Dear stumbled,
Last summer I booked a five-day sailing trip with Tall Ship Experience, a Spanish-based company. For 1,350 euros, or $1,450, I will be a volunteer at the Atlantis crew and sail between two Italian ports. However, eight days ago I had a bad fall, resulting in multiple injuries, including eight stitches on my face. The Tall Ship Experience website clearly states that you can cancel for a full refund up to seven days prior to your trip. However, the company revealed that it was just an intermediary and that Tallship Company, the Dutch organization that actually runs the trip, had different rules. I offered to take credit for future trips. Finally, I challenged credit card issuer American Express and billing. However, the experience with the tall ship offered Amex a totally different condition, saying it had cancelled a day ago. The charges have been resurrected. Can I help? Los Angeles, Martha
Dear Martha,
This story reads like a playlist of the biggest hits of traps in the travel industry. There are mad barriers to pursuing justice to foreign companies, terms of contracts exist, credit card chargebacks are wrong, and crazy barriers to pursuing justice against foreign companies. However, the documents you sent were very complete and the company's website was very confused so I was sure the experience with a tall ship would refund you soon.
The Tallship Company did not respond to requests for comment, but nothing wrong. It simply means that the experience of the hand ship should have been revealed to you, as an intermediary, simply in accordance with its own terms and conditions. When you cancel, Tallship Company will send you a 10% refund back to Tall Ship Experience, which will then be sent.
That's why the stubborn (very polite) tall ship experience spokesperson who responded to me on behalf of the Seville-based organization was surprised that while he regretted your disappointment, he repeatedly insisted that the experience with the tall ship was not responsible. At one point, she suggested that you should buy travel insurance, even if you were scrambling to coordinate and update the website when we emailed.
Prior to the change, the site contained terms and conditions for two different, inconsistent sets, customers who purchased through the English and French versions of the website and Spanish versions. (Confusingly, both documents were in Spanish.)
The English/French version (what you saw) has promised customers a full refund for trips cancelled more than 7 days ago. The Spanish ones are very complicated and offer clear cancellation terms for each ship. Atlantis has offered customers back to just 10% in your situation.
Join the stubborn spokeswoman. “The terms and conditions in Spanish correctly reflected the ship's cancellation policy the moment the client booked,” she wrote in an email. “We are aware that the English version of the term had not been updated at the time, and that there could be confusion. However, the official terms of reservations were applied correctly.”
In other words, the customer must know in some way that they ignore one contract and look for another contract in another part of the site.
However, I am not an expert on Spanish consumer law, so I contacted Marta Valls Sierra, director of consumer rights practice at Marimón Abogados, a Barcelona-based law firm. Fernando López Pena, a university professor at Coruna.
They examined the documents and concluded that each independently, the experience of tall ships violated Spain's basic consumer law. When I told the spokesperson their persuasive points and warned her that you were considering taking the company to the Spanish Small Claims Court, she ultimately said it would refund you the remaining 1,215 euros.
I felt a bit like a sheep putting so much pressure on this small company. In fact, the arm of the non-profit Nao Victoria Foundation, which operates several replicas of the historic ship – but the company should have paid more attention when setting up the website, Valls Sierra told me.
“In the terms of the contract, she said she has the right to cancel up to seven days before departure, she said in an interview, “Consumers come in and say, 'I want to cancel.' They said, “Sorry, we forgot to put it on one webpage, but we put “as an excuse” on another webpage. ”
She is a principle of consumer law, she added.
Another troubling problem with the website is that there was no way to know that your trip was not run by the experience of tall ships. There was no such mention that you can find on websites that rely on such marketing copies.
Law professor Dr. López Pena wrote to me in an email saying, “The experience of tall ships is obligated to notify consumers of services they provide in an accessible and understandable way that clearly indicates whether it is an intermediary.” He added that in this case, the experience of the tall ship “clearly” showed his position as the operator of the ship.
As mentioned earlier, the experience of the tall ship started updating the site as soon as I reached out, calling myself the “market” of experience, and posting the correct terms (the correct language) on my English and French pages.
However, the experience with the tall ship only agreed to a refund after sending the compilation of the legal analysis of two experts to the company. “We are dedicated to creating unique boat experiences, not legal issues,” a spokeswoman responded. “In this case, we would like to refund the full amount regardless of which party is right. We look forward to taking this a break and focusing on continuing to improve the customer experience.”
You also said that American Express has disappointed you by embracing the company's words to yours when you challenged the accusation. It is true that the tall ship experience in the documents sent to Amex (which I forwarded it to you who transferred it to me) is very inaccurate, including only terms that are favorable to the company, and that I say I cancelled a day ago.
An American Express spokesperson emailed a statement that the company “takes both the card member and the merchant's perspective into consideration.” However, travelers should not mistake a crook investigator and credit card issuer who do not leave an inverted stone in pursuit of travel justice. A chargeback request works best when the problem is simple. I have been charged or have never agreed to pay more than I agreed to pay. Asking the card issuer to dive deeper into the terms is a much longer shot.
And as we've seen before (and in this case you might see), such chargeback requests often anger companies that are involved to the point that they refuse to deal with you more.
As I told you before the company gave in, if everything else failed, you could have requested a “Juicio language” version of the Spanish small court proceedings via video conferencing. That wouldn't have been easy, Dr. Lopez Pena said. Cases under 2,000 euros do not require a lawyer, but you will need to have an alien identification number, fill out a legal Spanish form (AI may help), and find that an interpreter is by your side.
When I finally told you – in our 39th email! – You will receive a refund, you said “I am almost looking forward to the Spanish small billing experience.” I admire your spirit, but I think it was quickly broken by bureaucratic and linguistic barriers.
If you need advice on the best travel plans that have gone crazy, please email Trippedup@nytimes.com.
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