Sept. 8, 2011 we made reservations for an Irish bus tour for June 10, 2012 with Brendan Travel, we took advantage of the early booking discounts, prepaid discounts, as well as using our American Express card for full payment to receive a $100 Gift card from AE, the booking included hotels and transfers the day before and the day after the land tour. On March 29, 2012 we were informed by our travel agent that Brendan had CANCELLED this tour--they had our money for 7 months and then cancelled and offered a refund!! How were we to find a substitute in the same range without the early book and prepaid discounts offered!! On April 6, 2012 our travel agent was offered a substitute tour thru their parent company of Trafalgar Tours...BUT they said this tour was longer and more expensive and they would honor our previous amount paid. Sounds good except for the fact they would not honor the prepaid hotels and transfers or the AE Gift Card!! We had to leave the tour one day early to connect with our Mediterranean cruise out of Southampton ...so they did not have to pay for the last night hotel, Bunratty Castle and Folk Park tour admission, farewell dinner and transfer to airport. But they kept the money we had already paid for hotels and transfers and so even thou we had paid $140 USD for a hotel-airport transfer we were not credited, reimbursed or transferred-- instead we advised we would have to pay for our own cab fare to the airport-33 Euros!! I feel like I was taken advantage of and ripped off--I would suggest you consider other tour operators as Brendan/Trafalgar are not customer service oriented and have, in my opinion, very questionable ethics and business practices. I can understand the bad economy may have resulted in a situation that may have made it a money loser to operate that tour but we are clients that dealt with them in good faith-paid in full, included additional services such as hotels and transfer before and after should not have been penalized and suffered additional financial expenses that were originally paid--they should have honored all the prepaid items and considered it a good will accommodation. Now for the sake of a relative small amount of money they caused major bad will and lost us as future clients and hopefully some of you that are reading this!!
Avoid Brendan-Trafalgar Tours!!
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So you registered to complain about Brendan/Trafalgar? I assume you are registering/posting this on other websites too??
Fodors is a great resource - and probably if you had posted on here BEFORE booking the tour we would have talked you out of it.
Few people will see your post here since this is sort of a loose ends board for general travel talk. Your tour was in Ireland so this would belong on the Europe board. (If you do re-post, it helps if you use paragraphs because long posts w/o breaks are hard to read)
Have you disputed any of this complaint w/ your credit card provider?
Why would you have talked me out of it?? Are there other bad reviews that I should have seen? I was working with a reputable travel agent that had worked with Brendan for many years and said she had not had this problem before. Thanks for your constructive comment.
I'm really getting sick of one-time posters, who join only to complain about a specific product.
I weep for you not getting your $100 AMEX card. What's this world coming to?
<<Now for the sake of a relative small amount of money>> then quit bitching about $$$!
Most of the folks on this site book their own travel arrangements, as they've learned the pitfalls of third parties.
"Why would you have talked me out of it?? Are there other bad reviews that I should have seen? I was working with a reputable travel agent . . . "
No - Brendan and Trafalgar are both reputable companies. But there are better/cheaper/more enjoyable ways to see Ireland than on a coach tour.
But honestly, you are lucky you didn't lose more. No tour is ever 'guaranteed' to happen. I'm sure the Brendan fine print said something along the lines that any tour may be canceled. Usually because too few book to make it profitable, but also for lots of other reasons.
Rastaguytoday-you seem to have some anger management issue. If you are sick of one-time posters, just hit the scroll button and move on!! It was not only the $100 gift card, it was 2 hotels and 2 transfers-about $700 if that makes you feel any better. Maybe I am new to this process but my intention was to bring this type of scam to other travelers...its like a bait and switch! Terribly sorry to have wasted your time and mine to answer your rather rude posting. We are handicapped senior citizens and find it more comfortable to have others handle arrangements,we trust we are dealing with reputable companies. So no I did not read all the "fine" print...seems if a company cancelled a tour they should be the one to make the client whole and not suffer cause the client a financial consequence that was caused by a corporate decision. Maybe I was lucky to not have lost more with extra fees etc. but we won't be doing this again anytime soon!!
@Rastaguy - cool it! It would be nice if first time posters turned into long time readers/posters.
@janisj - yes, some companies DO guarantee departures, aside from acts of war, etc. Not big, budget-level companies like Trafalgar, but look at this from small-group Intrepid:
"We may cancel a trip at any time up to 56 days before departure, subject to clause 15. We may cancel a trip at any time prior to departure if, due to terrorism, natural disasters, political instability or other external events it is not viable for us to operate the planned itinerary."
Clause 15: Our trips are guaranteed to depart once they have one fully paid traveller (unless minimum group size specifically states otherwise);
(See http://www.intrepidtravel.com/ourtrips/howtobook/bookingconditions.php )
@JanetK - I agree - you will get a lot more readers on the Europe board.
<<<No tour is ever 'guaranteed' to happen. I'm sure the Brendan fine print said something along the lines that any tour may be canceled. Usually because too few book to make it profitable, but also for lots of other reasons.>>>
Actually, many tour companies do guarantee departure, either from the very beginning or as soon as they have a certain number of people signed up.
<<<But there are better/cheaper/more enjoyable ways to see Ireland than on a coach tour.>>>
It depends on what you're looking for actually. I got to travel through England, Scotland and Wales on a bus tour and it was wonderful. I met wonderful people and could get places that I couldn't get to with public transit (I was too young to rent a car, and me driving a manual on the other side of the road is just a BAD idea). I hesitate to travel that way now as I'm mainly staying in large cities with public transit options, but the bus tour was PERFECT for what I was looking for for that trip. There's no way that I would have seen 3/4 of what I did if I had been restricted to public transportation and I had a lot of fun with the other people on the trip.
For the OP, I traveled to Egypt with Trafalgar and thought they were great. For future reference, you want to look into what guarantees a departure. If it's a certain number of people then don't count on the trip until they've reached that number. This is one of the reasons why trip insurance is a necessary thing. They probably could have helped you cover at least some of the additional costs. To be honest, if you're elderly and handicapped you should always make sure that you have travel insurance (everyone should but you sound like you're more at risk).
Don't give up on traveling, take it as an unfortunate lesson learned and be sure to read fine print in the future.
JanetK1943 - Nice of you to psychoanalyze me. I'm a senior citizen, and I guess you've handicapped me.
thursdaysd - there's been a recent run on one-off "Don't Buy This" posters. I 'watched' Fodor's for over a year, before signing on and making my first response to a post. I think the first time I was an OP was about 4 years ago, 3 years after I joined.
It's good to get a feel for how Fodor's works before doing the bull-in-chin-shop routine.
The bull-in-the-china-shop here is you, Rastaguy. Especially since you followed the OP to the Europe board to be just as rude there.
tsd - I've been to Europe so many times, Europe was the original forum I've used for the past 6 years.
It's usually the foum I go to first. I'm heading there next month, and am planning another trip for next spring.
sorry but I agree. It's hard not to have that reaction when people show up brand new, who have never participated here before their trip, and register just to make a long involved complaint.
As far as losing future clients, since Fodor's is primarily a forum used by self-planners, I doubt it will hurt their business in any noticeable way.
We are very sorry for your experience and are eager to make this right for you. Please contact our Guest Support department at clientservices@brendanvacations.com. If a tour cancels, we will always offer an equal or greater accommodation and (as in this case) do all we can to minimize any financial impact on our guests. Nonetheless, we do hope that, overall, you did enjoy your time in Ireland.
Brendan Vacations--you tried to be accommodating by offering a substitute intinary but refused to honor prepaid services originally booked and when we tried to reach an agreement you gave us a coupon worth $50 for future travel-insult to injury!
You may check your file on booking #A107570. Our enjoyment of Ireland was in spite of your corporate decisions not because of them!! Now you are responding to this post for PR reasons only, if you were "eager to make this right" you would have given us credit for prepaid hotels and providing prepaid transfer when making the substitution!!
"Our enjoyment of Ireland was in spite of your corporate decisions not because of them!! "
We wouldn't know - you have yet to post anything at all about your trip. Fodors Forums are really provided for us to share advice/experience/assistance . . . not a platform for your battle w/ the tour company.
Do you think you get more credibility the more !!! you use?
to the OP Janet - did you contact Brendan SINCE they posted here? If you're still so angry , it couldn't hurt to see if they will offer you additional compensation. If you don't than you have only yourself to blame.
Yes, they offered me a $50 coupon to use for future travel. I feel their post was for PR purposes only. I provided them with my booking # which would provide all the correspondence and contact information they did nothing!
Please understand-I understand the tour was cancelled and a substitute was offered...THE CANCELLATION IS NOT MY PROBLEM....Brendan/Trafalgar was paid for additional services i.e. hotels and transfers before and after the tour...these amounts were not refunded or services provided!!
So everyone please stop telling me to read the fine print, get a new TA, use my trip insurance or credit card. Once I accepted the substitute tour I expected them to act in an honorable fashion and they did not. It was their corporate decision not to honor the additional items included as extras on the first booking. I feel they should have refunded the additional items since they were not provided...my beef with them is not the cancellation but how they handled the cancellation! I do blame myself, since I did not have the details in writing, and assumed they would refund additional charges that were no longer needed with the new tour. I was stupid to assume they would act in an honorable fashion...I should have had them make the offer of the alternate tour in writing and then I would have questioned the money already paid for the hotels & transfers befoe and after the original tour. It was an expensive lesson!!
To janisj...I did think the forums were to "...share advice/experience/assistance..." I simply chose to share a negative experience to provide assistance & advice to others on how to avoid this type of problem. I have no "battle" with Brendan, I'm finished with them--I was simply trying to help others avoid a "battle" and a negative experience--I'm really not concerned if you think I'm credible !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Since there are no facial expressions visible or verbal tones available in an email I think the "!" is quite expressive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!