I am off school tours, they are vastly overpriced for what you get, and also my children have aged out of them. Our last school tour experience (covid) ended when we took the company to small claims court (and won).

Some lessons:
1. Think of the tour as a conspiracy between the school and the tour company against the families and you will be close to the truth of what is going on. School officials do not know (or want to know) the actual costs or who is legally responsible for this or that, or who has what rights under the various contracts--they want this kind of stuff to go away, and use a combination of intimidation and obfuscation to discourage questioning.
2. For the price of a tour for 1, a parent and child together could take the trip in a private rental car shadowing the main tour and with better flight times, if you don't want to deal with the cost and aggravation of a tour company.
3. Transparency will never be provided by a tour company because they don't want you to know the actual price. They will never budge on this item. In court you have a right to see this information, but they will still refuse to provide it to the judge (and that doesn't go well for them).
4. Americans generally don't know the cost of travel. A coworker who doesn't travel except for work told me he wanted to someday visit Paris and Rome "but didn't have the $30,000 to do it." The people in charge of school tours (teachers and lead parents) have never not taken a tour so don't have the knowledge required to question anything.

Realizing that this is an old post, but I already typed it!

EF Tours nightmare
 

We are in 15k for our tour and didn't even get to go. We made it to Houston, had to change airplanes due to mechanical. We lost my daughters passport somewhere and were told by EF tour group leader that we can travel on only a photocopy of her passport. Needless to say, after 13.5 hour flight, we were denied entry. Had we stayed only 1 extra day we could have had the broken aircraft checked for her passport. I am now trying to get my money back. Seriously considering legal action. Trust me....save your money!!!!!!!

Well, of course, the tour group leader was wrong about the passport issue, but losing it was on you. Tour companies cannot usually accommodate people “Staying another day” to “look for the passport,” especially on international flights. Ridiculous idea! If that had been a cruise ship, would you have expected the ship to wait for you and somehow figured out a way for you join the cruise later? Of course not. There are a lot of things to complain about EF and other student tours, but many of the issues in these posts are 100% the responsibility of the travelers.

IIUC, you are an adult who thought for even a millisecond that a photocopy of a passport was acceptable?

One more note. It is different for different schools, but in my school, the school did not choose or run the tours. Teachers did, as individuals or with permission from the school, but not as a school function. One teacher or a small group of teachers got together and selected the company and the tour. Over a period of several months to a year ahead, they held many meetings for students and parents and passed out tons of information. Misunderstandings occurred when parents did not read through the information and the contract. Seriously, every single thing like hotels, meals, dates of payments, flight schedules, etc. was covered. Nothing was left to speculation. Teachers were supposed to meet with parents, go over contracts, etc. Some are good about it, some not, but it is their responsibility. These companies do expect tips - for exactly two people, the bus driver and the tour guide, no one else. Teachers were advised to include that upfront. If they did not, that was on them, not the company or the school.

I do feel bad for you and have some questions?
Are you a newbie traveler, so you did not realize the need for an actual passport?
This is an interesting situation. I am truly surprised and amazed that the airlines let you travel without one to a country that requires one. Airlines are usually super careful with visas because if you are denied entry, they are then responsible for getting you home. I thought the same was true for passports, but I could be wrong. What airlines let you do that? What country did you arrive to? Since only one person was missing a passport, how did they handle the issue of everyone else having one and being allowed entry? Legally, they might have said they would send your daughter home and not pay for anyone else. This would be a big problem, but, unfortunately, nothing for which EF is responsible and nothing which they could do anything about.
Did you purchase insurance? One thing I do not know is what kind of insurance EF offers now-a-days and if it would be of any use. I am guessing you did not have private insurance. If you did, you might check on what it covers.

https://www.us-passport-service-guid...re%20traveling.

According to the above, no US citizen is allowed to board international flights to countries requiring passports without proper passports. If something happens enroute, they may be able to get an emergency passport at the embassy or consulate in their arrival country. There is something missing in this story or an awful lot of coincidences.

Bingo. Legitimate complaints about EF Tours are, well . . . legitimate. But this latest one is a doozy. Losing a passport has absolutely nothing to do with the tour company. I cannot imagine what sort of result you'd hope to get from a law suit. Without a passport you aren't traveling - period. Now, you possibly could have applied for an emergency passport replacement and joined the tour in a couple of days -- but the transport would have been your responsibility.

^^^ All of this. Not to mention, I am willing to bet there is contractual language in the tour documents that states the traveler is responsible for all travel documents and probably have a provision regarding lost documents. You can sue EF all you want, this won't even be held up in small claims court...

I'm also amazed that you were allowed to board the flight here without a passport, and equally amazed that you thought you could enter a foreign country with only a copy. I also think a lawsuit won't net you much, certainly no refund for the flight, which you did use!

I'm not sure since the post was a little disjointed but I what I'm thinking may have happened is they flew in to Houston and connected to transatlantic flight there, then had to get off due to a mechanical issue. The daughter lost the passport somewhere in that process - on the old (broken) plane or when boarding the replacement so their documents would have been checked/cleared previously

Phillipviola, I'm curious about something. Do you have a text or an email from the person who told you that you can travel with only a photocopy of a passport?

In any case, the lost passport would mean that the trip is off. You would have still lost your money, the only difference is that you wouldn't have flown for 13 hours.

That sounds plausible. Glad you analyzed the situation. It is easy to be distracted during travel and especially under those circumstances. It takes only a second for something to slip unnoticed to the floor or between the seats. Being the single most important travel document for most people, a passport needs to always be carried in one specific place and, IMHO, travelers should not take a step with the passport out of that place. DH neglected once to put them back immediately and did drop one. Luckily, he found it right away, but had a moment of panic he never forgot.
If that is what happened, it was a horrible experience for this family, still not the responsibility of the tour company, but with help, the family might have been able to get a replacement.

You are implying independence but it’s when things so south (March 2020) that’s when you find out who’s in charge and where the holes in the various contracts and travel insurance are.

For example in my case, what happens when the only chaperones allowed for school-sanctioned tours must pass a district background check in advance (so are therefore district employees by default), and the school district forbids their employees from chaperoning the tour due to the dangers of covid? So even if the overriding contract is between the music booster club and the travel vendor, the trip is still vulnerable to actions and decisions from an extra-contractual party, in this case the district’s covid action committee. Suddenly the situation is outside the terms of either the main booster club contract or the individual family contracts, and acts of god are not covered by insurance, either.

One in this case needs a vendor who is honest with their incurred losses and time and doesn’t retain three times the profit that they would have earned if they had actually had to give the tour, which was our case, hence small claims court.

Tom_mn,
What you went through with Covid was huge, “out of any normally expected issues.” Nobody coped well, not just student tour companies. All travel companies, airlines, cruise companies, etc. all dealt with a huge mess for months. While EF and other student tour companies sometimes have logistics issues and don’t always handle them as I personally think they should, the example of what happened during Covid is such an anomaly, it does not fairly represent the day to day business of the companies.

You case seems also to have been very different from mine, both legally (school sponsored) and functionally (individual teachers were theoretically functioning as school employees). Clubs, sports groups, etc., may do it that way and it certainly adds layers of complexity when things happen. I originated and organized the trips as an individual chaperone and invited specific people (students, also friends and family) to participate, but booked tours through a student company, and that is how other teachers did it.

I still do not see any relationship between the loss of a passport and the tour company. I do not see how the company’s handling of the Covid situation (where you indicate that people could not legally function independently) has any bearing on the company’s responsibiliy for the consequences of an individual’s loss of a passport, when the individual did have total, completely independent, personal control of the passport.

It doesn't, and of course having been in the minor with passport situation many times, the proper place for the minor's passport is with the parent at all times, this isn't a situation for a lifetime learning experience because the consequences of loss are too dire.

What fired me up was the part of the story about the travel vendor not sharing costs, because as I learned that's never going to happen. The vendor would rather lose the small claims court case with one family than reveal the actual costs and losses and face the wrath of every family. What boggled my mind about the travel vendor's thinking is that the company had no trouble equating our situation with that of a tour no show and thus penalizing everyone accordingly.

I have decades of contracting experience so I know exactly under state law what should happen when the situation arises where the contractor wants to provide the contracted tour services, and the contractees want the services of the tour, but due to circumstances beyond anyone's control the services cannot be provided. So from a contracting perspective, the situation was routine, there is a legal remedy in place, and it should have been followed.

Personally I am not a tour or cruise person and after this experience, although extraordinary, I am having trouble forking over a lot of money beforehand for another tour now because, well, sometimes extraordinary things happen. Can I really send $8000 to a tour company headquartered in Lima or Quito? Extraordinary things happen, and having read and reread travel insurance I know that even non-extraordinary things like bankruptcy are not a covered instance. So the answer is no, I can't send that kind of money to those locations, and I will as usual cobble together my own arrangements, which stresses out my wife but it is a LOT cheaper and it always works out.

I am a teacher and our school uses EF for student trips at least twice per year. I have personally taken kids to Central America twice with this company and am scheduled for a Galapagos trip this fall.

Yes, EF trips are expensive and you could do it cheaper on your own, but these trips are not really designed for individuals, couples, or families. They are designed as student trips that allow kids to experience travel in a safe, supportive, and educational setting. The trips are usually very well organized and come with a fantastic guide who is with the group 24/7 throughout the trip. We have absolutely loved our guides because they were so informative and got along very well with both the kids and the adults. The guide absolutely makes the trip worthwhile. Also, while the food is often lacking in both taste, quantity, and quality and the accommodations are not great (or worse), the itinerary is usually very packed full of exciting and fun experiences and you will see and do A LOT! The experiences are why we go. We can eat great food and sleep in our own beds once we get back home.

Almost to the student, our EF trips have been very, very popular and we continue to fill our rosters with kids who want to take these tours. If you want a luxury trip, a trip that can be modified, or a resort vacay, then you need to go with another company. If you want a really fun trip that kids will enjoy and from which they will learn more about another part of the world as they gain confidence and independence, then EF is a good place to start.

This is just an addendum to what Sassafras wrote (I agree with all of it).

As a teacher trip leader, I make sure to address trip expectations several times. I let my travelers know up front that the food may not be great, that not all of the accommodations will be good, and there will be unexpected glitches in the schedule. We talk a lot about flexibility, about having a positive attitude, and discuss what we really want to get out of these trips. By the time we travel, the kids and parents know what to expect and they easily deal with things as they come. This is always something that people should strive for whenever they travel.

On our last trip, we almost missed a boat tour because of a shut down of a major roadway. Our tour director scrambled and was able to reschedule the boat and we ended up making it on time. However, while our entire busload of travelers thought that they were going to miss out on an important part of the tour, everyone took it in stride and nobody got mad. On another day, we were served a breakfast that was shockingly bad. Our travelers just took one look and went to the store next door and bought snacks. We laughed about it all day. It all comes with prepping people ahead of time and making the decision to have fun.

A lot of the trip success is dependent upon the faculty members who lead the trip and how the travelers are prepared ahead of time. Leading a trip is an enormous responsibility and will have a great effect on the experience that the travelers have.

I don't find it odd first time posters that have problems with EF find these threads. A quick google will turn them up. I also don't think there are shills on this particular thread for EF. Most are long time posters/travelers on this board.

It's long been known that EF is one of the low end, bottom of the barrel student tour companies with many complaints. There are much better student tour companies that really don't cost that much more with better hotels and far less grifting.

Try Acis or CHA for a better experience/better hotels. Form your own group and be the group leader.

Are you not curious as to what “terrible thing” led the school to “dump” them? Would the school not share that with you?

It is obvious you had a really bad experience. People do believe you, but accusations and attacks directed towards people for pointing out flaws in a critical discussion do not lend credibility or garner support for a point of view. Best to stick with factual information.

Companies should be held accountable and customers cannot be expected to know and anticipate every problem. Be careful, however, that you also hold accountable the school and teachers who initially selected the company and then unilaterally cancelled, leaving you contractually liable.

Talk with the group leader at the school and see what they offer as options and what responsibility they have.
Often, small groups from several schools are put together to make a new group, sometimes a different itinerary. It is fun and interesting for students from one part of the country to be paired with students from other places. Once, our little group from a smallish Southern town went with a little group from the mid-west and a bigger group from a NYC school. Almost as much culture shock from that as from being in another country. Ask EF if any schools near you have groups going on a trip? Maybe a few other students would still like to do that, join another group. I had a small group sharing a trip with a large group. Two weeks before the trip, they cancelled, leaving us to pay twice as much for a small, private trip or find a different itinerary with a group that still had a few spaces open. The company had only two groups that could and would let us join them in our time frame. We made it work! Legally, EF might not have to do anything, but if they believe you want to make it work, they will likely be receptive.

Consider going as a chaperone or as a leader yourself. It could work, so your money is not wasted. While I don’t ever want a bus tour, if I had a student already paid for, I would do it in a heartbeat before just letting thousands of dollars go down the drain. Look for some solution or compromise.

There are other forums and places with reviews of school travel companies where your post would be more helpful and meaningful to parents considering sending their students on trips. I say this, not because the topic is unimportant or uninteresting, but because it seems to me that most people on this forum are independent travelers who, while they might consider tours at some point, would not likely be looking at student tours.