They have an attitude, this place.
An attitude that enables them to cancel the trip last minute to anyone, and turn your vacation into trash ,
An attitude they definitely took pride in when they blamed me, a client who placed trust in them and travelled all the way from LA to Scottsdale for the trek, not buying travel insurance, instead of looking back to themselves about why they have no backup guides for the trek should one guide not able to make it.
An attitude that I could only dwell on now regarding why I picked them in the first place? Was I drinking too much that day?
And here is my story:
I booked the 4-day trip from hermit to bright angels. I flew in the evening before, as they instructed (and they gave me a hard time blaming I arrived too late and will miss their “orientation”), when I was on the taxi heading to the hotel they instructed as the pickup spot for the next morning, they called me, simply saying:
“Hey, I am calling to inform you the trip has been cancelled”.
“What?” For a second I could not believe it, staring at my suitcase full of backpacking items that I had relentlessly spent hours and tanks of gas running around to harvest. I thought, no way!
“Yep, it’s cancelled.The guide is coughing and she probably got Covid from the last tour. So no trip tomorrow.”
“But….but is there no backup guide? Nobody else could do this?”
“Nope, we have no one else right now, they are all scheduled for other trips. Look, we could offer you a refund of the price you pay but that’s it. Or I could rebook you to a trip next Monday (subtext: and keep your money).”
For a moment I could not believe this. Then I asked him:
“I’ve flown from LA here all the way, I landed just a few minutes ago. You could have notified me before I boarded the flight. Now I just paid $40 for the Uber and will have to pay $100 for your partner hotel that is in the middle of nowhere and then tomorrow I will have to buy another flight home and pay another Uber to get back to the airport. And besides these hundreds of dollars thrown in vain, there is so much time of mine that is wasted. Time spent on the road and time for prep. Why do you wait until last moment to notify your customer? What really was happening here?”
“ Look,” his voice was impatient,”a full refund—-that’s it (subtext: we don’t even wanna give you that so just be happy). Everything else is your own fault, you didn’t buy traveller insurance so we don’t care. “
“If the designated guide have an accident, or she/he fell sick, or she/he simply cannot do the trip due to personal issues, then you just cancel the trip and make your customers, some of who might even travel much longer distance than me, to pay for the price of time and travel and above all, a wasted vacation that they have been expecting?”
“Yep, your own fault—-you didn’t buy travel insurance.there’s nothing we could do about it. “
He is a man of such an attitude and I am so impressed. How could someone take it for so granted while they should be at least offering an sincere apology? He must have been very confident in himself because of his “winning” business model!
Even if I have got travel insurance, my vacation now is nevertheless wasted—-is it so hard to spell?
“Ok refund me then.” A sarcastic contrast to the terms of their cancellation policy towards customers——90 days in advance if you want your refund!
So that’s my trip, with this incredible shop who has a definitely winning business model by operating on one guide and one guide only. I spent two days on the road, one night in a shabby hotel, two flights to and from Phoenix and hundreds of dollars.
Most hilarious part? I didn’t see the Grand Canyon, nor the face of anyone from discovery treks.
Well, I know you guys take pride in that attitude and would never admit any wrongdoings. The faults are all on your clients behalf (for trusting you). But, hey, at least offering a rain check would have been nice——although I don’t think I’ll ever visit Scottsdale again.
And if you can’t do that, please, offer a sincere apology.
Odpowiedź od gospodarza
Oct 2021
We deeply regret having to cancel this tour at the last minute. As we explained to you during our initial conversation, we were informed at 8pm the night prior to your tour, that a client from a previous tour that your guide had lead a few days prior tested positive for COVID and had only just informed us at that 8pm timeframe of that positive test. You were informed within 30 minutes of the issue being brought to our attention. We have strict regulations with the Grand Canyon stating that guides who are exposed to known COVID infections are required to quarantine and test negative before coming back to work. The tour that you signed up for was one of our more strenuous hikes and due to the fact that we are in the middle of our fall Grand Canyon backpacking season, we did not have any other guides available to take on that strenuous hike with a sub 12 hour timeframe to prepare for it; which is why we provided you with a full refund on the tour. Many of our competitors would not have even offered a monetary refund and would have simply given you a credit to reschedule in the future; with that being the case, we believe a full refund was more than fair given the circumstances.
Now that the world has been dealing with COVID for nearly 2 years, it is well known by all that there are still many instances of cancellations, closures, delays and reschedules throughout all industries and events. We as a company have been fortunate and have not had to cancel any tours because of COVID since the initial outbreak in March - May 2020, until this one. In this case, we were unfortunately left with no choice due to the last minute nature of the situation. However, this is why we strongly recommend to all of our clients that they acquire travel insurance to cover for any unexpected issues that may arise. We even go so far as as to recommend a specific company and provide all of those contact details upon every client booking a tour with us and those details are also available on our website. At this point in the pandemic, everyone should be prepared for the unexpected; especially with travel plans.
Finally, we did apologize to you profusely when we spoke regarding the cancelled tour and certainly understood you being upset about the situation. While we realize that due to the last minute nature of the cancellation, you were unable to get refunded for your airline or hotel fees, your assertion that we cover those fees and also provide you with a free trip in the future (along with the full refund) was not amenable to us as we were providing you with that full refund and had informed you prior about travel insurance options.
Had the cancellation been due to a serious and avoidable mistake on our end, we would have had a different conversation and would have been more open to rectifying the situation with a full refund and credit in the future at a minimum. In this case, we had no control or forewarning about the issue and had no choice but to cancel the tour based on our strict requirements with the Grand Canyon NP regarding COVID mitigation policies.
We are sorry that your trip was derailed and unable to take place and it is regrettable that you now have a very negative view of our company. We genuinely wanted to run your tour and would have done so if we had any other option at the time. Hopefully you will be able to make it out to the Grand Canyon again at some point in the future.