2024 Allied Van Lines Review

Move.org analyzed over 10,000 reviews and compared company features over several years to pick Allied Van Lines as one of its best interstate moving companies.
Best long-distance moving company for virtual quotes
allied
4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4
  • pro
    Virtual quotes
  • pro
    Storage options
  • con
    Poor moving reviews
Kurt Manwaring
Feb 09, 2023
bullet6 min read

Bottom line: Allied Van Lines makes moving convenient with its virtual quotes. It also has a vast service area, includes shipment tracking, and provides top-notch storage services.

pro
Pros
pro Virtual quotes
pro Wide availability
pro Excellent storage options
pro Shipment tracking
pro Shuttle service
con
Cons
con Poor moving reviews
con No weekend customer service

See where Allied Van Lines ranks on our list of the best moving companies.


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Move.org Moving Grants: The 411

At Move.org, we offer financial assistance to individuals and families who are moving in exchange for details about their experience. Their candid reviews help us provide unique, real-life perspectives about the moving process.

Visit our Moving Grant hub to find out which companies we’ve worked with and to apply for funding for your next move!


Allied Van Lines compared to other companies

Allied Van Lines is one of the only moving companies that doesn’t charge a deposit. It scores high enough to earn a spot on our list of the best long-distance moving companies while also providing discounts for seniors:

Company
Move.org rating
Deposit amount
Discounts
Learn more
4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4
NASeniors
4.9 out of 5 stars
4.9
25%10% Move.org discount, military, seniors
4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8
NASeniors
4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8
$250NA
3.6 out of 5 stars
3.6
33% or lessCollege students, military, seniors
4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5
10%–50%NA
3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9
35%Disabled persons, military, seniors

Allied Van Lines plans and pricing

Allied says that its average long-distance moving cost is approximately $3,500. The price is based on moving a customer with a 7,000-pound shipment across 1,000 miles. Fees can be higher or lower based on home size, trip distance, and move date. Allied Van Lines doesn’t charge a deposit, and your first payment is due within 48 hours of service.


What to know about Allied Van Lines

Virtual quotes

You can speed things up with Allied’s virtual moving quotes. Typically, you must set an appointment with the professional movers and wait for them to come to your home. It’s a time-consuming process that can take days. However, you can set up a real-time virtual appointment with Allied Van Lines.

Just tell the company that you’d like a virtual quote, and it will send you a video chat link. Once you’re online, the rep will ask you to walk around your home and point the camera at your belongings.

It allows Allied to give you a quick ballpark quote. You’ll still need Allied movers to come to the house for a binding quote that doesn’t change. However, the rough estimate allows you to get a sense of how much things will cost. It’s a huge time saver.

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What’s the difference between a broker and a carrier?

Understanding the differences between brokers and carriers is important since you’ll probably work with both. Moving brokers are like travel agents in that they coordinate your move with other companies, and carriers are professional movers with their own in-house staff and moving fleets.

Service area

Allied Van Lines is both a broker and a carrier. That means the moving company has a broad reach and the ability to act quickly in most locations across the United States. It can move you to any state (including Alaska and Hawaii). And thanks to its 400 nationwide agents, you don’t wait in line as long as you might with other companies. That’s a big deal when there are still moving backlogs from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Want a company that can move you quickly?

Storage options

Allied has nearly every storage feature you can imagine. It can store your belongings for a few months if that’s all you need. But it can also keep them long term if you’ve got a multi-year overseas move and can’t take everything with you.

In addition, Allied Van Lines provides access to climate-controlled storage units that are ideal for belongings which might get damaged by extreme temperatures (like furniture and electronics). Allied will also take care of the heavy lifting and move things in and out of storage for you.

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Are my belongings safe?

Allied Van Lines provides 24/7 surveillance and individual alarms to protect your household goods against theft.

Customer reviews

Allied Van Lines prides itself on customer service. In many ways, that’s been a success. Some of its brokers regularly throw down nearly perfect review scores. However, Allied’s customer service scores drop to about one-half star below average when we look at the company as a whole (carriers with both  good and bad review scores).

So, what does that mean for you? You can still find top-notch customer service. But you’re also at higher risk of landing with a carrier that doesn’t score well with customers.

Thankfully, there’s an easy way to solve that. Just do a Google search for customer reviews of the Allied carrier that gives you a quote. For example, if you get your quote from Bailey’s Moving & Storage—an Allied mover—you’ll find that its overall review scores are nearly perfect. On the other hand, consider looking for another Allied carrier if your Google search shows review scores below the industry average (about 3.9 out of 5 stars).

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Watch out for these warning signs

Allied Van Lines avoids many of the troubling signs of a moving scam. For example, it won’t ask you to sign a contract before providing an estimate—and it doesn’t hide customer reviews.


Features and services

Types of moves

Allied Van Lines offers household moving and corporate moving services across the United States and the world:

Allied Van Lines services

The professional moving service also provides a wide arrange of services to enhance your moving experience:

  • Assembly and disassembly
  • Auto shipment (open and enclosed carriers)
  • Boat transport
  • Crating
  • Full-service packing
  • Insurance coverage
  • Loading
  • Moving containers
  • Moving supplies
  • Relocation assistant
  • Shuttle service
  • Storage services
  • Third-party services (like disconnection and cleaning services)
  • Transparent pricing
  • Unloading
  • Unpacking
  • Virtual survey
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What is shuttle service?

Moving trucks often can’t get into big cities because they’re too big for road bridges. In those cases, a moving company will load your belongings from the big truck into smaller vehicles (or shuttles) and then deliver them to your home.

Insurance coverage

Allied Van Lines calls its insurance coverage Extra Care Protection. Allied claims that the protection plan is the most comprehensive option in the industry.1 The insurance plan covers the cost to repair or replace lost, damaged, or destroyed items. Coverage amounts vary depending on what value you assign to your belongings.

Allied also offers a lower-cost option called Basic Liability Protection that covers your belongings up to a maximum of $0.60 per pound per item. The basic protection plan comes with your move at no extra cost.

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Is my stuff safe?

Allied Van Lines goes the extra mile to minimize the chance of lost or damaged items. For example, it uses special moving vans, inventory tracking, and experts who perform special packing techniques to keep your stuff safe.

Allied Van Lines at a glance

DescriptionAllied Van Lines information
MC #
USDOT #
Moving broker, carrier, or hybridHybrid
Average customer service rating (out of 5)
3.4 out of 5 stars
3.4
Years in business88
GPS tracking
bulletYes
Local and long-distance mover
bulletYes

Allied Van Lines international services

Allied’s virtual quotes are also a highlight of its international moving services. You can trim time off your move by arranging a real-time virtual quote for your relocation to any one of more than 170 countries worldwide. The company’s 88-year history also ensures that you work with a company that has overseas moving experience. Put it all together, and you’ll see Allied Van Lines on Move.org’s Best International Moving Companies list.

Allied Van Lines long-term review

Allied Van Lines has helped approximately 750,000 families move in the last 15 years. It has fewer customer reviews than you might expect from a company that’s nearly 100 years old. Still, it excels at offering features to help with the entire moving process (like storage options, virtual quotes, and packing supplies). Allied Van Lines has made Move.org’s list of the best long-distance moving companies every year through 2022.


Our recommendation

Allied Van Lines is one of the country’s best professional movers. The company’s virtual quotes enable you to get a ballpark estimate for your move, and its network of 400 local agents speeds things up no matter where you need to go. It also has some of the moving industry’s best storage options. The biggest downside is customer reviews: Allied scores lower than most competitors. However, some of its carriers score nearly perfect with customers. We recommend double-checking reviews for your specific Allied Van Lines carrier.

Allied Van Lines can take you anywhere in the United States


Long-distance moving FAQ

What is Allied Express?

Allied Express is Allied Van Lines’   for smaller homes. It competes with traditional moving container companies by including professional moving crews and guaranteed delivery dates.2

How far is an Allied Van Lines long-distance move?

Allied defines a long-distance move as more than 400 miles. It defines local moves as going less than 50 miles and cross-country moves as those that cross state lines.

What are Allied’s packing service options?

Allied has two packing service features. The company’s full-service packing option takes care of all your belongings, and its fragile packing service focuses only on specific items like dishes, artwork, and mirrors.

Can Allied do a local move in South Carolina?

Yes, Allied Van Lines can do a local move in South Carolina—and every other state. Allied Van Lines has local agents in two dozen South Carolina cities and has completed nearly 15,000 in-state moves in the last 5 years.

How does Allied compare with the best moving company?

Allied Van Lines has shorter customer service hours and lower customer reviews than International Van Lines (the best moving company). However, Allied has a longer company history and provides GPS shipment tracking for all customers.

How we chose the best car shipping companies

Move.org calculates industry averages and identifies pricing trends by following a fourfold research approach:

  1. Compare quotes. We collected nearly 700 quotes from 10 different companies. The car shipping quotes included prices for a motorcycle, car, SUV, and truck across 11 distances on both open and enclosed transport.
  2. Mystery shopping. We contacted auto transport companies posing as customers to gather pricing data and learn how the brokers formulate their prices.
  3. Site visits. We invited several industry leaders to visit our headquarters in Salt Lake City, UT, and explain what goes into their pricing. We then compared their answers to information we independently obtained to verify accuracy.
  4. Annual calendar. We repeat this process every year and save our data so that we can compare trends over time.

Kurt Manwaring
Written by
Kurt Manwaring
Kurt Manwaring brings nearly a decade’s worth of research experience as a business consultant to the Move.org team. He specializes in taking complicated issues (like moving) and presenting them in a way that everyone can understand. His writing has been featured in hundreds of publications, including USA Today, Martha Stewart Living, Country Living, Good Housekeeping, Heavy, Slate, and Yahoo! Lifestyle. He brings a BS in sociology and an MPA (masters of public administration) to the Move team. He would love to hear about your moving experiences and questions at kurt@move.org.