Travelogs International

I personally spoke to the complainant on the phone a few days after the school district cancelled the trip, which was on (I believe) March 13. The conversation with the complainant took place on March 17. Here is the official response to this complaint.The travel agent advised me that hotels are refusing to refund him therefore we will not be fully refunded. It was never expressed to the complainant that hotels (or any other suppliers) were refusing to refund money that was paid for the group. What I told her was that each of our suppliers had signed contracts with Travelogs and by contract, they had every legal right not to refund money. We hoped that they would, but they were not obligated to do so.He advised me that we would maybe get 50 percent of our funds back which is not acceptable. This is not our choice to cancel it’s a National Emergency which causes this. At no time was it ever expressed to the complainant that ‘maybe’ she would get 50% back. I explained to her that she would be guaranteed a minimum 50% because that is what our cancellation policy/release form is with our customers. However, on top of that, Travelogs was trying to recoup additional funds from our suppliers to then refund back to the trip participants but it would take some time to figure out an exact refund amount. However, legally, Travelogs was obligated to refund 50% at minimum because the trip was cancelled by the school district between February 18 and April 6. Our cancellation policy for this group in particular is: Between time of registration and January 18: Penalty $25 Between January 19 and February 17: Penalty $200Between February 18 and April 6: Penalty 50% of the program fee (or entire deposit, whichever is greater)After April 6:No refundAny cancellations resulting in refunds must be made in writing to Travelogs International, 4909 Transit Road, Suite 3, Depew, NY 14043. The amount of your refund will be determined by the postmark date of your cancellation notice. Refund checks or a refund to the credit card that was used for payment, will be issued/made within four weeks of cancellation. The cancellation penalties are in effect regardless of the reason for cancellation, including unforeseen illness, disciplinary action taken by the school/organization, or cancellation of the entire group by the school/organization for any reason. Please contact Travelogs directly for replacement policy. There are absolutely no replacements within 72 hours of departure. For cancellation of an entire group at that group’s own request, any nonrefundable payments or contractual commitments made by Travelogs on behalf of the group are nonrefundable to program participants. In addition, Travelogs reserves the right to include an administrative fee in any cancellation charges to program participants. Neither Travelogs nor the school/organization is financially responsible for any charges to program participants for cancelled trips due to (but not limited to) illness, weather related events, civil strife, or national/international events.“….he is a liar saying hotels refuse to cancel reservations this is well in typical hotel cancellation policy which is usually a week max.” The claim about a hotel cancellation policy and full refunds being given usually a week max may be the case for individual hotel reservations but group contracts are totally different than individual contracts. Organizing a trip for a group is not the same as making an individual reservation, for example, for a family trip. There are different contracts, clauses, and policies that must be adhered to. Please advise I expect all parents to be fully refunded. Not to mention he advised me it is going to take months to get the money back and I would be lucky to get half of it if that! This is completely inexcusable given that we’re in. My advisement to her of it taking months to refund any potential funds was accurate because so many people within the tour and travel industry were either laid off or furloughed so staffs were limited at best and/or working remotely. Due to companies being understaffed and overworked, there was not a timeline as to when Travelogs would receive refunds. As I stated to the complainant, Travelogs had to wait for the funds for their particular group to be refunded to us before we could refund the money to them. Travelogs cannot refund what we don’t have and we definitely cannot use another group’s funds for reimbursement for a different group. So, the “taking months” comment was based on what Travelogs was being told by our suppliers, not because we were going to take months to do refunds. Teachers/School administration were notified the last week of April that refunds were forthcoming. They approved of the amount, notified the group participants, and then notified Travelogs to begin refunds. (Refunds cannot be done without school approval.) As of today, all members of the group the complainant is a part of have been refunded 93% of the overall program cost. Specifically, the complainant’s refund was done on April 30. On that date, our credit card processing company was notified to begin the process of returning her funds. The actual date of her receiving those funds would be up to the bank that issued her credit card. This percentage of a refund was not only stated to the group leader and school principal, but was also APPROVED by both people. This refund amount well exceeds the refund due as listed on our agreement (see above). At the time of the trip cancellation, each program participant was entitled to a 50% refund ($334.50) and they actually received 93% of a refund ($625). So, in fact, Travelogs went above and beyond what we were obligated to refund. The missing 7% is from the cancellation penalties that Travelogs had to absorb from the group cancelling. Also, within that 7% are fees that need to be covered for the work that Travelogs employees had already done on behalf of the group. When a tour company organizes a trip on behalf of a group, there is work that has to be done well in advance to ensure that the trip runs smoothly: reservations have to be made, hours and hours of office work, accounting processing, etc. As a company, Travelogs works extremely diligently on everyone’s behalf throughout the planning phase to ensure the highest quality of service at the lowest price for each participant and the group as a whole. When a group books a trip, not only are they paying for items like their bus, hotel, restaurants, sightseeing, etc., one is also paying for the services of the tour company organizing the trip. In working through the COVID-19 pandemic, I haven’t found one tour company refunding money in full as cancellation fees are designed to reimburse travel companies for work that has already been done before the actual trip takes place. They are not designed to create any profit. There is no profit here!!! Not even close. In fact, myself and all of the Travelogs employees have been working tirelessly for Travelogs to LOSE money because we’re refunding more to our customers than what we’re obligated to because we feel “it’s the right thing to do,” just like we did in this situation where contractually we were obligated to refund only 50%. Yet, we refunded 93%. As it states in our cancellation policy shown above, Travelogs is well within our right to withhold a small cancellation fee: to reiterate, For cancellation of an entire group at that group’s own request, any nonrefundable payments or contractual commitments made by Travelogs on behalf of the group are nonrefundable to program participants. In addition, Travelogs reserves the right to include an administrative fee in any cancellation charges to program participants. Neither Travelogs nor the school/organization is financially responsible for any charges to program participants for cancelled trips due to (but not limited to) illness, weather related events, civil strife, or national/international events.I would also like to state that just like it is a requirement of all of our registrants, including the complainant, the policy was acknowledged and electronically agreed to and signed a contract on October 22, 2019 at 6:32pm (we have a timestamped record of her contract/signature).