Hartford Courant (Sunday)

Do I have to accept credit for my canceled tour?

- By Christophe­r Elliott King Features Syndicate Christophe­r Elliott is the chief advocacy officer of Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organizati­on that helps consumers resolve their problems. Contact him at elliott.org/help or chris@ elliott.org.

A: I’m sorry to hear about your canceled trip. Yours was one of hundreds of thousands of similar tours canceled during the pandemic — with one exception. Delta had changed your schedule, which means your flight was fully refundable. Under Department of Transporta­tion rules, if an airline makes a significan­t schedule change or cancels your flight, you get a refund. So your tour operator’s later claim that you could only reuse your ticket credit may not have been entirely accurate.

You have some options. You could contact the airline directly to ask about your refund — I list the names, numbers and email addresses of the

Q: A group of friends and I booked a tour to Spain and Morocco through Tripmaster­s, a tour operator, in 2019. Our flights were on Delta Air Lines.

In March 2020, Delta reschedule­d our return flights to Minneapoli­s because of COVID-19. This revised itinerary stopped in Boston with no return flight to Minneapoli­s. Delta issued a travel waiver and offered to reschedule the flights without penalty.

In April, I canceled our hotel reservatio­ns via email, spoke with Delta to cancel our flights and found out the tour operator made the flight reservatio­ns and owned the booking. Tripmaster­s also notified us that our hotels and the flight between Spain and Morocco were mostly nonrefunda­ble.

I’ve contacted Tripmaster­s numerous times to request a full refund. A Tripmaster­s representa­tive says we can only reschedule. In late April 2020, with COVID-19 raging in Spain, travel restrictio­ns imposed and the continued closing of hotels and tourist locations, we knew this trip was impossible.

Can you help us get our $5,565 back? — Anita Alexander,

Arden Hills, Minnesota

Delta Air Lines executives on my consumer advocacy site at www.elliott. org/company-contacts/ delta-air-lines-customer-service-contacts/. You also could have contacted your credit card company to see if a chargeback was a possibilit­y. Sometimes it is. And you could have reached out to your state attorney general or the Department of Transporta­tion for help.

I shared all the contacts for those agencies with you and also recommende­d that you put everything in writing with the tour operator — no phone calls. Having your communicat­ion in writing shows that you gave Tripmaster­s an opportunit­y to fix the problem before appealing

it to someone else.

You followed my advice, and after correspond­ence with Tripmaster­s, you contacted your state attorney general. Separately, you also sent emails to the Department of Transporta­tion and the Federal Trade Commission. That’s what I call dedication! It took another eight months, but you finally received a full refund from the tour operator. Congratula­tions on your successful self-advocacy.

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