Metropolitan Shuttle

My only drawback is that they switched drivers on us the day of the trip and our return trip driver was 15 minutes late to pick us up.

We booked 4 days of local transportation in Orlando last minute. Alusaine with Metropolitan Shuttle was extremely responsive, straightforward, and easy to work with. We got everything booked within hours. Since they source to multiple companies, we had a different driver every day and a different bus everyday. This worked well since our group number changed daily and our needs changed daily. The flexibility was exactly what we needed!

All drivers showed up on time, buses were clean and everything went smoothly.

I rarely leave reviews, but when I was initially booking with this company all the negative reviews scared me a bit. I'd like to add my excellent experience to the mix. After my experience with this company, I will be using them for group trips again in the future.

Thank you Al!

A great day...one tech problem with chargers but driver fixed it pronto. Ask for Mr. Vernon Allen as your driver!

April 1, 2019, my company was hired by a large security company, to arrange transportation for 200 of their security personnel to and from the BTS concert on May 4, 2019. I explained to our customer that my company had not arranged transportation for 200 personnel. However, we were confident that we could perform the job. We began soliciting quotes from several transportation companies. We quickly found out that May 4, 2019, had several sporting events (NBA Playoff, Sparks game) as well as the BTS concert at the Rose Bowl. Therefore, my request was considered last minute, and many companies had been sold out for months or had minimal options (such as ten passenger vans) that would not accommodate transporting 200 personnel back and forth to the event. As a result, every transportation company I called that had transportation that could transport 200, I provided my credit card to hold the reservation. The representatives explained that full payment must be made 20 days before the event or the reservation would be canceled. It was further explained that if I made the full payment, I could still cancel up to 24 hours before and, but I would only receive a partial credit. I acknowledged and understood, as those were fair and reasonable terms for this type of business and like booking an airline ticket. On April 4, 2019, I called Metropolitan Shuttle, at which time I spoke with the representative Alusaine Yansaneh. I let him know I was looking to arrange transportation for 200 personnel for May 4, 2019, I further explained, I knew I was calling short notice, but I was newly hired to arrange transportation for this customer, and I already had a few quotes from other companies. He explained that Metropolitan offers price matches to customers who book with them and receive another quote in writing that is lower. After calling many companies and speaking to many representatives, I had been advised by them that they offered a price match. As a result, I felt I could not go wrong holding a booking with Metropolitan because, if I received a lower quote in a day or two, I would forward over to them for a price match. Boy was I wrong! On April 4, 2019, I received three different quotes from Alusaine Yansaneh (as the first two were higher than the quotes I received from other companies). Once I received a quote lower than the others, and within the budget that CSC gave, as I had done with the other companies, I gave my credit card to hold the order. Alusaine sent me the terms and conditions to initial and sign using the program DocuSign. Anyone familiar with this program knows that the program skips over the entire document that is required to read before initiating or signing and jumps the cursor to the area to initial or sign. I made the grave error of not reading the document before initialing and signing and if Metropolitan shuttle, had the same terms as the other transportation companies. Since they all said the same thing and Alusaine did not verbally explain differently, I assumed the 20 days before providing full payment and the ability to cancel up to 24hrs prior was the industry standard. However, Metropolitan Shuttle has set up their business to make money from consumers and businesses for services that they do not render. Late April 5, 2019, I received notification from my client that they wanted school buses instead of the previously requested shuttle buses. Therefore, I emailed all the companies I spoke to previously for a revised quote. The morning of April 6, 2019, I emailed to Alusaine Yansaneh for a revised quote for school buses. He replied that he did not work on the weekend but would provide a revised quote on Monday, April 8, 2019. Monday afternoon, April 9, 2019, he provided me a quote for the school buses. By this time, I already had quotes back from the other companies, and the quotes he sent me were more than one $1K higher than the other quotes I received. Since they advertise and he said they price match, April 9, 2019, I emailed him the quotes and asked if they could price match. He pushed back that the companies were not providing me accurate photos of the buses they were quoting. Nevertheless, I requested a revised quote based on their price match promise. The afternoon of April 9, 2019, my client contacted me and said that he needed a secure booking of transportation by 10 am on April 10, 2019. I called Metropolitan 1800 number to speak to another representative. However, I was told that I must get the quote from the representative who had been assisting me. Unlike the other companies, Metropolitan is not a 24-hour operation. Therefore, I had to wait until Alusaine arrived to work to April 10, 2019. Therefore, I called him to let him know of my deadline and to send a revised quote for the price match by 10 am so that I could send to my client to finalize this booking. He said he would within the hour. I did not have a quote at 10 am. I requested an extension from my client to 12:30 pm. I called him at 10 am and said I was able to get an extension to 12:30 pm and to please send a revised quote as soon as possible. At 12:07 pm I emailed him asking for the status of the new quote, He replied that 12:21 pm that the best they could do is $5000 because his office manager said they already booked the driver. How? What? It was April 10, 2019; there was ample time to adjust the driver schedule and rebook the buses. The information he was providing me after stalling all morning was not consistent with the previous information he provided or what the company advertises regarding price matches. At 12:35 pm, my client called and said they could not wait any longer and was able to book their transportation needs for May 4, 2019, with another company for $2600. I emailed the Alusaine to let him know that I no longer required transportation on May 4, 2019, and to cancel the reservation and refund my money. It was not until then that he said that I must speak to his office manager because they have a strict no refund policy for reservations 30 days before the scheduled date. At this point, I honestly, was unaware and had not read anything that said that, as this information is NOT on the quotes or invoice in which they provide to customers. Therefore, I emailed him that I would like to speak to a manager as I did not know or was I told at the time I made my reservation which was on the 30-day window, therefore, should have been emphasized so that customers make an informed decision. Upon receipt of my email, Alusaine emailed me a hard copy of the terms and conditions that were sent to me in DocuSign, that solely my fault I did not scroll to read them all (never again). In those terms and conditions, I read Metropolitan Shuttle refund policy for the first time on April 10, 2019 (3 business days after making my booking). Therefore, I contacted my client, the Director of Transportation for the company I reserved the booking to inform him of the information that I was just provided. It was my first time making these type of transportation arrangements, but it was not the Director's first time making them. He explained to me that in the transportation industry, there are always moving pieces. Therefore, transportation companies expect changes and have never been declined a full refund when services were not rendered, and ample notification was provided that enabled the company to rebook. From his experience, the companies would offer a partial refund or a credit to use on a future date. Being that the weekend of May 4, 2019, was jam-packed for the transportation industry, he did not understand why there was a problem receiving the deposit back. The Director further explained that he could not justify paying $5K for transportation on that date when he already had a confirmed reservation for $2600 Then the Director asked me to call Metropolitan with him on the line so that he could attempt to resolve the matter. I called, and we were connected to the office manager Jackie, an extremely unprofessional lady, to discuss the matter. The Director began, saying he was now aware of the company's 30-day policy, but asked her to make an exception based on future business with one of them are the largest events security company in the United States which always have transportation needs. He assured her that he would give Metropolitan ten times more business the $5610 if an exception is made in this instance. She responded "NO" and kept quoting what the terms and conditions said. We both asked her if the amount could be applied for use as a future credit, and she replied, "NO." Nevertheless, the Director asked her to strongly reconsider or speak to her supervisor to ask for an exception. Jackie put us on hold for 5 minutes then came back to the phone and said the most she could return in $2K and that we needed to let her know our decision today as she needed to book the driver. I responded that Alusaine said Metro company had already booked the driver, and this was the reason your company could not price match. She quickly responded that she meant to say confirm the booking with the driver. The Director responded we would let her know, and we hung up. After speaking with her, both myself and Mr. O’Neal was lost for words. Certainly, a company cannot take your money for a service not rendered then rebook the same service and make more money. We decided to call and email the executive levels (Owner Glenn Orloff, and three senior positions under him the VP, Director of Sales, Director of Transportation). I sent an email almost every week to each of them and never received a response. I emailed the Alusaine to cancel the reservation and did not receive a response. It is NOT OK to be in business taking money from other businesses, or people for a service that was not rendered and only canceled because the business decline to honor their advertised price!

This company sent two buses with drivers to a WV middle school for a trip to D.C. less than 3 hrs after departure the police were called due to the buses swerving all over the road. The drivers were deemed unfit to drive. Our children were taken by school bus to a local high school for more than 8 hrs missing the entire day of their trip while waiting for new drivers. This company put my childs LIFE AT RISK! Dont believe me look it up. Pictures and all. (WHSV.com Hardy County Helps out school group stranded by drowsy drivers) ????

Company was use for a field trip for 8th graders no more than got started got pulled over for drivers swerving all over the kids had to wait hours for other bus drivers to only show up with buses that stank. This company ruined the kids first day of what should have been a amazing trip. The next day wouldn’t even show up to take them to a amusement park. This is the worst company I’ve ever seen the first two drivers should lose their jobs and the company should reimburse the schools money for putting this kids through such bs.

Metropolitan Shuttles services are A+ from the beginning to the end, Mr. Lee is very professional, courteous in helping to make our trip enjoyable ,and the driver Maadan is the best he was a safe driver on time arriving and coming home was on time. The bus was nice very clean and comfortable we had a Beautiful Safe time. I will recommend Metropolitan Shuttle Bus Service.

My sorority hired this bus company to take us to our spring formal this past Saturday night - they never showed up. Around 30 calls were placed to the company on the day of, all of which were dodged. 165 people were stranded with no way to get to our location which caused us to lose time at our venue and have to order Ubers for those who still made it to the formal. Many people were not able to enjoy an event due to this bus company not upholding their contract. The home page of this company's website says "Because nobody should be left waiting for a bus that never comes", well that's what happened to us so be warned if you want to use this company that they just might not even bother to show up.

My company had a positive experience working with Metropolitan in 2018 and decided to book through them again for 2019. This year, I lead two trips, each with about 7 days of local service in Boston area before going mobile to New York and Washington DC.

Ted Notis, who was also our agent in 2018, gave us a solid rate for both bookings and even price-matched a New York-based bus company that offered us a lower rate but would have required housing for Boston portion of the trip. Then, a few days before the trip, due to a booking mistake from our partner agency, we wound up needing to move portions of the itinerary around. I quickly updated the itinerary and sent it to Ted, but received no response at all. I called Metropolitan’s customer service line and eventually received a call back from a woman saying the itinerary change was no problem and to just communicate the changes to our driver each day.


Turns out it was actually a big problem. The buses cannot accept itinerary changes from the client, only directly from the agency. I understand this is in order to ensure accountability with the hours contracted and the worked actually performed, but what do I do when the agency is either unresponsive or giving false information?

Metropolitan has at least three numbers that serve a customer service role in one way or another, but only one is useful. There’s one that gives you a receptionist service who writes down your information and promises an agent will get back to you “very soon” (they won’t), another with a similar receptionist who might occasionally get an answer, and a third that’s just voicemail.

Ted did eventually respond, saying the itinerary had been updated but that they were considering “adjusting” the price due to the changes. Fair enough, but at this point I had already paid one of the buses an extra $200 for swapping a day in New Haven from a Monday to a Sunday (keep in mind this was something the Metropolitan agent told me wouldn’t be a problem).

Besides this, the first trip generally went smoothly in terms of actual implementation and logistics. Our drivers were reliable, had good experience driving in every city we visited, and often made very helpful suggestions in terms of route planning. On one day, one of the bus’s AC system stopped working, so we switched buses for the next day while the original driver took their bus to get repaired. The replacement driver wasn’t quite as good as the original driver but performed competently enough, and we appreciated the swiftness with which the AC issue was resolved.

So the first trip ran fairly smoothly despite some setbacks, the second trip however…

Our second group had 58 total participants, which is a tedious number to work with since the average full-sized bus only seats 55-56. We decided the most economical way to handle this would be to rely on Ubers for the spillover participants during the Boston portion, then hire a personal driver for the mobile portion. Although Metropolitan advertises these buses as being 56-seaters, I knew from experience that the bus company occasionally has a larger sized bus (these can sometimes go up to 60), so I requested the driver’s contact info quickly to directly contact and ask how many seats the bus had.

I repeatedly called Metropolitan asking for Ted, only to finally get in touch with someone who told me he had "left the company." My booking was assigned to a new person named Ben Knowlton who was slightly more communicative. Still, lines were slow and I wound up not getting the driver’s info from Metropolitan until the day of the pickup. I called him and, to my horror, found that he had been given a 47-seater bus and it was too late to switch. When I asked why it wasn’t a 56-seater, he said the 47 had been approved by, guess who, Ted Notis. I immediately called Metropolitan to complain, but also needed to act quickly since the group was about to clear customs and would need transportation. I decided to request two Lyft XLs to ferry the spillover participants over, but there was massive congestion in the ride share area that caused the second Lyft to arrive 20 minutes late. To make matters worse, this was a nighttime arrival in the middle of a heatwave in Boston, so the spillover needed to wait outside and did not make it to their rooms until well past 1 in the morning. In the midst of herding our participants, I also got a callback from a Metropolitan representative who said something about “numbers fluctuations in our group,” but I was busy coordinating the Lyft pickup and hung up.

I later learned from the driver that Ted had told them that my group would only have 35 participants, which was part of the reason the 47-seater had been booked. Metropolitan - that is extremely unprofessional. Even if you have some (inaccurate) headcount for my group, that does not allow you to send something different than what’s in the contract. It should not matter if my group has fifty people or ten. If I sign for a 56-seater, give me a 56-seater. End of story.

As previously mentioned, our drivers up to this point were generally reliable. Unfortunately this was not the case for the driver we had during the mobile portion of the itinerary. Although he was good with punctuality in the mornings and helpful with students (apparently he was with another group we had and fished out a phone a student had dropped in the bus toilet), he really had a bad first day with the group, which included:

-Entering the wrong address into his GPS making us late for our first activity
-Displaying an obvious lack of knowledge for Boston geography, including traveling from BPG to MIT by taking the Mass Pike off of Newbury and going through Central square back down south to MIT (huh?!)
-Arriving 40 minutes late to pick up half our group eating lunch due to being unable to turn around
-Getting PULLED OVER by police on I90 for speeding
-Taking 3 minutes to park correctly in an empty lot at our dinner stop

When it became clear the driver didn’t know what he was doing, I called Metropolitan, demanding they switch him for the remainder of the trip. After all, if this driver (whose bus company is based in Massachusetts) couldn’t even navigate Boston, I had very little faith they could handle New York or DC. When they called me back, I spoke to someone named Jackie who seemed skeptical the driver was even pulled over since “the buses have trackers and can only go so fast.” I told her I would gladly email her the photo my staff had taken of a police officer onboard the bus, as well as asked her to call the driver himself and ask if he’d gotten pulled over. I also mentioned Ben had been ignoring my calls and emails, and she said she was transferring my booking again to a new person named Moustafa who would be in touch with me soon. I was unaware Ben was out, and once again it appeared this changing of duties would not have even happened had I not called in complaining.

Sure enough Moustafa called a little bit later. When I asked about the previous agents, he informed me Ben had a death in the family. My condolences to Ben, but once again my booking was floating around in space with no active agent assigned to it until I had called. METROPOLITAN, THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE. I should not have to do your job for you and waste my own time hunting down the right person for my booking. Why you wouldn’t have an active agent assigned to a complex multi-day booking is completely beyond me.

Of my revolving door of agents, Moustafa was the most reliable, and texted me daily asking for updates on the driver’s performance. He never switched the driver despite my repeated insistence, however, and insisted he “just had a bad first day.”

I will vouch for the driver by noting that he had never received the updated itinerary for the first stop involving BPG in Boston (despite Ben acknowledging he had received it) and thus may not have been adequately prepared, but this route was completely ridiculous and made us look silly to our customers.

His driving for the remainder of the trip was somewhat better until the final day in New York when he took us on another absurd route from the Metropolitan Museum to the WTC Memorial that involved staying on congested Lexington Ave way longer than necessary, getting on FDR Drive for two blocks only to get off again, and crawling through congested and not bus-friendly 6th Street only to get back onto Houston and FDR a second later. We’re lucky the clientele were international and didn’t have knowledge of the layout of New York, otherwise they would have likely picked up on how nonsensical our route was.

It’s now been over a month since the final trip and there’s been no follow-up or anything from Metropolitan to go over how these bookings went, so I’ll give the recap myself:

The Good:
-Decent price
-Reliable drivers for first session and parts of second session
-Buses generally clean and suitable for group

The Bad:
-Literally everything else

I’d like to give the company the following suggestions:
-If an agent leaves or becomes unable to perform their job for any reason, assign their ongoing or upcoming bookings to a new agent immediately and notify the customer of the change. They should not have to play phone tag for hours just to find the right person. If you are going to charge overhead fees on top of what the bus company you contract to charges, at least have the availability and customer service to justify the cost.
-Vet your bus drivers and companies better. Looking through these reviews it looks like even this year I got off easy compared to some other horror stories people have. Considering the quality of the bus service itself was the main highlight of this summer, that’s kind of all you have going for you right now.

Not much more to say. You have lost my business.

We enjoyed our experience from the initial telephone inquiry for a quote, booking the trip and luxury charter bus to the travel day itself! Great for our trip for our 34 traveling guests! Will orchestrate future sojourns with Metropolitan Shuttle again!

We used Metropolitan Shuttle to transport our lab group on a 1.5 hour drive for a weekend outing. The customer service was fantastic -- Dave Lee was responsive and quick in his communications, and our driver Peter was tremendous -- patient, safe, and professional. It was an excellent experience, I can recommend Metropolitan Shuttle unconditionally, and would not hesitate to use them again in the future.

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