Journey to Cuba abruptly canceled

Travel agent: money for trip never made it from bank to island

A seven-day trip to Cuba sponsored by the Capital Region Chamber of Commerce was abruptly canceled this week, just a day and a half before the group was to depart.

While the travel service organizing the trip, Pawtucket, R.i.-based Collette Travel Service, has assured the group of 14 travelers they will receive full refunds plus vouchers for future travel, it’s not clear what happened to derail this trip.

Collette, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in business last year, has been organizing trips to Cuba for the past seven years. Over that period, “we have never experienced any issues with transmitting funds to Cuba to pay for our authorized travel services,” said Collette spokeswoman Amelia Sugerman.

Collette used Miamibased Stonegate Bank, which The Wall Street Journal in 2015 reported was the first American bank to establish an account with a Cuban bank to allow American and Cuban businesses to process transactions with one another directly.

It’s not clear whether that relationship has continued. Collette said Stonegate, now a part of Centennial Bank, has been using an intermediary bank in Panama to move payments to the Cuban tour services company Havantur.

But Sugerman said Monday that Collette learned Havantur hadn’t received payment for the Capital Region Chamber tour, and that it wouldn’t provide services until the money arrived.

She added that Collette wasn’t able to establish new banking relationships in time to save the trip, so it ended up canceling the tour.

A spokeswoman for Stonegate’s parent, Centennial Bank, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

U.S. travel restrictions to Cuba eased after President Barack Obama decided to open relations between the two countries in December 2014, but the Trump administration added a number of new restrictions that ended up reducing travel to Cuba.

Many of the existing restrictions — prohibition on using credit cards, inability to use ATMS — make travel for Americans more difficult.

Jean Gagnon of Plaza Travel, who worked with Collette and the Chamber to organize the trip, called Collette “a wonderful tour company, very, very reputable.”

One traveler, who’d already scheduled her vacation time, did the next best thing. She flew to Florida for the week.