When you put down a nonrefundable deposit on a trip and don’t go,
you usually expect to lose it. But what happens if you just want to go later?
Undercurrent subscriber John Cohen (Evanston IL) and his wife and
another couple put down $2000 in April, 1996, with the travel agency
Landfall Productions for a March, 1998, trip to the Galapagos aboard the
Lammer Law. In December, when it looked like El Nino might foul both
the weather and the diving, Cohen asked Landfall to change their
reservations to March, 1999. Cohen told us that “we knew it was beyond
the sixty-day time limit they had set for cancellation, but we asked them
to apply the deposit to a trip a year later.” After discussions with both
Landfall Productions and Duncan
Muirhead, owner of the Lammer
Law, Cohen was told that they
must either go on the trip or
forfeit their deposit. Cohen still
plans to go to the Galapagos in
1999, but “it now appears we will
be on a competing vessel.”
While Undercurrent understands
why a no-refund policy
exists — trying to fill spots on a Galapagos trip three months before
departure would be tough indeed — we wondered whether a little
mediation on our part might help. We called Dennis Zabo of Landfall
Productions, who told us that “Dr. Cohen’s attempt to change his trip was
made well after the stipulated sixty-day notice period spelled out in all of
our literature.” Muirhead said “Dr. Cohen decided to cancel just three
months from the start of the trip — 21 months from the date of his
reservation. A trip to the Galapagos is not a spur of the moment decision
to most people, so filling spaces in a three-month period is difficult.”
Landfall and the Lammer Law have persuasive arguments, and
they’re well within their rights. Although they could get full payment
from the Cohen party the following year, they decided to stick with their
business decision and policy. And the Cohen party, though out $500 per
person, will probably be able to duck El Nino — which may also prove to
be a good business decision.
But they’d better not wait too long. Fishing is taking such a toll that
Galapagos Island residents, authorities, tourist operators, and environmentalists
declared March 4 a day of mourning for the archipelago,
saying it is jeopardized by large-scale fishing activity. To recognize what
they dubbed a “Black Monday” for the environment, participants dressed
in black and marched through the streets of San Cristobal and Santa
Isabel, and flags over public buildings were flown at half-mast.