The advertised Luxury Escape got our attention: “Ultimate Japan 2024 Small-Group Tour with Mount Fuji Stay & Kyoto to Hiroshima Bullet Train.” The max 12-persons small group & Onsen Resort stay with views of Mt Fuji sounded very appealing, so we took the bait! However, about 2-months out from the tour we received an e-mail simply stating that some of the advertised hotels had been changed. Investigation revealed the name of the tour had also changed to “Ultimate Japan with traditional Onsen stay & Hiroshima Bullet train.” Concerned that the words ‘small group’ & ‘Mt Fuji stay’ were no longer in the title we dug further. We discover that the Mt. Fuji Resort stay had been changed to a crappy ‘traditional’ Onsen in Kofu & several other hotels had also been downgraded from 4-star, to 3-star. We later found these rooms to be pokey, smoky, with bedrock mattresses & in some cases dodgy a/c units. We sought an explanation from Luxury Escapes. They advised ‘some hotels had been changed following complaints about sub-standard accommodation’. Like us, you might ponder how downgrading accommodations even further would satisfy these complaints? The downgrades certainly reduced LE’s costs by around A$700 per couple (as per our price comparisons - booking.com 24/5/24). As far as the ‘small group’ was concerned LE were evasive stating that “it still appeared to be a small group tour.” This was blatantly untruthful & we soon discovered numbers had been doubled to 24-persons! Likely two groups combined. There is a lot more we could say, but you get the picture. In the past we enjoyed some great travel with LE, so it was disappointing to experience how far this former trustworthy travel icon has fallen. Budget Escapes!