Credit for overlapping days on back to back trips?
I spoke to a Tauck Travel "Consultant" about the possibility of booking 2 back to back trips. The first trip ends in the same city that the second trip begins. They use the same hotel for both. The issue was timing. She offered a possibility of dates that started the second trip on the second to last day of the first trip or trips with almost week between them - we are not interested in the latter. When I asked about credits for the unused nights - she did not know. Surely this is not an unusual situation and there must be a policy. Also I would think that the airport transport fees would be credited since they are not used 2 times when the tours meet in the middle. Has anyone experienced a similar situation? Should I go to a travel agent to work this out? I usually go directly through Tauck.
Comments
Never heard of a credit like this. I guess if you have lots of tours under your belt with Tauck, then maybe they might. I have known people join a tour a day late. But to me it does not make good business sense for them when they could sell the two tours to two lots of people. Once traveling returns to pre pandemic, I think it’s going to be difficult to secure optimum tour dates. Surely loosing one day of your tour would be cheaper in cost than two lots of flights if you did them separately. And what about the gift of time, will they let you have two free hotel nights like this?
We've done back to backs but always had enough time in between. Did she mention you would only have to pay for one Guest Protection policy? That saves you several hundred. Since the first day is usually just the welcome reception/dinner the worst that would happen is you'd miss one of the dinners. You should also get a Gift of Time for the second tour that you could take at the end. With the savings in airfare it might still be worth doing even if you can't find a better combination of dates.
I've never heard of such a policy. Except for cabins, Tauck makes a big deal about their claim that everyone pays the same.
Is there a possibility you could reverse the sequence of trips and come up with a better interval between the two? That was a solution offered by Tauck to a former traveler trying to take back-to-back Africa trips.
We are not looking for a credit for the entire cost of the overlapping days, just the hotel. Tauck does not need to pay for the duplicate hotel days. I don't see why we should pay up to $1K for 2 nights of rooms we can't use. The Tauck "counselor" was the one who suggested the overlap. I would prefer traveling with Tauck but can do the trips with someone else. I was checking to see if anyone on here knew of a policy. The "counselor" must be new as she did not know much about anything (we were trying to discuss other planned trips) and it sounded like she had a dog barking in the background.
That said, we dealt with another representative the same day on another trip and the experience was easy, quick and responsive. We have been traveling with Tauck for 15 years and found most representatives were professional and knowledgeable.
Remember, most, if not all, reservations sales agents are now working from home. It could have been a baby crying!
While, it technically could be done, Tauck doesn't make exceptions or adjust the costs if you join a tour late or leave early. I think doing so would open up a can of worms- setting policy on how many days is allowed, under what circumstances, etc. is fraught. What happens when someone wants a discount because they don't want to take an included excursion, or attend a provided meal, etc., etc. I've heard Tauck will sometimes make exceptions to policy in special circumstances, but it can't be done by a reservations sales agent and will likely require a letter request with no guarantee.
Bucketlist, if the overlap is Day 1 of the second tour on top of the second to last day of the first, then it's only 1 day of hotel charge. The last tour day you have to check out before another room charge would acrue. I agree with Alan that this might take someone higher on the food chain to address than your average agent.
And yes, agents are working from home. Spoke to one last year in North Carolina.
Even though we are now retired and quite fit, I’m still not sure I could take two back to back Tauck tours. Well maybe river boat tours because I found our river tour a breeze compared to the land tours. We also like to separate our vacations throughout the year.
bucketlist
Look at recent Post "2022 Oberammergau Back to Back Riverboat and Land Journey"
From my 2018 African Safari post:
Another advantage to traveling with Tauck is their attention to detail in coordinating multiple journeys. Today a Tauck Reservations Sales Counselor confirmed a revised itinerary for me making it possible to do back to back tours.
It required canceling my original reservation, changing the order and dates of the two journeys I had originally requested, and taking advantage of a cancellation on one of the them.
The best part is I now have a complete back to back journey with two days of free time in between at each of the Tauck hotels, and Guest Protection for both journeys at no extra charge for the 2nd journey.
I think this is effectively choosing to leave a trip two days early, or choosing to start a trip two days late. When I arrived late for a trip because British Airways shut down, I was compensated for insurance reasons. I was given the cost of the missed days, but I don’t think I got the ‘hotel’ fees. They did cover all of our expenses in London while we waited for another flight to Copenhagen.