The nitty gritty details:
Deposits
Each person going on a tour is required to make a deposit. No spot on the tour is considered confirmed until the deposit is received. Deposits are fully refundable with no questions asked until 180 days (approximately 6 months) prior to the tour start date. For info on cancelations inside of the 180 day window, please see the cancelation section below.
Payments
For your convenience, I have a few payment schedules for you:
- The 3-payment plan. You take the tour price, minus the deposit you’ve made, and divide that amount into 3 equal payments. Clever naming, I know. The payments are due at the 6 month, 4 month, and 2 month marks prior to the tour start date.
- Our Get Out in Front of It plan is great for those working on a tighter budget. Basically, from the time you book and send your deposit, we can setup a custom monthly payment plan for you. The farther in advance you book the trip, the lower the month amounts will be.
- Finally, the Full pre-payment plan. On/by the 180 day mark prior to the trip, you pay in full. I understand this option doesn’t work for everyone, but if you can afford to pay in full in advance, it’ll save the hassle of making multiple payments over a series of months.
Payments can be made by credit card according to any of the schedules listed above. Also, I will gladly accept a check will even credit your trip $100 per person if you pay by check for saving me on those hefty credit card processing fees.
Cancelations and Refunds
Nobody likes this part. I don’t want you to cancel. I like you, and I want you to come on this trip. And you certainly don’t want to have to cancel a trip you’re looking forward to. For any reason. But, life throws us some curveballs at times, and you just can’t plan for what might happen many months or sometimes a year+ in advance. So, I want to make this as fair as I can for both of us.
As stated above in the deposit section, all deposits are fully refundable prior to 180 days from the start of the tour. Also, if you’ve made any payments prior to the 180 day mark, those are refunded also. Easy as that. What happens inside of those 180 days? Let’s go through that.
Between 179 and 1 days prior to the start date of the tour (basically up until the time you get on the plane), your deposit is no longer refundable. However, any payments you’ve made toward the balance of the trip can/will be refunded. Also, if you sign up for another one of my tours within 2 years of the start date of your originally scheduled tour, I’ll give you a credit of half of your deposit amount towards the price of that tour. So, you’d recoup 50% of your deposit amount as a credit, and you can start dreaming of that next big trip.
Does that sound like a pretty fair policy? I hope so. It is meant to be as friendly to you, the traveler, as possible. The thing is- I’m a traveler, too. So, I try to put myself in your shoes. I know life can happen and cut a trip off before it even begins. And usually in these circumstances, the canceled trip isn’t even the worst part. It’s an illness, and injury, or a death in the family. All tragedies that shouldn’t be compounded by a being out several thousands of dollars. Hopefully this stuff doesn’t happen, but if it does you can reschedule something with us for a future date.
What happens if you have to cancel your tour upon arrival or cut your tour short for whatever reason? This part is tricky, and it will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. While I cannot promise any refund at this late stage, I’m a reasonable person as you can tell from the above policy. I will work with you to get you back on future tour or perhaps a partial refund can be arranged. Again, it’ll depend on the circumstances and how much of the tour was completed. I hope this never happens, but if it does, we’ll work it out.
*Note about refunds – please allow up to 15 days for refunds to be processed/issued.