for northern parts of China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hongzhou, Sozhou and one of my favs, Nanking… it was an awesome trip, for 10 days with all meals included, all taxes excluding gratuities at 7 bucks a day… for about 1600 bucks per person…
Thanks for all your great service and will see you again for my next tour…

I am rating J and V straightly on my experience with getting a visa to China. I turned in my application on a Tuesday and I was happy to report that the visa was approved one week later. No hassle of going to the Consulate, waiting in line etc. The handling fee was very reasonable when you look at bigger travel agencies. I have previous experience with getting tickets for international travel. The price was excellent and was much better than anything with Orbitz. You might not get the miles due to group rate but I’d rather take the discount.

1 star is for the deals that they offer — that is IF you can get it. There are always ‘busy’ days and ‘lack of flights’ so you’ll end up with the more expensive flights to raise the price of the trip.
My bf and I have gone to make a reservation for a 2-​week international trip, we’ve placed our deposit 2+ months in advance only to find out 3 wks before the trip that the trip was not happening. The agent, Vivien, was hoping for last minute cancellation to squeeze us in. She NEVER told us that it was already sold-​out since the day she’d accepted our deposit. She doesn’t believe in calling to update me on the status of the tour/​flight reservation; and, decided on her own that she’ll book us the flight and we can figure the rest out for ourselves (activities and lodging for 14 days). If I haven’t called to confirm, I would probably find out the day I drop in to pick up the flight tickets that there aren’t any tickets or tour and that I’ll have to waste my 2 weeks vacation.
With 3 weeks to plan for a Christmas trip out-​of-​country, it’s close to impossible and the prices are only soaring.
Also, Vivien, the agent/​owner there had STATED that her business is in Chinatown and is tailored to non-​english speakers whom expect asian-​style services. If I’ve wanted «american» services, where they actually update you when your planned trip is not available or is tentative, then I should’ve gone to an American travel agency. And of course, I do plan on doing her one small favor as requested by her — NEVER COME BACK to J&V business in Oakland Chinatown.