Headout in Venice: platform review, prices and conditions

Headout is a tickets-and-activities platform based in New York. In Venice it doesn’t compete on volume but on a group of high-demand products: the vaporetto, the Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s Basilica, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, airport boats and island trips. We compared its prices with the official ones and read its terms on fees and refunds.

Disclosure. We have no commercial relationship with Headout and receive no commission on its sales. We earn only on bookings made through our links to Tiqets and GetYourGuide, and the button at the top of this page goes to Tiqets, not Headout. This site is not official and does not sell tickets.

Who Headout is

Headout Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in New York. According to its About page, it was founded in 2014. Like the other platforms, it runs no museums or boats: it resells tickets and activities from local suppliers, and the purchase relationship stays between you and the supplier, with Headout as intermediary. The site is available in 14 languages.

What it sells in Venice, and at what price

The Venice page listed 132 experiences. The featured products and their prices, read on this page’s update date, are these.

The picture is mixed. On the vaporetto, Headout sells at the official price, which not every platform does: on Tiqets the ACTV pass starts at €12. But the same ticket is sold with no intermediary in the AVM Venezia app, at the machines at the stops and at Venezia Unica points, and remember that tourist passes are not valid on Alilaguna services or on lines 16 and 19.

For St Mark’s Basilica, the same applies as on other platforms. The Procuratoria sells the basic ticket at €10, in your name, with a time slot and at most 5 tickets per account per year, and its terms cancel without refund any ticket bought from a non-accredited operator. Platforms therefore sell entries with added services. Headout shows €19 as a 20% discount on €23.75: that starting price is its own reference, not the official price. Read what the entry includes on the listing before comparing it with the Procuratoria ticket.

For the Doge’s Palace, the starting price matches the official €35 full price. If you book at least 30 days ahead, the Civic Museums’ site sells it at €30 and lets you cancel until the day before. For the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Headout costs €1.50 more than the official price but less than Tiqets (€20); the museum says booking online is recommended, not required, and the ticket office sells on the spot. The museum is closed on Tuesdays.

For the airport boat, the €20.25 starting price is above Alilaguna’s €18 single fare; Alilaguna also sells online through its own shop.

How booking works

After paying you receive the confirmation and the ticket or voucher to show at the entrance or when boarding; the listing says whether you need to print it or your phone is enough. For ACTV products, check on the listing whether you get a ready-to-use ticket or a voucher to exchange: ACTV tickets are valid from their first validation. Headout says it offers pay-later options on many experiences; check on the listing whether that applies to the product you want.

Cancellations and refunds

Here Headout is stricter than its home page suggests, which mentions free cancellation “on most experiences”. Its cancellation policy says bookings cannot be cancelled unless the listing states otherwise, and that the supplier decides. Other details worth knowing:

• if a cancellation is accepted, Headout refunds within 7 days of receiving the amount from the supplier, so timing also depends on the supplier;
• the refund goes to the original payment method; the alternative is Headout credits, which cannot be used in part, transferred or converted to cash;
• if you used a discount code, the discount is deducted from the refund;
• there are no refunds once the experience has started;
• the supplier can change dates, prices or content, and Headout disclaims responsibility for those changes.

In practice, treat timed St Mark’s tickets as final unless the listing explicitly says otherwise.

Fees

The terms of use provide for a “Headout service fee” that may be added at checkout. The amount is not stated in the terms. That is a difference from GetYourGuide, Musement and Civitatis, whose terms include no traveller fee; Tiqets charges one only on some orders. Before paying, compare the final total, not the headline price.

Support and languages

Headout states that support runs 24 hours a day “in all languages” the site is available in, 14 in total. For problems at a museum entrance or a boarding point, contact support straight away from the app and keep your confirmation: any refund still goes through the supplier.

What we like and what to watch

We like: the 75-minute ACTV ticket and 1-day pass at the operator’s own price; the Doge’s Palace at the official full price; the Guggenheim cheaper than on Tiqets; a short catalogue that is easy to browse; stated 24/7 support in several languages.

Watch out for: the unquantified service fee; the default “non-cancellable unless stated” rule; refunds that depend on the supplier’s timing; discounts calculated on the platform’s own reference prices; the Basilica and the airport boat cost more than the official channel.

Who it suits

Headout can work for travellers already in Venice, or leaving in a few days, who want to book a couple of tickets quickly from their phone. If you plan ahead, the official channels of the Civic Museums, the Procuratoria, ACTV and Alilaguna cost the same or less and have clearer rules.

Alternatives

Tiqets sells the Doge’s Palace and the Civic Museums at the same prices and names the supplier with its address on every listing. Musement, an Italian company in the TUI group, charges no traveller fee according to its terms. The full list of sellers is on the operators page.

Verdict

Headout sells some Venice products at the official price, the vaporetto in particular, and its catalogue is easy to use. Its terms, however, start from “non-refundable unless stated” and allow for a service fee: read the listing and the final total before paying, and for tickets you book in advance, prefer the official channel.