This company has the travelers sign a release in very small, light colored print that states that if there is a cancellation that they will retain a portion of the money. We determined that we would not be canceling. Just prior to the departure date, the company increases their rates forcing the traveler to either pay the higher rates or loose part of the money.
We paid $3792. There was a charge of $525 for extra days as we were initially scheduled for 7 days. They informed us of a fuel surcharge of $109 and a Currency surcharge of $215 on April 12th. The trip was to begin June 17th. When we were informed of the price change, if we had responded to cancel immediately, we would be losing $480 (time frame 60-89 days days before departure, for cancellation according to their contract) plus $95 membership fee and $100 service fee.
Many of us lost $800, plus the other fees because the time frame for that was 30-59 days and we did not know others would be canceling. We were forced to cancel because my son would have been the only one going on the trip.
I feel their waiting to notify customers (until the time frame was up to $480 dollars with just a few days to figure out that others were canceling and there would not be a trip) and then retaining the fees as well is unethical. I do not feel that any of our money should have been retained, because we cancelled specifically because they increased their prices. Taking advantage of high school students in the way is just not right.
I later found out that this is a common practice by passports to increase their prices at the last minute. Others have stated that this has been done in prior years when there was not fuel price constraints on the economy and the the currency charge would not have been an issue. I would be interested to know how many trips students went on as opposed to how many cancelled over the duration of their being in business; and if the practice of raising rates has occurred for all of their trips booked over the years.
Another trip for Europe was scheduled by our school in which the children did go on the trip. I understand that sometimes price increases are necessary because of fuel and such. The other company also increased their prices, but after the increase their total cost was less than the $3792 we paid initially.in addition, their trip was for 3 weeks visiting 3 countries and our trip was 10 days visiting only two countries.
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