Visa by Casto

Yes i do need my Russia Visa for my upcoming travel… Casto is polite and everything, good service and efficient, and charges you TWICE the money any other good agency does (just as fast and good). If you ever need Russian Visa, forget about this place. This is their rate card for tourist visa to go Russia, its total rip-​off.
$ 165 (Casto whatever fee)
$ 120 (Casto support)
$ 40 shipping Fedex fee
$ 193 (visa processing fee)
$ 487 total for a weekend trip to Russia, tourist visa.
I ended up going for another agency to get my Russia visa, Travel Visa Pro in SF. Cost $ 213 + $ 49 (service) = $ 264

Great customer service! I we received our visas to brasil in 8 days! The girls are very helpful and very nice! I recommen their services !!

Luisa DeSousa at Casto has helped me twice over the years to book roundtrip flights to the city of Porto Alegre in Brazil. This required changing planes two times each way. As I’m not a very experienced traveler, she guided me step-​by-​step through the process, got me great routes and rates, and was always available to answer all of my questions, no matter how seemingly insignificant they may have seemed. She’s very easy to work with and goes that extra mile for you. If you want an excellent travel agent, Luisa is the person to call.

Steve bailed me and my two buddies out of a jam. If he didn’t manage to get our Visas in time to go to Brazil it would have been a disaster he took care of it in about 5 business days. Now all my worries are gone. Cost a couple bucks but NOTHING compared to us changing out trip and postponing everything it would of been a domino effect. THANKS STEVE !

I went for a Russian visa. Russian consulate made a mistake on dates, which I did not notice, and neither did Casto, consequently I could not leave Moscow airport for my walking tour. Not Casto’s fault, fault was mostly mine for not examining document carefully. Nevertheless Manager insisted on refunding me all my money. These people really stand behind their service. I would use them again and recommend them highly. Also very friendly and helpful staff at every step of process.

The service at Casto Travel is awesome! True professionals.
I have used them 3 – 4 times now for some business travel visas and some personal visas (e.g. China visa). I suggest you simply start with a phone call to their office and they will take it from there.
Why use a service like this? Applying for a visa is complicated. They know all the ins and outs of the latest visa requirements and will professionally guide you through the process. Casto will make sure that you have all the required forms, documentation, etc. They check everything and answer all your questions to ensure that your visa will be accepted.
Another note, their office at First and Trimble in San Jose is very professional looking and welcoming. I always drop off and pickup my passport directly from their office.

My company books our travel through Casto and I was having a lot of trouble booking my flight and getting everything set up. Of course, nobody in my HR department was able to help me and the 1 – 800 number they gave me didn’t work either, SO I turned to Unilocal,called the number listed and was eventually transferred to Jason. Turns out it was a very easy process, but I really appreciated how helpful Jason was. Pretty rare to find over the phone these days.

Yes five stars and I think they totally deserves it. I was looking for an agency to help me with with visa maters and ticketing in my personal exigency situation. Many companies looked at the timelines and gave up. A phone call to Casto came to me as pleasant surprise in this stressful situation. Molly and Luisa handled my case with utmost priority. Considering Casto is sizable company, I am speechless for helping an individual like me with urgency/​priority when it comes visa services or tickets. From day 1 to the final day of Passport/​visa delivery things were handled and managed almost close to perfection.
With this kind of service, I am sure Casto is now my go-​to travel agency for sure!

We seem to have a problem with many of the tickets we’ve purchased through this agency, usually it has to do with something simple like a name being spelled wrong or a ff number not being included in the reso. That’s a hassle when you’re overseas and don’t have anyone to communicate with. The last time this happened we were abroad, called the agency and never got a call back. We’re done here.

Casto Travel is a lifesaver.
I have a flight tomorrow (5÷11÷12) to Vancouver, and I didn’t realize until this past Monday that I needed to renew my passport.
I hopped on Unilocal and Casto Travel was the first place I called. Dawna helped me and made everything nice and easy. I used their 24-​hour expedited passport service and was charged $ 300. I came in Tuesday with my sealed envelope from the post office and they were able to get my passport back to me Thursday afternoon.
Thank you Casto Travel and Dawna for making this experience easy and convenient. Mention Unilocal for 10% off.

If I could give zero stars I would. My husband’s company is sending us overseas and contacted Casto to help with the travel arrangements including hotel, car and flight. He was told to contact his company’s overseas office to find out which hotel to book (??) and asked to fill out an online form. Because I am not an employee I had to email them my date of birth and passport information. My husband had to register on their site and fill out a lengthy online form. We gave them all of the needed info but the flight was not booked after THREE days of back and forth-​and the departure date was less than a week away. Finally the admin at his company had to get involved. Our tickets are now booked but all of the passport and other personal information we provided is missing from the reservations when I log in. I’m not really sure *what* Casto did that I or someone at my husband’s company could not have done ourselves to be quite honest. I personally would not recommend this service.

Had a major crisis trying to get a visa for a December Brazil trip with every single November appointment slot for individuals at the SF Brazilian Consulate filled. Called Casto and got connected to Dawna Zike who did an outstanding job. Granted it was not cheap, but she was calm, professional, informative, responsive and had an email to me within one minute with everything I needed to get to them asap to handle the problem. They delivered the visas way within the committed time frame. She was a pleasure to work with and really calmed me down with her demeanor. Highly recommend them if you get in a bind.

We used Casto Travel to book 9 of us on a Disney Cruise, plus air fare, hotel and transportation to and from airport to ship. Our agent helped us with setting up a payment plan, and helping with all the details of our trip. Everything went without a hitch and we all had a fabulous time! Thanks again Casto!!! I have already recommended many friends to you.

I am a Software Engineer, so obviously I use Google for anything to everything. I search for almost all the good (4 – 5 rating on Unilocal) travel agent and then start contacting them.

Hawaii 7 days trip package (car/​hotel/​air).
Online i am not sure if someone can beat expedia (at-​least in my case). All the travel agent gave me quotation of more than $ 1750 (almost same as expedia). By the way expedia beats orbitz, travelocity, etc in my case.
All the travel agent gave me almost same fares as expedia but «Luisa DeSousa» from casto gave me $ 1540 and I was like is it $ 1738 or $ 1538 and she said $ 1538 (which includes air, hotel and car: exactly the same packages, with the same details of hotel and flight time, i was looking for)
I AM NOT SAYING TO BOOK FROM THIS AGENT BUT JUST CUT COPY PASTE THE SAME EMAIL TO HER AND YOU WILL SEE THE DIFFERENCE IN PRICE :-). TRUST ME GUYS, ITS WORTH JUST SENDING ONE EMAIL, IF IT SAVES MORE THAN 10%.
Her Details:
Luisa DeSousa
P 408.553.4712 | luisa. desousa at_​the_​rate casto dot com

This is one of the best travel services company I have used! Beth is wonderful! Details and quick!

My fiancé and I have been thinking about our honeymoon for some time and had done a fair amount of searching online. After ruling out Tahiti and Fiji (neither of us wanted the long flight), we settled on Cabo because we both hadn’t been and it’s a short flight from SFO. The number of hotel choices is overwhelming for Cabo… AND there is the small, rather annoying, issue of not being able to even swim in many of the beaches. Why? Rip tides apparently. Well that’s no fun.
I decided to enlist the help of a travel agent and came across Casto Travel. There website was updated, fresh, welcoming, and profiled their agents. I selected Beth Marciel because she specialized in Mexico and honeymoons.
She was great in responding quickly and offering several options, expanding our vision outside of Cabo. We indicated a budget and what we were looking for (more adults-​only, higher end, beautiful *swimmable* beaches, etc). From Ixtapa to Cabo, to Puerto Vallarta, she gave us some great options and personal recommendations.
In the end we settled on an All Inclusive in Puerto Vallarta that is in a private cove.
Beth is great to work with and I *highly* recommend her!

Things that died in the 80s:
The pink polo shirt with pink suspenders and white pants look (thankfully)
The Pet Shop Boys (tragic)
Hypercolor shirts (why were my armpits always white?)
The Commodore 64 (were those tapes?)
My mullet (it went to Canada)
Things that survived the 80s:
Prince
Cocaine
Polaroid
Skate boards
Travel agents
Seriously. I used to think travel agents were worthless relics. I mean, that stupid gnome at travelocity can find me the best price, book my ticket, and even poke a hole in the ceiling of my hotel room free of charge. Why the hell should I pay a travel agent to do the same thing???
I will tell you why.
When you are stuck in Krakow after getting wasted at a jazz club and you’ve missed your train at 4am, that little gnome with an oddly Indian voice will tell you to piss off.
When your Chinese visa for a trip next week is still inside your newly stolen passport, that gnome will just laugh at the story.
And when you are at the end of your rope after a 36 hour trip with yet another 12 hours to go and you cry to that gnome that your flight was canceled, he’ll ask you to check their website for options. Even though you said 4 times you can’t get online.
So yeah, I use two relics of the 80s. One being Casto Travel, the other being my Def Leppard Hysteria CD.
Everything from same day passport service to expedited Visa issues to bitch slapping United Airlines for jamming me up in San Salvador.
It’s all good.
Radical.

Casto is great! I just email Josephine where I need to go and where I need to stay, and she’s so quick with a proposed itinerary. It sure beats having to do the research on my own.