Frequently Asked Questions - Travelers

Zicasso is a free personalized online travel service that provides customized itinerary bids from pre-screened leading travel companies. We are ideally suited for busy, discerning travelers who want a hassle-free experience in planning & booking a trip. Experts from these pre-screened Zicasso Select Travel Companies do the work for you and they compete to get your business. No more spending hours and hours researching on the Internet and travel books on where to go, which accommodations, what transportation, which attractions, who’s a good tour operator or travel agent, etc. No more spending additional hours on booking everything you need either.

With Zicasso, you fill out a simple Trip Request form to describe your trip—destination, preferences, and interests. We match you with up to three pre-screened relevant travel companies (yes, we’ve done the homework for you to find only quality tour operators and travel agents who deliver the best value). These travel companies submit online Trip Plans to you on Zicasso typically within two business days—Trip Plans which are complete with detailed itineraries and pricing for everything you need, so you can easily compare and choose. In essence, you simply describe what you need once and you’ll get multiple quality travel companies, with expert knowledge of your destination, competing to plan and book everything you need, from lodging to flights, car, airport transfer, cruise, rail, tour guides, tickets to attractions, etc. You can work with the travel companies to refine and customize the Trip Plans as necessary. Then choose which company’s Trip Plan you like best and book it. Simple!

We provide a free service to make travel planning and booking hassle-free:

• Traveler submits a Trip Request telling us what you want included in your Trip Plans,
• Up to three pre-screened quality travel companies relevant to your needs respond with Trip Plans to compete for your business. They also provide local knowledge and expert advice to ensure an authentic travel experience
• Traveler and travel companies refine Trip Plans if necessary
• Traveler chooses and books the best Trip Plans. And there’s no obligation to buy
  For more details, please view How it Works illustration

Travel companies on Zicasso (known as Zicasso Select Travel Companies) are tour operators and travel agents.

Tour operators: Companies which put together tour packages (i.e. organize a package which includes lodging and one or more other travel components such as air, car rental, tour guides, etc.) and operate the tours locally, including hiring local staff such as tour leaders, tour guides, and drivers. A tour package can be a customized private tour or an escorted tour with a group of other travelers on a structured itinerary (see “What are the types of travel arrangements available to me?”) Because they operate tours locally, they have deep local knowledge of a destination and often have access to volume discounts. Tour operators typically sell their tours directly to the public and/or through travel agents. Note that in some countries, particularly developing countries, tour operators also act as travel agencies, helping travelers to book tours offered by other tour operators.

Travel agents (also known as travel counselors or consultants) and travel agencies: Professionals with the expertise to analyze a traveler’s needs; recommend itineraries; and price, arrange, and sell one or more travel components (tours, cruises, lodging, flights, rail, car, guides, etc). Travel agents often have access to exclusive deals not available otherwise to the public. Zicasso strives to pre-screen and select travel agents with local knowledge of destinations as well as tours and cruises, adding value with their expert recommendations so you do less planning work.

See Why should I use travel companies to plan and book my trip? for more details

As you can see in our Trip Request form, you can specify any part of your trip to be included into the Trip Plans you want from Zicasso’s travel companies. Your request can be as simple as hotels and flights, or as comprehensive as an all inclusive package.

Zicasso can especially help you save time and hassle if your trip involves one or more of the following:

• Multiple destinations (locations, cities or countries): Standard ways of searching online for destination information, hotels, and flights take a tremendous amount of time. Zicasso Select Travel Companies can give you expert advice and recommendations, and book everything for you
• Unfamiliar countries: If you were traveling to a country where you are unfamiliar with the culture and language, (e.g. an American traveling in China), it’s a good idea to use a reputable travel agent or tour operator to plan and book your trip. Getting the help of professionals with local knowledge on the planning process before you go can really help you make the right choices. During the trip, a good tour guide can not only educate you about the country, its people, culture, history, etc., but also serve as an interpreter when you want to communicate with the locals (or you want to understand what’s on that menu!)
• Multiple activities or adventure tours: It saves you a lot of time and hassle if expert professionals help you with planning and booking a trip involving a) several activities, ranging from excursion tours to spa, golf, tickets to a popular show, etc. or b) adventure experiences such as safari, trekking, or scuba diving
• Private group with different interests and needs: For example, you have a family vacation with people of different age groups, that have different interests and activity levels. Planning and booking such a trip takes a tremendous amount of time. Using Zicasso, you can easily reach out to and compare a few quality travel companies who can arrange the entire trip

Save time: Get personalized travel planning services
Fast, simple way to get several personalized itineraries and have your entire trip booked. No need to do all that research and planning yourself—top travel companies advice you on the best Trip Plans for you: where to stay, what to do given your interests and budget, and then take care of booking everything you need.

Get the best value
Pick best price/value from multiple Trip Plan bids. Travel companies can often get up to 20% better hotel prices compared to hotel or Internet published rates due to volume pricing—these are unpublished prices.

Easily reach quality companies with local knowledge
We pre-screen travel companies and only select ones with best quality and value to join Zicasso: we’ve done the homework for you.

Get better accountability
Choose companies with the best ratings and feedback from actual customers. Rate travel company after your trip

You can basically have EVERTHING you want on your trip arranged for you by our travel companies, such as: lodging, tours, tour guides, cruises, flights, car, driver, airport transfer, rail, tickets to attractions and entertainment, etc.

You can also get your favorite travel activities arranged for you, such as: yoga, scuba diving, golf, spa, trekking, volunteering, etc.

Simply describe what you want on our Trip Request form.

Travel companies on Zicasso can essentially arrange any type of travel needs that you may have—just let us know on the Trip Request form. Here are typical types of arrangements: (Keep in mind though that you and the travel companies can choose any combination of travel arrangements to meet your needs.)

• Independent Travel (sometimes known in the industry as “FIT”)
  • Non-guided, custom trip arrangement of pre-booked lodging + transportation. This can sometimes be “self-drive” packages which provides custom driving directions and guide books.
  • Benefit: Have complete independence, on your own schedule.
• Private Guided Tour or Custom Guided Tour
  • Custom Trip Plan designed for you or your private group. This usually includes lodging plus guide plus one or more other travel components (air, airport transfer, car, rail, etc)
  • Benefit: Set independent itineraries yet get volume discounts which travel companies offer
• Escorted Group Tour (fixed departure dates, escorted by tour guide or tour leader, structured itinerary)
  • Structured journey on which a group of travelers, grouped by a travel company, are accompanied by a travel professional who sees to their needs
  • Benefit: Don’t have to worry about anything (leave it all to the pros) & low price … but give up some independence
• Vacation Package (not escorted, not customized)
  • Similar to Independent Tour package but fixed travel components (i.e. not customized)
  • Benefit: You can get good deals that only travel companies have access to
• Others: Includes Adventure Tours, Nature Tours, Eco Tours, Study Tours, and Cruises

Zicasso is not a travel agency nor an online travel agency (e.g., Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity). We do not sell tickets or tours. We connect travelers with reputable travel companies around the world, and we provide the tools to facilitate a simple planning and booking process, saving travelers much time and hassle in getting a quality, authentic travel experience.

A “Trip Request” is a simple form that travelers fill out to describe what they want included in their Trip Plans. With this simple but comprehensive form, travel companies can easily understand travelers’ needs and plan the trip accordingly. Click here to check out the Trip Request form.

After a traveler submits a Trip Request, Zicasso sends the request to relevant pre-screened travel companies. These travel companies can then respond by submitting “Trip Plans” to the traveler via Zicasso’s website.

A Trip Plan consists of proposed itineraries and pricing to meet the traveler’s needs. Travel companies can simply input their proposed Trip Plans on Zicasso’s Trip Plan form, including attachments of photos, Word documents, or PDF files if applicable.

As a traveler, you can view all proposed Trip Plans on the same page and compare them easily. See how Trip Request and Trip Plans work.

Sample Trips are popular tours or cruise packages that a travel company offers. A traveler can search for Sample Trips using keywords and/or browse them by country to get inspiration before submitting a Trip Request. If you see a Sample Trip that fits quite well with what you want to for your trip, you can click on “Send inquiry about this trip” button to ask for more information from the travel company directly. In such a case, you might be able to get what you want for your trip without submitting a Trip Request.

Explore our directory of inspiring Sample Trips, offered by our network of Zicasso Select Travel Companies. Remember, at Zicasso, you tell us what you want to do, and we'll make it happen. Our sample trips are a great place to start, but they can always be customized to match your needs.

No. Zicasso does NOT charge travelers for anything you do on our website – whether you book a trip through our Trip Request system or use our other community features. We make money from charging a commission to the travel companies.

We make money by charging travel companies a commission when there is a successful sale. (Zicasso is a free service for travelers). It is free for travel companies to register for travel company membership.

Zicasso sets high standards in selecting Zicasso Select Travel Company partners. Our business depends on it. Membership to Zicasso is invitation-only. We make sure that all our travel companies are committed to the following:

• High integrity
• Quality
• Best value
• Authentic travel experience

Here are some of the ways we use to select reputable travel companies:

• Travel companies Zicasso staff have met and interviewed at major travel conferences worldwide
• Travel companies recommended by major travel publications and verified by our staff
• Travel companies recommended by our traveler and travel company members and verified by our staff
• Travel companies committed to improvements in community and environment through responsible / sustainable tourism
• Travel companies that hold memberships with reputable travel organizations worldwide and whose reputation is verified by our staff

Bottom line: as highly-experienced, quality-conscious, and value-driven travelers ourselves, would we consider using that company if we were taking a trip ourselves? To answer this, we’ve spent thousands of hours since 2006 to research and select our travel companies.

Additionally, Zicasso Select Travel Companies have to maintain their high standards as evidenced by ratings from travelers who purchased from them through Zicasso. If a travel company's average rating falls below 3.5 stars (out of 5), it will be disqualified from membership.

Zicasso’s pre-screened travel companies, with their local expertise, can advice you on the best Trip Plan for you: where to stay, what to do given your interests and budget, and then take care of booking everything you need. You get the entire Trip Planned and booked for you.

Additionally, travel companies can often get up to 20% better prices compared to hotel published or Internet published rates due to exclusive volume discounts. These are rates which hotels require to be unpublished so that they can continue to sell at the higher published rates. Or they can get you a room at a hotel that is supposedly “full” because rooms are often blocked out for travel company reservations only.

And finally, in many cases, having a great tour guide can really make a big difference in how you experience your trip. The best tour guides can explain everything you want to know about your destination—history, culture, architecture, nature, etc.—and act as an interpreter when you wish to converse with locals. But good tour guides are not easy to find. The best way to find and hire them is to use a travel company who specializes in that destination.

Zicasso encourages you to use your preferred communication methods to discuss and refine Trip Plans with travel companies. In order to protect your privacy, travel companies will not be able to view your contact information. Unless you provide them with your contact info, they can only communicate with you via Zicasso’s message system—a convenient tool that tracks and organizes all your communications with travel companies. Of course, using the message system, you can always give a travel company your phone number or email address if you prefer to communicate in those ways.

Note: If you decide to purchase a Trip Plan, we do request that you complete the booking on Zicasso. See Why should I complete the trip booking via Zicasso? for more details.

When you are ready to purchase a trip initiated by your Trip Request on Zicasso, we’d like you and the travel company to complete the transaction via Zicasso because:

1. You have leverage for quality service because you can give rating and feedback to the travel company after the trip

All our travel companies have built their reputation through years of hard work. They care about their online reputation. In this competitive business, it is important for travel companies to get the best possible rating and feedback from you in order to win future clients. This is your greatest leverage for getting good service. Only travelers completing the transaction (minimum $100USD) on our website are eligible to give travel companies rating and feedback.

2. It’s the right thing to do.

Otherwise Zicasso loses track of the transaction and we do not get paid commission by the travel company.

3. Offers to buy or sell Trip Plans outside of Zicasso site are not permitted and violate Zicasso policy

Such offers are a potential fraud risk for travelers and travel companies. They also undermine the trust and legitimacy of the Zicasso marketplace. Additionally, these offers circumvent Zicasso’s fees to travel companies, creating an unfair playing field for travel companies who do not circumvent Zicasso’s fees. Travel companies or travelers who buy or sell Trip Plans outside of Zicasso site in order to circumvent Zicasso’s commission from travel companies are subject to losing their memberships.

Zicasso has a comprehensive system to handle your Trip Planning, from the planning stage to the completion of the purchase. We track every step for you. However, we do not handle the actual money payment, because all travelers and travel companies have their preferred way of paying and receiving money. Very often, especially for travel companies outside the United States, travel companies only receive payments through wire transfer. Therefore, travelers pay travel companies directly, instead of sending the money to Zicasso.

Of course! Zicasso system gives you total flexibility to plan your trip. If you find that you like more than one Trip Plan responding to your Trip Request, just book all the ones that you like. This is a common scenario. For example, if you find that one of the Trip Plans offers very good travel arrangements for northern Spain, and another Trip Plan offer very good arrangements for southern Spain, you should totally take advantage of the expertise of each of the travel companies and book both Trip Plans. Or, one travel company might offer a great Trip Plan for an escorted tour in Vietnam but does not book flights while another has a great airline deal, so you can choose and book what you want with both travel companies.

No, there is no obligation to buy any of the Trip Plans submitted to you. Zicasso’s goal is to help you plan & book your trip and have a good trip. We certainly would like to see you book a trip via our system, but we understand that you may decide not to take the trip now or are not completely satisfied with the Trip Plans submitted to you. Hence, we have this “No obligation to buy” policy.

However, we do request that when you submit a Trip Request, you genuinely would like to consider taking this trip. It does take time for our travel companies to prepare Trip Plans for you, so we appreciate that you respect their time and effort to serve you and only submit a Trip Request if you are genuinely interested in taking this trip.

It is very easy. Zicasso allows you to customize your trip to exactly the way you want it. Just use Zicasso’s message system to ask travel companies to modify your Trip Plan for you, or you can simply communicate with them over the phone. A comprehensive Trip Plan often takes some discussion and modifications between travelers and travel companies.

Absolutely! If you find a Sample Trip fits very well with what you want to do for your trip, just click on “Send inquiry for this trip” button on the Sample Trip page, then send the message you have for the travel company. Once the travel company receives your message, they will get back to you soon. You can easily use a sample trip as the base of your trip, and ask the travel company to customize it to exactly what you want.

Remember, try to keep all your communication with the travel company in our message system. That way, you have a reference for anything you have agreed upon. If you decide to purchase a Sample Trip or a trip that a travel company has customized for you, just send a message to the travel company to let them know that you are ready to purchase the trip, and you can make a payment to the travel company directly.

After you submit your Trip Request, you will receive up to three Trip Plans from different travel companies, typically within 2 - 3 business days. However, for very complex trips involving many countries, you may receive more than three Trip Plans in order to fulfill your request. At any point, if you feel that you have received enough Trip Plans, you can contact Zicasso to let us know and we will inform the relevant travel companies with pending Trip Plans for you.

If you would like to receive more Trip Plans after you received 3 Trip Plans, you can contact Zicasso to let us know that you are interested in receiving more Trip Plans. We will work with you to understand your needs and either assist you to work with the existing travel companies who have already submitted Trip Plans to you, or get you new Trip Plan from a new travel company.

In general, the more complete your Trip Request is, the easier it is for travel companies to plan your trip for you. Therefore, you will receive Trip Plans that are more comprehensive and closer to what you want.

For your privacy, only you can see Trip Plans submitted to you. No one else can view them. Travel companies cannot see Trip Plans submitted to you by other companies, either. However, travel companies can see how many Trip Plans have already been submitted to you, so they can decide whether to submit a Trip Plan to you.

Absolutely! After you submit your Trip Request, at any point, you can edit your Trip Request. Once you edit your Trip Request, all travel companies that are working on Trip Plans for you will receive a notification from us to let them know that you have modified your Trip Request. So they can come back to view the changes you made on your Trip Request and modify their proposed Trip Plans accordingly.

Zicasso takes our traveler members’ privacy very seriously. We want you to feel completely comfortable with the information you post on our website. Here are a few features we use to facilitate this:

1. We do not sell or provide any of your information to any third party, not even to our Travel Company partners. (All Trip Plans are submitted online into Zicasso; thus Zicasso does not need to disclose your contact information to Travel Companies.)
2. When a traveler submits a Trip Request, by default only travel companies can view who submitted this Trip Request—other travelers or users will NOT be able to view it. We understand that you may not want to let the public know about your upcoming trip. Allowing travel companies to view your profile is to help them prepare a Trip Plan that suits your interest.
3. Only you have the access to view Trip Plans proposed to you by travel companies. No one else but you can view them
4. When travelers input their profile information, they can choose who is allowed to see it. You can choose to allow only people who are connected to you to view your profile, or you can allow everyone to see it. Moreover, you also have the option to hide your real name and age in your profile. To change your privacy setting, go to: the privacy link on the top right corner of any page (you must be signed-in).
5. We do not spam. Period
6. See Zicasso Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practice

Only travelers who use Zicasso system to complete the booking transactions are eligible for giving ratings and feedback to the travel companies. The minimum transaction amount is USD$100 for this eligibility. (Travelers are welcome to use our system to book anything under USD$100, but they just won’t be eligible for giving ratings & feedback.) *We have to set this minimum to prevent fraudulent sales that build false reputations.

As soon as the traveler completes the transaction, you are eligible to give ratings & feedback until 60 days after your trip. We suggest that you only give ratings & feedback after your trip, so your feedback will be most useful for the travel company to improve their services and for future travelers to evaluate the travel company.

• Traveler ratings: for every transaction, both the traveler and the travel company can leave feedback for each other. Therefore, other travel companies’ prior ratings and feedback can provide a good reference about the traveler
• Tracking of Trip Requests submitted vs. purchases: Considering that travel companies spend a fair amount of time to prepare Trip Plans, it’s only fair that travelers who submit Trip Requests are serious about buying. When a traveler submits a Trip Request, even though there is no obligation to buy anything, we want him or her to be serious about buying, as opposed to just “shopping for information” (in which case we have discussion forum called Travel Answers on our website). For each traveler, we track the number of Trip Requests he or she has submitted vs. number of purchases made. This information is only available for Zicasso Select Travel Company members, not to the public. Note that this number is not tracked if a Trip Request did not receive at least three Trip Plan responses (i.e. if a traveler did not get a sufficient number of Trip Plans to compare and therefore did not purchase, we don’t blame him or her)

Zicasso staff has spent thousands of hours screening for quality travel companies so you don’t have to do the work. See What are Zicasso’s criteria for selecting travel companies?

Zicasso is aiming to build a trustworthy relationship with all our traveler members. However, in certain extreme circumstance, we will have to suspend some travelers’ memberships. The following lists some of, but is not limited to, these circumstances:

• Reported by other members for sending out unsolicited and inappropriate messages
• Post inappropriate content on Zicasso
• Failed to honor purchases repeatedly: we understand that things can change and travelers have to cancel the trips. However, if a traveler is repeatedly reported for purchasing trips from our travel company members without sending the required payments or canceling the trips without proper communication, Zicasso’s team will investigate these cases and determine the validity of these travelers’ memberships
• If frequent Trip Requests submitted by a traveler are determined to be without good intent, Zicasso’s team will contact the traveler and evaluate the continuation or suspension of the membership

Zicasso is aiming to build a trustworthy relationship with all our travel company members. However, in certain extreme circumstances, we will have to suspend some travel companies’ memberships. The following lists some of, but is not limited to, these circumstances:

• Reported by our members about travel company’s misuse of Zicasso system, such as: spamming members’ message boxes with unsolicited messages, failure to honor purchased Trip Plans without legitimate reasons, consistently under delivering what was stated in the Trip Plans, etc
• Failure to pay commission due to Zicasso after the due date
• Consistently low travelers’ ratings and feedback that are equal or lower than three-and-half stars (out of five stars) will cause Zicasso to evaluate if a travel company is of sufficient quality

A Zicasso Select Travel Company is one which meets our high standards as a quality travel company and invited to join as a member. Our business depends on helping consumers reach only top quality travel companies. Membership to Zicasso is invitation-only. We make sure that all Zicasso Select Travel Companies are committed to the following:

• High integrity
• Quality
• Best value
• Authentic travel experience

Here are some of the ways we use to select reputable travel companies:

• Travel companies Zicasso staff have met and interviewed at major travel conferences worldwide
• Travel companies recommended by major travel publications and verified by our staff
• Travel companies recommended by our traveler and travel company members and verified by our staff
• Travel companies committed to improvements in community and environment through responsible and/or sustainable tourism
• Travel companies who hold memberships with reputable travel organizations worldwide and whose reputation is verified by our staff

Zicasso’s executives are actively looking for good travel companies, interviewing them, and inviting them to join Zicasso. If you have already received an invitation, we welcome you to join us. If you have not received an invitation and wish to be our travel company member, please use our sign-up form, click on the check box for “I wish to sign up for Zicasso Select Travel Company membership”, and submit required information. Once Zicasso receives your sign-up application, we will contact you shortly.

If you have received Zicasso’s invitation to become a Zicasso Select Travel Company member, please follow the instruction in the invitation e-mail.