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As we return, one day, to something of normal travel we will have to adjust to many changes. One of my favorite car service providers GroundLink ended during COVID that I had used both domestically and internationally. Uber, while widely available in the US, has begun to suspend operations in any number of locations due to differences with a number of city / state governments.
Another of the services I have really enjoyed has been Welcome Pickups. They are available in a number of cities but I have primarily used them in Barcelona for airport transfers to hotels as well as hotel to the cruise ship terminal.
I had an amazing cruise booked this fall (since we all know it is one of the safest vacations to book right now) on the NCL Dawn that is a 17 day crossing from Rome to Tampa Florida. I booked the perfect one-way Delta award tickets that I used my Global upgrade certs on (for the first time ever on award tickets) and was kinda kicking myself for burning all my last year’s Diamond Medallion Choice Benefits on Skymiles.
Now NCL has canceled my cruise and all my perfect travel plans and bookings are sunk!
I have blanket yearly travel insurance, that covers stuff like this, but since just about everything I had booked I can cancel for free means I have very few items to turn in for reimbursement.
But the one thing I was holding off booking was my Welcome Pickups transport from FCO airport in Rome to Civitavecchia the port city for cruises use and gosh I am happy I did. Notice why with the new cancellation terms:
Ugh. When I must cancel something, within the time allowed for cancellations, I expect my full payment back. Offering ONLY 80% of my payment back is enough to make me rethink ever booking with them ever again.
As we start to slowly recover from what has been the global nightmare, that is looking like it will go on for much longer than hoped, it seems some businesses are looking for every way to make money even if it is in a shameful way (btw if you are unvaccinated – GET THE SHOT – now!).
You tell me – do customer unfriendly cancellation policies like this impact your choice to book with the company? – René
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
“…customer unfriendly cancellation policies like this impact your choice to book with the company?”
Yes. If this was 1 hour before your pickup, or even a day before, then OK. But a booking that is months away, this is not even close to being fair for this type of service.
Yes, at some point from the actual reservation it would reasonable, maybe even a few days before, But not being able to cancel many wekks in advance would certainly deter me from booking with them, especially if I know other options exist, uber, taxi, etc.
We were looking to book a place in Bath. Their refund policy was “we don’t give refunds”.
We won’t ever be booking with them