Interesting article on refunds from Overseas Adventure Travel

[WisRiver]

I am posting this article on the River Cruise Board since we had booked a Nile River Cruise with OAT.  We had booked a Nile River Cruise with OAT in March, 2020.  OAT cancelled the cruise and initially promised a full cash refund.  OAT reneged on the cash offer, and we accepted an offer for a cruise in November, 2021.  Sounds like some people were able to get their money back.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/travel/coronavirus-refunds-overseas-adventure-travel.html

[Host Jazzbeau]

Unfortunately the NYTimes website is a gated community, but maybe some CC readers haven't used up their free articles yet.

[Squawkman]

I was able to cut and paste the article:

 

 

TRIPPED UP

Help! One Company Refused to Refund Travelers More Than $100,000

Then our columnist intervened with the Boston-based tour operator Overseas Adventure Travel.

•  
• Published May 25, 2020Updated May 27, 2020
•  

• Dear Tripped Up,

  My trip to Egypt with Overseas Adventure Travel was scheduled to depart in late March. O.A.T. canceled the tour because of Covid-19, which was a relief. The company notified me of the cancellation and offered either a credit for rebooking or a full refund that would have included airfare. The next week, I learned via email that I had been rebooked on the same trip next year. Unbeknown to me, the stated policy had changed: O.A.T. was no longer offering refunds. I told them that I had a medical condition and did not know when — or if — I would be able to travel, and asked whether they were just going to keep my $17,500 if I couldn’t travel by the end of 2021. Answer: Yes.

   

  I feel I am being held hostage by O.A.T. How are they allowed to keep my money? Roz

   

   

  Hi Roz,

  They’re not. But, if the extraordinary number of reader complaints I have received — more than a dozen and counting — are any indication, they have been doing so anyway.

   

  Overseas Adventure Travel is part of Grand Circle Corporation, a family of travel companies based in Boston. The small-group and cruising company has been recognized nationally.

   

  But Massachusetts happens to be one of only a handful of states with specific laws that guarantee consumers protection against travel sellers, including requiring that tour operators offer the option of cash refunds (in addition to vouchers or credits for rebooking) when they fail to provide agreed-upon, paid-for services. According to the law, the cash refund must be “an amount equal to the fair market retail value of any undelivered, purchased travel service.”

   

   

  Translation: When they cancel your trip, they are legally required to offer you the money back.

  But even when individual consumers know their rights, they have few options at their immediate disposal when a customer-service representative — usually the only public-facing proxy for a company’s official or unofficial policies — refuses to relent on refunds.

   

  As Adam Anolik, a San Francisco- based travel-industry lawyer, explained over email, that’s why oversight — forcing a company to comply with state laws — can feel like an uphill battle. “The outcome can often turn on who cancels, which is why a lot of suppliers and travelers are playing chicken right now. In reality, many of these statutes are seldom enforced. This pandemic could cause some of them to be dusted off,” said Mr. Anolik.

   

  This is the third Tripped Up column in a row that addresses the issue of refunds. Although travel has stopped and is only starting up again — slowly and in only a few destinations — the aftershocks of that screeching halt, brought on by the coronavirus, continue to reverberate.

   

  As travel companies now suffer a cash crunch, they are facing off with travelers over credits and refunds. Airlines are sidestepping refund regulations established by the United States Transportation Department and the European Union, betting that negative press (and even class-action lawsuits) are still preferable to negative-balance bank accounts.

   

  It’s not hard to surmise, just by reading your email, what happened at O.A.T.: the realization that issuing refunds en masse would bleed the company dry. Tweaking the immortal words of Biggie: no money, mo’ problems.

   

  To determine if my hunch was correct, I reached out to O.A.T. While they didn’t answer my question directly, I was able to recoup more than $100,000, collectively, for you and 10 other readers. Some got total refunds, while others (including you) received partial refunds or continue to wait for certain fees and sums to clear.

   

  In an emailed statement, an O.A.T. spokeswoman said the company is “working to improve our processes and to better address the needs of each traveler whose trip was canceled or postponed due to the pandemic. We are either rebooking travelers on another trip or providing a refund.” Since mid-March, she said, O.A.T. has refunded more than 5,000 travelers — amounting to more than $12 million.

   

  Tripped Up

  Need advice about a best-laid travel plan that went awry? Send us an email to travel@nytimes.com.

   

[SunnySail17]

I am surprised to learn that Massachusetts law requires tour operators to offer the option of cash refunds, because I am among the many who initially received offers of refunds from GCT, but were subsequently told only rebooking was available. I now feel like a fool for not following my first impulse to contact my lawyer; I'm sure she would have discovered the MA law and obtained a refund. 

 

By the way, the NYT article is considerably longer than I can see in the previous posting; it refers to filing complaints with the MA Better Business Bureau and Attorney General's Office. And the article ends with the thought that once people begin making travel decisions again, we will be "making conscious and subconscious decisions about which companies to spend money with...."   I will certainly be taking this GCT experience into consideration. 

[sharkster77]

There was a piece here in MA on the local news about a consumer having difficulty getting a refund from Grand Circle Cruise Line, which is owned by the same folks who own OAT.  It was clear that they were due a refund, but it took the intervention of the station's consumer reporter to get what was due to them.

 

We have friends who swear by OAT and GCCL, but I would be leery using them in the future!  We've sailed with Viking, and would have been very happy with the terms they offered for those whose cruises were canceled, had our cruise been canceled last year.