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Tauck cancelled tours up to September 15, 2020

Kathy0529

Hi Everyone,

I ran out of patience and called Tauck tonight to ask about my September 4, 2020 Switzerland tour. I was told they found out a few hours ago that all the tours up to September 15th have been cancelled.

I was able to go over my options and here is what I was given:
1. Apply the deposit paid for 2020 towards 2021 and get a $250 per person additional credit from Tauck.
2. Pay for the 2020 trip in full now and get a $500 per person credit from Tauck
3. Take a refund of my deposit and have the Guest Protection amount go into a Dreamsaver Account

I selected option 1.

I also have a Dreamsaver credit for a 2019 trip that I had to cancel and it expires on September 15, 2020. The Tauck rep set this up to apply to my 2021 trip on September 14, 2020, the day before it expires so I don't lose it. She advised against applying it now just in case I had to cancel the 2021 Switzerland trip I have already put a deposit on.

My 2021 tour begins at the end of August and I was told pricing for airfare should be available mid/late October 2020, if I were to purchase the air thru Tauck, which I'm leaning towards due to everything going on this year. I also added hotel stays pre and post tour, but they do not have the pricing yet and will just send an updated invoice when the contracts w/the hotels are signed.

I hope that helps!!

P.S. I did ask if they had hopes of getting any tours out this year and was told they are hoping to get some domestic tours going after September 16th and she has no idea about international tours going.

Comments

Ken from Vegas

Good info, Kathy. Thanks! Glad to hear that my September 15 Canada tour will be canceled, since my flights were already canceled.

Kathy0529

I agree, the not knowing is the worst of it, plus, I have zero patience so the waiting was torture!!

Thankfully I didn't have any air booked for Switzerland 2020 and am so happy because I would have booked it on my own. I most likely will book thru Tauck for next year though, just in case.

I would think you should definitely know before your deposit is due, at least I hope you do!

Kathy0529

p.s. I guess someone flagged my initial post??? I looked under my name and it's flagged for abuse??? I've seen other peoples posts as flagged and wondered what it meant, guess now I know. Odd how the informative post is abuse or if someone pressed the button w/out knowing what flag means in a discussion board??

BKMD

Kathy - I wouldn't worry about it. Somneone must have hit it by accident.

FYI, if a post is flagged 5 times, it automatically disappears until reviewed by a moderator who either deletes it or reinstates it.

Kathy0529

Thanks! I was thinking it could be an accident. Someone might think the flag is like a bookmark, at least I'm hoping. :-)

Derek

My new discussion COVID-19 USA River Cruise Operating Protocol about my new booking for an August 8, 2020 ACL Columbia & Snake river cruise and the COVID-19 Protocol including a required COVID-19 test prior to my departure from home was taken off today just as I was updating with a message it would be reviewed for abuse.

Claudia Sails

Thanx for the info Kathy. Will let you know our experience with Tauck when I speak with them next week. Will be option 1 as well.

Don't know why your post was flagged. I touched the flag just to see if I could tell who'd done it and it came up with 3 options to select of why to flag - spam, abuse, report. Abuse had a 1 by it. Didn't pick any so it shouldn't register as another flag. So doesn't look like an accident. The only thing I could think was someone considered it was talking about Tauck policy which is mentioned in the rules as a nono. But there is so much of that going on lately that it's hard to reason why yours was targeted.

Derek I can't even find your thread. Maybe someone was offended about mentioning another tour company or did you have links in your posting? They don't like "hyperlinks" to competing travel companies but I don't remember any in your post.

AlanS

FYI, if you click on your name you can see your profile which will tell you how many of your posts have been flagged or otherwise tagged. I don't pay attention to flags or any of the other social media tags.

Also, for those who may have inadvertently flagged someone's post, you can just click the flag and category (Spam, Abuse, Report) a second time to remove the flag from the person's post.

You can't please everyone! I certainly can't- here are my stats:

1 Promote, 27 Disagree, 48 Agree, 169 Like, 40 LOL, 27 Spam, 30 Abuse

British

It was easier to flag the abuse button by mistake with the old forum than it is now. I think that is why they leave it to flag five times.
Derek was blatantly promoting another tour company which is against the rules, but it certainly wasn’t me who reported it and he did say he used the other company for tours Tauck did not take.
Another forum I used to read had regular contributors who recommended other tours companies. I looked at those and came across a company that goes to places Tauck does not and have taken a tour and have another booked with them. So it is a good policy for Tauck to have. If I mention another company, I generally don’t say who it is.

Derek

Claudia Sails & British: No link in the message but I was editing my comment of sending a pdf copy by PM and changed it to read "link" when I found that I wasn't able to add the pdf to my PM but could paste in the link.

The intent of that discussion was to share the protocol of my August 8, 2020 cruise that I just booked on July 7th with other Tauck cruisers referencing the numerous past comments of pro and con of taking a cruise during COVID-19.

British

Yes, I have found I can’t edit my PMs. Unless of course Alan has figured that one out too. Alan?

AlanS

Just like an email, when you hit send, the msg is gone. One annoying feature, or lack thereof, msg does not have a preview.

Claudia Sails

It doesn't actually say you can't promote another tour company, let alone just say you're taking a tour with them as Derek did. It says not to include "Any hyperlinks to competing travel companies".

I looked at my stats too. Had 2 Abuse flags but when I clicked on it only one showed. I wonder if the comment I made on Derek's thread where I mentioned some German cruises were going without port stops but didn't mention any company names. The only comment that showed was when someone in June 2019 asked about feedback on tour that wasn't supposed to have It's first tour til Sep 2020. Guess it was a little too snarky for some.

AlanS

Derek- I sent you and British a PM with a PDF attached. See if you can view it (deck plan for Oberoi Zahra).

For everyone else, you can attach documents (PDF, MSWord, etc.) to PMs (msg) and forum posts. Just click on the black, dog-eared page icon in the tool bar above, and select the file from your computer.

2020_Egypt_Oberoi_Zahra.pdf

mil

Don't worry about it, I have like 8 abuse ... ) God only knows why.....

Kathy0529

I think we have a serial flagger on the boards. I saw another post that had a lot of them flagged for no reason. Oh well, someone seems to like that button!! :-)

AlanS

It could be a rookie Russian hacker assigned to their IRA. His English is not good enough yet to post and disrupt the forum, so he is just reading and flagging to create suspicion and dissension among the ranks. Could be.

British

Or it could be someone who is bummed their tour got cancelled when they think there is no evidence there is a Pandemic

BKMD

I think we need a new flag labelled TMI for posts like the one by British about her sleeping habits.

British

I’m sorry, just trying to make people laugh! When we lived UK it was all about topless sunbathing and so on, which of course everyone participated in, but I guess most Americans are still conservative.

Claudia Sails

British it was funny. Lots of different habits. My best friend is in the nude is best category. I wear the top half of pjs to sleep - then add the bottoms when I get up. Some wear a fresh set of nightwear every night and others wear multiple times. Even if I could do au naturel at home, no way I'd risk it staying in hotel.

Ken from Vegas

British said-

When we lived UK it was all about topless sunbathing and so on, which of course everyone participated in, but I guess most Americans are still conservative.

I read somewhere that topless sunbathers in Europe have dropped dramatically. Apparently, the proliferation of cell phones and internet posting has put a damper on the practice. When we were in Marbella last year, I only saw one woman going topless.

Claudia Sails

Well the British get pretty fired up whenever a royal gets photographed nude. Nude ok for ordinary people, but not royals?

British

It seems that Australians are the least uninhibited of all of us after all

From the BBC

A special Covid-19 police taskforce in Canberra, Australia, going door-to-door to check on self-isolating residents has been seeing more than it bargained for.

A number of people wearing little or no clothing answered the door to police officers checking for quarantine compliance, Australian media reports.

“Some of them may need a reminder to put some clothes on before they open the door for a compliance check,” Australia Capital Territory Detective Superintendent Jason Kennedy said in a statement.

“We did get a few surprises on the weekend," he explained.

Ken from Vegas

I previously posted:

Glad to hear that my September 15 Canada tour will be canceled, since my flights were already canceled.

Got the call from Tauck today. Rebooked for next year and took the $250/per person "travel wallet." I won't be booking my flights until there's a vaccine - either that or a dramatic drop in infections with reopened borders.

Lotusgirl

We have been notified that our September 18th Sicily tour has been cancelled. If anyone has not heard from Tauck regarding September tours, it may be prudent to contact them.

Sealord

Slightly off subject, but my wife Eloise had some symptoms so I took her to Emergency here in Marin County. She was tested for covid-19 and within minutes was given a thumbs up. No covid. It gives a little confidence that we will be able to meet the Hawaii requirements for our trip in October.

British

Testing negative is only good for the Day you have it. That’s why it’s not that helpful. You could catch Covid the very next day! If your wife continues to get symptoms, she may need retesting! I hope she is Ok!

bucketlist

Hi Lotusgirl - We were on the September 18th Sicily tour also. Disappointed but it was the right thing to do. I called Tauck when I saw the trip disappeared from the website although the payment due this week was still showing in our account. I had no trouble getting someone right away when I called. Credits were applied to a new trip right away with the $250 PP to a trip we had scheduled already for 2021. Apparently Tauck called my husband but did not leave a message. He did not see the missed call. A message would have been helpful. Can't seem to train them to contact me as I always do the bookings although I have asked several times. We have gone on 13 Tauck tours with plans for more. We trust them to take care of us and be responsive to any issues.

Lotusgirl

Bucketlist - I agree that Tauck has been fair in the way they are handling these ongoing challenges. The cancellation of our April Israel tour was more stressful than the Sicily cancellation. We had made our final payment and I was concerned that the tour would go forward in spite of the spreading pandemic, and we would therefore be out a lot of money, but it all worked out in the end. We decided not to rebook Sicily for next fall, as we already have the Egypt tour in October of next year. I am cautiously optimistic about that trip going forward.