Two columns, not one policy
Vacation Package Cancellation, Changes and Refunds
There are two entirely different events here and every other agency site blurs them. The operator cancelling for numbers, and you changing your mind. They refund differently, on different days, to different people, and they sit side by side below.
The two events
| Line | If the operator cancels for numbers | If you change your mind |
|---|---|---|
| Your deposit | Returned in full, always, without argument | Usually gone from the day it was paid, under the operator's schedule |
| Your balance, if paid | Returned in full | Returned in part, on a schedule that steps down by date |
| Any fee from this agency | none exists | none exists |
| Your airfare, bought early | Not returned by anybody. The operator never sold it | Not returned, and it is the same money either way |
| Travel insurance premium | Usually not, though some policies cover operator cancellation | Usually not |
| What you are offered instead | The nearest date that is already guaranteed, arranged at no charge | Nothing, and none is owed |
| Who decides | The operator, on its published decision date | You, on any day, subject to their schedule |
| How long it takes | Refunds usually clear inside two weeks of the declaration | The same |
The one line worth reading twice
A shortfall is the operator's failure and it refunds cleanly. A change of mind is your decision and it does not. The confusion between them is what makes travelers think a cancelled group trip cost them nothing, and it is why the airfare row above is in bold on this site and nowhere else.
Where the money sits, by tier
- Runs regardless
- there is no minimum, so there is no shortfall event at all. Only your own decision and each element's own rule
- Already guaranteed
- Read this twice. the shortfall event has already passed and cannot happen. In exchange the change-of-mind schedule is the tightest here, because the operator committed early
- Minimum usually met
- both events are live until the decision date. After it, only one is
- Minimum often short
- both live, and the first is genuinely likely. This is where the airfare advice on every trip page comes from
The day you tell us
- Inside the hour
- whichever schedule governs is read and the real number goes to you
- That same day
- not a thing is cancelled; the number reaches you first and reversing your decision stays open
- Once you put it in writing
- the cancellation is made and the operator's own confirmation comes back to you
- On a spoken word alone
- never
Changing rather than cancelling
Frequently cheaper and almost never simple. Moving a conditional departure to a different date restarts its condition: the new date has its own minimum and its own decision day, and a date that historically fills is not the same as the one you left. Every change is priced with that stated.
Insurance
Read the certificate rather than the summary. On the bottom two tiers, ask specifically whether operator cancellation for insufficient numbers is covered, because it is the one event these trips are most likely to produce.
| Typically pays | Typically does not |
|---|---|
| Falling ill, with a doctor prepared to state it | Having second thoughts |
| A death among close family | Something you knew of and did not declare when buying |
| Being called for jury duty | A connection booked with no slack in it |
| Some policies: operator cancellation | Anything already public news when the policy was bought |
Complaints
Write to [revisions@fareveil.com](mailto:revisions@fareveil.com) and be blunt. A reply is written at this desk inside five working days. Nothing here trims a right given to you by Georgia law or federal law.