VisitBritain Shop Reviews 

Scamming people with their prices. Your marketing material are all words with nothing to show for it.

You want to promote tourism to this country, put some LIFE INTO IT!!!!!!

If I could give this a minus 5 stars, it would really reflect on the performance of this outfit! I ordered and paid for a Visitor Oyster card on the understanding that delivery would be 8-9 days. I was notified that it was shipped and two weeks later still no card. I will be leaving in 2 days time and I tried to contact them two days ago with zero response. It is not the money in so much as the inconvenience as my understanding is that one cannot purchase a Visitor Oyster card in London itself, although I did ask them what I should do when I tried to contact. I feel absolutely ripped of and even before I start, it has left a blot on my trip.I wish that I had read the reviews before paying these shysters.

We ordered 6 oystercards including £25 each card!!!!!
We paid extra for track and trace delivery!!!
NO CARDS WERE DELIVERED!!!!!!!
Advice from Visit Britain website: buy new cards in London and if you get the delivery later on you get a REFUND!!!!!
We have been RIPPED!!!!!

Ordered 2 Visitor Oyster Cards London on 9-12 for 79 pounds ($99 total). I never received the cards before our departure to Europe on Sept 27. They said cards would arrive in time. Their tracking showed the cards were delivered to the Sarasota FL post office on 9-27; however they were never delivered to our residence and in any regard we had left so they would do us no good. Still have not shown up 11-13-23. Visit Britain WILL NOT REFUND THE MONEY! They are not reputable. Don't waste your money. FYI you don't need these cards-your credit card works for all transportation. Great system

Amazing Day out at Alton Towers Firework Event days for £14.99pp!
I was informed of the National Lottery Days out promotion offering £25 off tickets.

I claimed the promotion and was forwarded to the Visit Britain website to claim the discount voucher. They had the tickets for Alton Towers marked up at £39.99 - including the dates for their Fireworks events, which normally cost more (online closer to the dates we’re £59.99 on Alton towers website!).

I entered the codes and purchased the tickets for £14.99. My tickets came nearly instantaneously with no issue.

However, I was sceptical this was a scam, the tickets said they were valid on 05/11/23 time 00.00.00, and expired on 05/11/23 time 00.00.01. I panicked right up until visiting, especially after seeing the reviews!

On arrival, the ticket barcodes did not scan. However, when the barcode was manually entered, the tickets went through without issue and we were granted access!

We had a wonderful day and the fireworks at Alton Towers were nothing short of brilliant and would happily use again!

I purchased tickets for a witch walk. Unfortunately I tested positive for Covid 50+ hours prior to the walk. I immediately contacted visit Britain via their online form. I received no reply for 48 hours and then a claim that I had left it too late. I had given more than 50 hours notice and their terms and conditions state 48 hours. They tried saying I made the claim 24 hours before at 6:55 am (I wasn’t even awake at this time) I sent my internet history as proof of when I went on the contact form and of the morning they said I contacted them. They claim this isn’t evidence. Terrible customer service. I don’t recommend booking with them.

SCAM SCAM SCAM! Cancelled tickets for no reason day before activity. Refused a full refund. Stay away

Bought a ticket to go to Legoland and ticket didn't scan. Ticket didn't download, luckily had a screenshot of the barcode but it didn't scan. The ticket says entry 00:00 till 00:00:01 when legoland opens 10am till 5pm. Customer service is shocking and just go round in circles. Spoken to a few people that have had the same problem with tickets not scanning including a friend that went the same day but luckily she got to go in. I guess you risk it for £13 a ticket when it's £66 normally. Never buy another ticket and will be spreading the word as they are basically scamming people.

Bought lottery tickets, to take advantage of the visit britain offer. Promotion was ending 30th September 2023, went to use the reference codes to book only to be told today that the promotion ended early. Very disappointed 3 children, as no birthday Legoland visit now. Awful advertising.

Booked Edinburgh castle through the website and received the QR codes no problem so added them to my apple wallet. On the day of visiting, the castle said the QR codes were not what they used to scan for entry and I should have received a second email with actual entry tickets from the castle. This I did not receive. We ended up having to be escorted to the ticket office inside so they could find our booking by name as the reference number was irrelevant and they could not have been more helpful. We had saved the castle for our final day and this ended up wasting time and nearly cost us a whole new batch of entry tickets - shame on you VB

Like many others took advantage of a national lottery promotion to take my family to the zoo. Tickets bought in July, vouchers one per person and per email address but bought all tickets using one email address (not against terms) and they cancelled them! We've booked local accomodation and sorted travel. Awful

Absolutely awful, such a giant scam. I’ve got some of the tickets on with the National Lottery where you get them cheaper and I did about six adults with disabilities and each adult have their own email to get their own code and then it asked me where I wanted to send the tickets to, so I chose my email to send all the tickets to because the adults have additional needs. And it’s easy for me to do it for them. They let me send every single ticket to my email. I have the tickets for two weeks and then they cancelled just before I was going and I phoned them up and they said it’s because you have to send each ticket to a separate email address which doesn’t stay on the website and it let me send all the tickets to mine. They so they’ve said I’ve lost all my tickets and they will give me a refund. What is the tickets cost me £8 for the National Lottery want to go Chester zoo it’s £30 per adult so it’s just a giant scam. I wouldn’t bother They could’ve emailed me and I could’ve explained it to them or anything but they just cancelled. They should change it online so you can’t make this mistake never be using again

Very disappointed.

Booked tickets via the national lottery promotion, great we thought, go somewhere we probably wouldn't have gone otherwise.

Couple of days later they've been cancelled, and we've been accused of fraud 🤣

Visit Britain? Nah, I'll pass!

Due to issues with your website and booking process I have now been left with only half of my family being able to attend the day out. We are unable to contact you via telephone as your telephone lines are “temporarily unavailable” and whilst you encourage people to send you emails, we have sent four emails over the past few weeks and have had zero responses. Would absolutely not recommend this website to anybody.

I ordered 2 oyster cards which cost 60.00 plus delivery
Supposed to be sent but nothing arrived
Have emailed several times but no response other than the fact they had received email. No phone number to call. No branches to call into in london.
SCAM

Like others, I also had a negative experience with the National Lottery £25 voucher. Kept trying to pay at checkout and it would say "We are securing your booking - this can take up to a minute" - nothing changed and then an error message "An error occurred on the server. Please try to place the order again" would appear. Tried multiple times, different times of the day over a few days. Called up customer service, waited 20 minutes on the line - advisor said it was because so many people are using the website and said just to keep trying and they are fixing the issue. Kept trying for a couple more days, same error message and then got an email that my voucher was expiring - wasted so much time, gave up in the end.

Wish i could select minus five stars or Zero stars. Ordered zoo tickets over a week ago still waiting for e tickets. No phone customer service, no response from online contact form. Very poor service.

Visit Britain does not even deserve 1 star. Booked LegoLand tickets using the National Lottery code. Haven’t received the tickets yet they have my money. Phone lines are down emailed them and still haven’t got a response. Visit Britain.. I would like my £127 back please. Complete rip off. They need to be reported.

I tried to book tickets for the national lottery days out offer. What a waste of time. You put in all your details, the website then takes your money and then tells you there’s been a problem. Tried with 2 different payment methods and got the same result.

You can’t phone them (just like all sub standard outfits that want your money but don’t want to talk to you) and so I emailed to request a refund and to ask how it can be resolved - I.e. I was expecting them to fix the issue so I could buy the tickets. I got the refund, but no response, explanation or acknowledgement of my email.

It’s frustrating that I can’t give zero stars as they were not even up to the 1 star standard.

A shambles of an organisation. Booked a trip to RHS Wisley using the Lotto special offer scheme. Had to change dates (Wisley does not take bookings by dates anyway), but VisitBritain's phone system was broken and they could not take any calls. Sent an email for a response in 48 hours. No response. RHS Wisley accepted the tickets anyway. It's embarrassing that this organisation is representing Britain to tourists. What a shambles! It just confirms the current state of the nation.....