Parents,
Here is the latest email that I received from Kaleidoscope Adventures. They are waiting on 4 more suppliers to return funds to the district. My understanding is once funds have been returned back to the district then refunds will be issued. As soon as I get more information I will pass it on to everyone.
I am sorry that our trip had to be cancelled due to these unforeseen circumstances. If you have any questions please let me know. If I do not have an answer for you I will forward your questions to Kaleidoscope. Thank you for your time and patience.
Please read email below:
I hope you, your family, and your students are healthy and safe. Thank you so much for your support and patience as we work through the cancellation process. I wanted to send you a quick update on our progress regarding your trip cancellation.
As of today, we have contacted all 9 suppliers that were holding funds for your trip. 9 of those suppliers responded and 5 have returned funds to us. We will continue to communicate with them to ensure this is completed as quickly as possible.
Below is some information for you and your parents as we move through this unprecedented time. I will touch base with you weekly until everything is completed.
Refunds
We continue to work with our suppliers to secure refunds for your group. Getting in touch with suppliers is becoming more challenging every day. Many suppliers are closed. Those who remain open are often working with a skeleton staff. Additionally, the cancellation and refund processes change daily. Some suppliers who had been offering refunds have changed their policies and are now offering future travel credit instead.
We anticipate this trend will continue so please be prepared. If a supplier does offer your group a credit instead of a refund, we will hold that credit for you to use on a future trip. As always, we will work to extend the expiration date of any credits as far as possible. Credits cannot be used for individual travel.
When all the refund and credit amounts are paid to Kaleidoscope Adventures by suppliers, we will contact you to discuss how you would like to process the refund/credit. As you can imagine, with the overwhelming number of groups canceling, it’s not possible for us to send multiple refunds to each as they come in. Contacting you once all refunds and credits are resolved will simplify the process for your group and our staff.
Parent Q&A
We know parents are concerned about the status of their refunds. An enormous number of families have been affected financially by these uncontrollable circumstances, our team included. We understand and appreciate that you want your money as quickly as possible.
As you already know, the cancellation and rescheduling process is changing daily. Suppliers are moving from cash refunds to future credits. While it seems like we should be able to instantly refund your monies, we simply can’t send money that we don’t have. Suppliers hold the majority of your money; until we receive it from them, we can’t pay it out to you. We appreciate your patience and you have our word that we won’t rest until everything is resolved.
I travel extensively for work and every hotel and airline that I have contacted to cancel my personal reservations have done so without penalty. Why can’t you do the same?
Please know that countless hours of staff time have gone into planning and organizing your trip. Kaleidoscope Adventures is by no means profiting off any trip that cancels as those staff members have been paid for their time in advance of your travels nor are we keeping all of your monies. We have promised to all of our clients that we will return funds we recover from our suppliers to you.
Individual travel is booked and contracted on far different terms than group travel. In almost 100% of the cases airlines, hotels, attractions, and restaurants require deposits, many non-refundable, to hold group space. Some even have cancellation penalties that begin 60 days prior to your departure. Since group rates tend to be the lowest of all rates a supplier offers the terms and conditions of those bookings are more stringent.
This trip was not cancelled by the parents or children, so why should we be punished financially for this crisis?
Again, as mentioned earlier, Kaleidoscope is not profiting from this at all in fact we are in the same situation as everyone in the country right now. Everyone is in this together. We had to reduce the size of our team due to this unprecedented situation. We have worked for months on your tour and those employees who worked on the tour were already paid. We are not keeping the whole amount of your tour as our contract stipulates. In light of everything that has happened we are only keeping your deposit plus any supplier payments we cannot recover, and we will try our very best to recover as much as possible. We want to find a reasonable solution for all our clients. That will take time and we appreciate your patience with us as we work to ensure the maximum refund possible.
You can help us in this effort as well. We will be working diligently to update your group leader about every 7 to 10 days with the status of any refund/credit. If you can communicate through them to find out what is happening that is most helpful. The more time we have to spend communicating with our supplier to finalize refunds and credits the more efficiently we can process them for you. As you can imagine with a limited staff this can be difficult. Your help and understanding are greatly appreciated.
I have a child in a different school who was also attending a trip with another company which was cancelled. That company is returning all monies-minus initial nonrefundable deposits to ALL chaperones/children, regardless of trip insurance. Why aren’t you doing the same?
This is exactly what we are doing too. All monies will be returned minus the non-refundable deposit and any non-refundable supplier payments. The other company is just saying “non-refundable deposits” plural to indicate the deposits they paid to suppliers too. They are essentially saying the same thing we are doing just in a different way. Furthermore, we (and they) are required by the insurance company to pay the maximum refund out to any client who purchased insurance before the insurance company will pay their portion of the claim. That is standard procedure for all travel companies.
