Parents want refunds for school trip postponed because of virus

No trip, no refund, no answers.

Some Montreal-area parents are out of pocket for thousands of dollars — and no closer to getting their money back — after a school trip to Europe was postponed because of the coronavirus epidemic.

On Wednesday, Westmount High School delayed until June an 11-day trip to Florence, Venice and Athens for 51 of its students with only 24 hours’ notice. Parents say EF Educational Tours, the trip organizer, is willing to give students who can’t make the rescheduled trip vouchers — but not refunds.

Westmount High joins a string of Montreal-area schools that have either pushed back or rerouted trips amid health fears. The decision to postpone was made jointly by English Montreal School Board officials and principal Demetra Droutsas after parents and teachers alike expressed concerns, EMSB spokesman Mike Cohen said this week.

Lisa Montgomery has two girls who were supposed to fly out to Europe Thursday. She and her children paid more than $8,000 in November after saving for four years, Montgomery said.

“I want my money back,” Montgomery, a widowed mother of four, said. Her two girls have summer jobs lined up, which means they won’t be able to take part in the rescheduled trip. Travelling to Europe in June “is not an option for my family, and it’s not an option for a lot of families involved,” Montgomery said. “My kids are working for their education.”

Complicating matters is the fact parents signed up directly with the tour company, while the decision to postpone was made by the school and the EMSB.

An information session, held Thursday at the school in conjunction with a parent-teacher meeting, failed to yield answers.

“Nothing has changed in terms of possible outcomes,” said Anna Mittag, a former lawyer whose son was set to travel to Europe. “Either the students go on a trip in June or we get a voucher and hope to be able to sell it to another family in the future. Neither of those outcomes suits my family, and a lot of the other families are in the same boat.”

What’s more, said Mittag, the vouchers are only good for a year, and must be used before the children turn 18. “We all have kids who are supposed to turn 18 in the next year,” she said.

Parent anger is mostly directed at the tour organizer, part of a Swiss company called Education First with 52,000 employees that also provides language training.

“I don’t doubt that Westmount High has been doing its very best to deal with the situation,” said Mittag, who attended Thursday’s meeting. “I don’t doubt the sincerity of the principal’s efforts, but she is up against this massive company, which does not seem to be willing to compromise. They are like a brick wall.”

Adam Bickelman, a spokesman for EF Educational Tours, referred in an email Friday to the company’s booking conditions — an eight-page document written in small print — as he highlighted the “particularly complex” nature of group travel, which involves “very long planning cycles and significant costs incurred.”

EF Educational Tours extended the availability of its “flexible alternatives right up to the day of departure for groups that had travel scheduled to one of the impacted regions,” Bickelman said. Though the school board “ultimately chose to delay the trip until a later date, we decided to still offer transferable travel vouchers on an individual basis,” he said.

“Given the last-minute nature of these events, we believe that what we are offering represents among the most flexible solutions in the student group travel industry,” Bickelman added. “Of course, we will continue to work with the group, the school, and individual families as best we can to ensure that every student gets to have an educational travel experience.”

A spokesman for Quebec’s Office de la protection du consommateur said Friday he couldn’t comment on the Westmount High situation without knowing specifics. Still, he urged parents to call the consumer protection agency promptly to assess possible recourse.

For now, parent attention will turn to a March 10 meeting with school and EMSB officials.