Sadly I would think that as you have entered into a contract and agreed to those terms and conditions I doubt that you will be able to do anything about it. Maybe give Ros a ring to check that those terms are actually legal?

I think that it's a really bad thing for them to do though as it means that your holiday price is never actually set or finalised I would certainly look at using another operator for any future travel.

Out of interest what are the new inclusions?

I'm surprised they havn't just cancelled the trip if it's that different citing lack of numbers. Surprised, as they have a good reputation.

Are you sure you MUST pay the extra $110 for the extra tour inclusions. Suppose you don't want to take part in these extra Tour Incl. - why pay.

It seems to me that if you enter into a contract for a tour that includes a detailed itinerery this should not be extended at a later point by the operator at additional cost. Consider the extreme example below:

You elect to travel to the Baltic and visit several sites around the area. You pay the operator the agreed published fare of, say £975 per person. Some months after payment of (presumably) the deposit, and before the final payment is made, the operator adds extra's such that you now visit southern Chile - at an additional cost of, say, £110. OK, this would seem to be a bargain.

But not if you hate southern Chile - and not if your budget didn't run to £975 plus £110.

They should either allow you to skip this cost and hence skip the "extra" tours or you should be offered a full refund.

This is based upon my moral feelings rather than a legal standpoint.

Good luck
Mike

In May last year we went on a tour of Spain with Cosmos/Archers. At the booking stage in the October we were offered the chance to upgrade for an additional £75 pp to a smaller coach etc. We declined it. When we arrived in Malaga for the start of the tour we found we had been upgraded FOC. Basically they had not sold enough seats on both options so they combined them. I don't know who had paid the extra or if they had been refunded we did not ask. I surmise the same thing applies here as the example given by Mike. You opted for a package. If they wish to extend/upgrade FOC then that is fine but why should you be required to pay?

fwh

Hi there,

I work in the London office at Tucan Travel. It seems that there is a bit of confusion out there about our Africa tours and the reason we changed the travel style of these tours from Budget Expeditions to Overland Expeditions. I would like to respond to this if I may.

The Budget Expeditions travel style was originally designed for 18 to 35s who are travelling on a budget (as of course many of us are). Tours in this style include camping accommodation and some hostels, with transport on our private expedition vehicles but no included excursions. The intention of this travel style is that travellers can pick and choose the excursions that suited their taste and their budget. However, our experience is that most clients choose to participate in most of the optional excurions in Africa, particularly the safari/wildlife based activities.

We have been operating Budget Expeditions tours in East and Southern Africa for several years. During this time the tours have rapidly increased in popularity, and at the same time we have had an increasing number of clients outside the 18 to 35 age range ask to join our tours. So in order to cater to this demand and to be more inclusive, we decided that it would be best to change the Africa tours into the Overland Expeditions travel style. These tours operate in almost exactly the same way as Budget Expeditions, with the same itinerary, transport, crew and accommodation, but offer a number of included excursions and allow a broader age range of people to join the tours - with the age range being 18 to approx 55, generally speaking.

We have alerted all of our clients to the changeover and so far the vast majority have been very happy with the change. We have been very open and honest about the reason for this changeover. We have also been very clear that the increase in the local payment reflects the cost of the included excursions only and there is no other increase or margin added. I would also reiterate that these newly included excursions have been some of our most popular optional excursions when the tours operated as Budget Expeditions. We chose these included excursions specifically because based on our experience, most people would choose to do them anyway, and would therefore be no difference in the overall cost to your holiday.

Mech, I would just like to say to you personally that it is our aim to give you the best value for money on your adventure. I really hope that you have an excellent time in Africa and do enjoy the included excursions that now come with your tour. I would also welcome any feedback that you have after your expedition.

If your would like to know more about this travel style change, you can visit this page on our website: tucantravel.com/regions/changes-to-africa-tours

If you would like to learn more about our travel styles, you can visit this page: tucantravel.com/about-us/travel-styles

I hope that helps to clarify things from the Tucan Travel point of view. Thanks for letting me respond to your concerns and all the best,

Cat @ Tucan Travel.

First thanks for coming onto HT and offering an explanation for the changes. It is entirely up to the OP to decide their response, however whilst people may actually wish to add these extras to their itinerary you are making an assumption.

The complaint from the OP is that they have booked a holiday advertised by you. They have paid for it and now you have decided to change it. Fine if it improves upon what was originally offered but where people have already booked and paid then the additions should be included in the price already paid.

You entered into a contract when you accepted the booking and are now seeking to vary it. Not quite sure of the legal implications here. The advice given re contacting Ros Fernehough who is a renowned travel law solicitor seems to me a very good idea.

Or let me put it another way. You accepted the booking so honour it at the price originally quoted. Might make a bit less profit but it will do wonders for your image as a company that puts customer satisfaction first..

fwh

Or quite simply, refund the client 100% of the cost of their trip if they choose as it seems their original trip has been cancelled and replaced. I'm sure they wont anyway. If push comes to shove, i'm sure you'd have to legally.

To the original poster, you havn't indicated the scale of price changes, and the additional perks you are getting. Could you advise? Also, would you actually choose to book them when you travelled? If not, then maybe Tucan could negotiate accordingly.

To Cat @ Tucan, it's good to see a full response from a company, and it's appreciated, and I hope you don't get flamed accordingly. I always feel though that this aspect i.e. complaint / response / negotiation should be done in private and hopefully until you both get everything resolved. And then brought out into the open here!

Hi there,

Thanks for your responses FWH and Travelling Sam. I am not able to say whether Mech the OP has contacted Tucan Travel directly or via his or her agent - as far as I know they haven't yet spoken to us directly. If Mech contacts us then we would certainly respond privately, as per our usual practise. However, given the level of response this thread received I thought I should explain our point of view here.

For enquiries from USA, Canada, Australasia and the rest of the world, please send them to: uksales@tucantravel.com.
For enquiries from UK and Europe, please send them to: uksales@tucantravel.com.

If you are interested in terms and conditions, these are explained in detail on our website under the how to book section. I would prefer now to let this rest and allow the OP to contact us directly.

With best wishes,

Cat @ Tucan Travel.

As a simple member of this forum, I'd just like to say thank you Cat for having the courage to post and to try to help our member move forward, and explain to others how to contact you should they need to.

It is always appreciated when a travel professional takes the time to post, regardless of the situation or the potential outcome. Thank you.

I concur with Alsacienne, we don't often get travel companies who are forward thinking enough to come on here and endeavour to help the holidaymaker.

Sarah

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the responses, I'm so impressed with this forum and have already used it to research future travel plans, fantastic!!

In response to a few of your questions about my earlier post:

The additional fee we've been asked to pay is US$110 per person - so US$220 for my partner and I. While, as Cat rightly points out, we will get the benefit of the extra activities, my issue is that I would have liked to make the choice myself about what activities to take part in while on the tour.

If I wanted to pay the extra US$110 I would have simply booked the Overland Excursion rather than the Budget Expedition. If Tucan believe these activities should be included as an essential part of the tour, then I would challenge them to wear the difference in price themselves, until such time then they can start charging the new price at booking stage. That way every customer will know exactly what they are getting (and paying!) when they book.

Alternatively, if Tucan are so confident that everyone wants to do these extra activities - why not let them decide? We may well choose to do some or all of them - but the point is when we booked the tour - we had the option!

The first we knew about the increase in price was when we received an email a few weeks back. At that point I contacted Tucan by email to query the price increase - with no luck. (I should note it was not Cat that responded). I do agree with Travelling Sam that these matters are best handled direct but unfortunately that is not always possible.

Further to that, I feel the feedback in this forum shows that most people would be pretty disappointed to be treated the way we have. While its only US$220 extra, and we would rather pay that than cancle our tour, what if it was more? Or what if our budget really couldn't stretch that far?

Cat, I do really appreciate your post but the fact remains that just because Tucan are covered by their T&Cs and all the fine print - it doesn't make it right, and believe me it's not good customer service!

I welcome the fact that Cat has come on the forum. It has already been said there are not many TOs who are willing to put themselves forward.

It really is a matter between you and them. We can only express our personal opinions. I have already posted a suggestion;

Or let me put it another way. You accepted the booking so honour it at the price originally quoted. Might make a bit less profit but it will do wonders for your image as a company that puts customer satisfaction first..

I did say I am not sure of the legal position on this. You have booked and paid and they are now attempting to vary the contract both parties entered into when you paid and they took your money.

When we toured Spain last year we had the option of booking extra excursions and declined. When we arrived we then booked those we were interested in doing. In our case money was no problem as we had been planning it for some years and had put a lot more money aside than we actually needed. (Just bought a car with the balance.) We would not however have been very happy if having booked and paid we were suddenly presented with the extras with no option and been asked for more money. Ordinarily our budget is limited and our holiday choice is determined by how much we have available to spend.

Perhaps you might like to try to contact Cat and discuss. From the postings they sound (Sorry not sure if Cat is Male or Female) reasonable and I think they will try to assist.

fwh

Mech

Seeing as both yourself and Cat have insufficient posts to instigated PM's, I shall send you a PM and you can provide you email address to pass on to Cat so that you can discuss this away from the forums.

However I would ask that you advise us of the outcome.

luci

Hi there,

Mech I'm not sure which office you booked through - I'm based in London. We have a reservations team here and in Sydney and we are willing to help you sort something out if you are absolutely certain that you don't want to take part in the included activities of your tour, in this case.

I provided our email addresses in a previous post but you can also call our offices - the opening ours are posted on our website at: tucantravel.com/contact-us/our-offices

I hope that helps,

All the best,

Cat

Pay the contracted amount, travel, enjoy and let the tour operator try to charge more.

They've no chance.

Of course, they may try to stop you travelling in the first place if you've not paid "their" demanded balance.

That's where the legal stuff starts.

Guys, get real. The tour op. has a live punter prepared to pay what was originaly requested. The punter is happy to pay the original sum which does NOT include the extras.

Where the hell is the problem?

And we think the donkey's really only live in Parliament !

Mike,