Trip Cancellation - No Contingency Plans + Free Tickets for the Grand Palais in Paris
We flew to Prague last week and, in meeting the rep in the morning before the welcome dinner she said that the trip would probably be cancelled due to low water levels. By the next morning the trip was cancelled. This is because the boat could not get to us for the start in Regensburg. I always thought Tauck had contingency plans. In this case, - Romantic Capitals: Prague to Paris - they did not. There were only 57 of us for this trip that would accommodate 130 people. This was really disappointing and there were a fair amount of first (and probably last) timers to Tauck. In talking with one of the guides, I think she would have been really great and that we would have enjoyed this trip..
For those of us who had booked our own flights, we were on our own to make new flight arrangements. Everyone was on their own to figure out what to do - fly home, if staying in Europe, we needed to book hotels, trains, planes, etc.
Weather - during this heat wave it felt much hotter due to the cobblestones, stone buildings in Prague sucking up the heat. We came in a day early and with jet lag the next morning we walked to the Charles Bridge at 5:30AM. It was a great decision - no crowds. The one day we had on this tour, people left in the morning for a 3 hour walking tour but had to cut it short because of the heat - and the Charles Bridge was overrun with tourists. I think just a few people went on the afternoon tour (I also heard it was cancelled). We didn't go as we went to hear Aida at the opera house and it started early. Another woman on our tour also had tickets and so we shared a cab.
Free tickets - because they couldn't tell us if our Tauck insurance would cover us if we stayed in Europe, we came home. I have two tickets to the Matisse exhibit in Paris for July 1 with entry between 10am and 10:30. If anyone is going to be in Paris then I will be glad to send you our tickets. Also, if anyone is interested I have two nights - July 2nd and 3rd - at a luxurious hotel in Antwerp. I didn't get cancellation on it but the hotel has kindly said that I could have someone take my place.
Comments
This sounds terrible. How could Tauck be so unprepared?! A 14 day trip cancelled near the start and no guidance on the next step? I assume they are giving a refund of some sort even if there was no trip insurance?
FYI you posted this in the wrong section.It is under Switzerland.
Wow, that's terrible to let 57 people come all the way to Prague and then dump them. While the Tauck insurance may cover them, most third party trip insurance excludes cancellation by the tour company. Trip insurance only covers things on the guest end, such as sickness, death, etc.
Tauck better step up and provide reimbursement to all the guests, even those without Tauck insurance (since Tauck cancelled). [Added note: AI search says that when a tour company cancels a trip, they are legally obligated to provide a refund. Of course, that doesn't cover airfare if you made that on your own, because the airline didn't cancel.]
I hope you'll let us know what Tauck does for the guests. The thing that would really irk me is that they didn't cancel a few days earlier. People might have the same financial loss (airline tickets), but you wouldn't have had to go through the jet lag and the loss of a couple of days of your life.
[Added note: We used to hear about how well Tauck treated the guests. Ever since the leadership went outside the family, we haven't heard those stories and now hear stories about how poorly they treat the guests. A real problem is how the compensation for the leadership is determined. If it's just on profit, the leadership will do whatever it takes to maximize profit, no matter how that affects the guests. Since the family has ownership they're more interested in maximizing the value of the company than maximizing their bonus.
When setting up incentive plans, the maxim was always, "be careful what you ask for because that's what you're going to get." An example of that was when teachers could be fired if their students did poorly on standardized tests. So the teachers cheated in various ways. Another example was Wells Fargo who put such pressure on their employees that the only way they could succeed was to open fake accounts.]
so sorry to hear this...something has gone terribly wrong! I would urge you to fight this, incl. with airlines. Persistence often pays off. Have been wondering how heat wave is affecting Tauck (didn't realize it has already moved east), but never expected this treatment! Good luck & please keep us posted.
If this is to become standard practice, then it seems like riverboat tours in the summer (when there is always a risk of low water levels) will become a risky venture.
When I did the Berlin, Danube, and Krakow tour (2018) the riverboat couldn't make it to Regensburg due to water levels. For us, Tauck put us up in a hotel in the general area, then bussed us to the activities (Kelheim, Danube Gorge) we missed. We picked up the riverboat the next day. Tauck refunded us for missing one night on the riverboat. The rest of the tour went as planned.
In this case, what I thought was a reasonable solution was provided.
the Moores - So sorry that no work around could be put in place for your tour.
I had a Tauck spring river cruise interrupted due to high water on the Rhine. Mother Nature wins every time, no matter the season. At least we were able to bus it to Basel. Tauck did their best and we were reimbursed.
Although I would be disappointed, I would try to understand Tauck’s dilemma. Yes they have contingency plans but it is possible there simply aren’t enough “free” ships to handle all the affected tours. It is also summertime with families taking river cruises and hotels are busy.
There is always more than one side to a story and there could be other extenuating circumstances that Tauck is having to deal with. Given that, using such excoriating words as “dumped” is disingenuous in my opinion and does not accurately reflect Tauck’s brand. Again, my opinion.
New management, new Tauck.
Let me chime here. We had booked the return Eastbound version of this tour scheduled for June 28 departure starting in Paris. When the unfortunate situation that the moores experienced happened, I received a phone call from Tauck on the 23rd (ET) saying our trip was cancelled with the same reason the moores were given. They offered a full refund or full credit to another Tauck trip even though we had no Tauck insurance. We applied some of the refund to another existing booking and the balance was refunded to our credit card that day. Air travel was booked by me and the airline gave me an eCredit however I put in a claim with my travel insurer to see if I can get a refund on that (fingers crossed).
The point being that Tauck can be proactive when they know what the situation is for upcoming tours. If they knew the water was going to be a problem before the Westbound tour was to begin they would have cancelled that one too. I'm guessing they could have taken the risk and let my Eastbound tour ex-Paris go ahead as planned thinking that maybe the boat would have cleared the water to Regenberg and then just make a beeline to Trier to board our tour. But, it appears to be conservative based on the information they have, or don't have, access to and cancelled the Eastbound tour as well. Tauck does the best they can in a timely manner based on available information.
I hope the moores don't sour on Tauck travel based on this unfortunate experience. The unexpected happens on tours and in my experience the few times that they have happened Tauck has handled them very well.
I just talked with AON. The rep said that with cancellation you do get 100% back. However, while everyone started the trip on June 19th and was told the next morning that the trip was cancelled, Tauck has told AON that the trip was not cancelled but "interrupted". This means that AON will only cover up to $10,000 per person for the trip. They also will only cover up to $1000 for changing your flight. We each paid nearly $1800 for booking a flight from Prague to Amsterdam and for the change of dates on our Amsterdam to home flight. We will be losing a fair amount of money.
Because of all of this I have asked Tauck for a discount on a future trip. I was told that there would be no discounts given.
I've been on 13 (not counting June 19th) Tauck trips, all overseas. Other than a few hiccups, I've enjoyed them. Soured on Tauck, you ask? I'm not at all happy. It would have been really nice, with Tauck knowing water levels were going down and that there was a heat wave, to offer us the chance of cancelling. I would then get 100% back on the trip, not have had to pay $3500 for us to get new flights to go home, and could have changed my Delta flight to one this Fall. Buying expensive tickets to fly to Prague for a couple of days hurts.
I do understand that things can be out our our/Tauck's control. I just wish I hadn't believed that Tauck always had a plan and could work around things.
I just don't understand why Tauck is taking this approach. They really need to put their clients first.
Tauck has really changed. We used to tell people how wonderful Tauck was, but not any more.
We were told the minute we checked in that the tour probably would be cancelled. Then it was time to get ready for the dinner. That evening was not very relaxing. Many people were worrying about what to do. Should they try to secure an alternative flight just in case? Plan an alternative trip? Worry about insurance that may or may not reimburse? Would insurance cover a trip of our own design during that same time period? Can we rent a car in Europe at our age? We might have had one night of the trip but I would hardly call that a vacation. Cancellation vs. interruption.
I am confused with "leadership went outside the family." It is still family owned.
It appears the person you talked to may have misinterpreted the insurance since it provides "Trip Interruption - Up to $10,000 if YOU [emphasis added] interrupt your vacation due to sickness, injury or death and other covered reasons." YOU did not interrupt the trip! Tauck did.
It makes no sense to apply the limitations above to Tauck's cancellation - it has your money. Both Tauck and ship were negligent allowing the 57 passengers to arrive in Prague at great expense with a foreseeable cancellation of the trip. Neither neither fulfilled their contract. Tauck owes you a refund of the unfulfilled portion of the trip. As a token a future discount or credit would also be approariate.
I would think Tauck and the ship were insured to cover this type of event. It is not unusual these days for the water to be low on European rivers and it sounds like whoever was in charge was taking a chance? The company and ship will be fine, it is the moores and others in their situation who will suffer. With the tours are getting very expensive these days, $10K won't cover much! A devious play on words. It was not interupted - the remaining part of the trip was cancelled!
I hope you get to someone reasonable at Tauck to address this problem.
Aon is the insurance company and will try to minimize payouts.
Elevate if the Tauck rep is unresponsive and please report back.
As a long time traveler with Tauck, this bothers me very much.
Good luck.
Yikes! I’m a Tauck newbie, taking my first trip in August. A land tour but it is still concerning that Tauck could “interrupt” a planned tour that clients have already arrived for with no thought of “interruption” reimbursement.
I’m so sorry this has happened to you. I’ll be following this discussion to see if anything changes.
The CEO of Tauck, Jennifer Tombaugh, is not a Tauck family member. The president, Jeremy Palmer, is also not a Tauck family member. I think that's the first time in Tauck history that a Tauck family member is not one of the senior leaders.
The Tauck family owns Tauck. Jennifer and Jeremy are hired hands. I don't think either is married to a Tauck family member.
[Dan Mahar, the chairman of the board, married into the Tauck family.]
I’ve only taken one river cruise with Tauck. The insurance is different than for land tours, partly because they are on Scylla ships, I don’t know the details.
One question I'd ask is who bears the risk in the insurance plan?
Example: Most large companies self-insure their employee medical plan. They contract with a medical insurance company (such as Blue Cross) to administer the plan, but whatever payments are made for their employes medical claims are reimbursed to "Blue Cross" by the company. Of course, "Blue Cross" wants to keep the company's business, and they do so by demonstrating how they are minimizing the cost of the medical plan. They charge the company an administrative fee – that’s how they make money.
Back to Tauck. Travel insurance is a very profitable business. It’s possible that Tauck has a similar deal with AON. Tauck gets the insurance payment and AON administers the plan. Whatever AON has to pay out, they bill Tauck for that amount plus an administrative fee.
So Tauck could have an incentive to minimize the payout of the travel insurance.
The reason why companies make these deals with insurance companies are:
1. The insurance company has established plans. The company may modify the plan for their people but the boilerplate is probably retained.
2. The insurance company has the people to administer the plan. They have to make judgements as to what should be paid and what should not.
3. It isolates the company from the decisions of the insurance company. A refusal may be better accepted by the client if it comes from the insurance company rather than from the company taking the risk.
4. It usually less expensive to take on the risk than to pass the risk to the insurance company. If the insurance company took the risk, they'd have to charge for a worse case situation.
If I get any positive news I will share it. Ellen26, I've never had a problem with a land tour and know they are treated differently (better?) than riverboat cruises. So, I wouldn't worry. I hope you enjoy your trip.