Cancelled/postponed trips due to COVID - please share your outcomes
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CWK
Contributor
Don’t remember all, but would include Indo Siren, Palau Siren, FP Master, and Galapagos Aggressor.
Not necessarily so.
For us to do transactions without the physical card present is mostly impossible with all banks in Indonesia, for those banks that would do it (from memory only one) they wanted us to deposit a sizeable bond at the bank and sign an agreement stating that we basically would never argue a claim case and they would pay out without discussion. This is due to Indonesia's past history with credit card fraud, the usual terms that would protect a merchant from mastercard / visa do not apply.
Transactions can happen onsite with card / cardholder present but for example BNI (Indonesia's National Bank) requires a copy of the invoice and ID of the customer to be filed in case the transaction gets flagged.
What some of you are saying about reversing the transaction on your credit card - I'm pretty sure that the booking terms would not allow you to do that and that upon investigation the card issuer would deny your request (I've only tried that once as a curiosity when an airline cancelled the flight as we were sat at the gate, the hotel refused to move our 1 night booking so I tried a claim. Was denied as it was part of the booking terms. Fair Enough).
For the argument between Customer(s) vs Equator vs DiveDamai, have the customers tried claiming on their insurance yet? If that is denied, then send the copy of the rejection from the insurer to Equator and see what happens.
The insurer will require an email chain from the agent stating that the trip is not refundable or reschedulable to proceed, hence that is probably not entering the discussion at this point. It's procedural in order for you to file a claim with insurance. At the moment I can't find anything stating definitively that you either do not have insurance or that your insurance will not pay out (apologies if I have missed that), and for that I mean you have emailed the insurance and got a reply saying they will not process on covid-19, not just a generic "the internet says it wont work and i'm going along with it".
For us to do transactions without the physical card present is mostly impossible with all banks in Indonesia, for those banks that would do it (from memory only one) they wanted us to deposit a sizeable bond at the bank and sign an agreement stating that we basically would never argue a claim case and they would pay out without discussion. This is due to Indonesia's past history with credit card fraud, the usual terms that would protect a merchant from mastercard / visa do not apply.
Transactions can happen onsite with card / cardholder present but for example BNI (Indonesia's National Bank) requires a copy of the invoice and ID of the customer to be filed in case the transaction gets flagged.
What some of you are saying about reversing the transaction on your credit card - I'm pretty sure that the booking terms would not allow you to do that and that upon investigation the card issuer would deny your request (I've only tried that once as a curiosity when an airline cancelled the flight as we were sat at the gate, the hotel refused to move our 1 night booking so I tried a claim. Was denied as it was part of the booking terms. Fair Enough).
For the argument between Customer(s) vs Equator vs DiveDamai, have the customers tried claiming on their insurance yet? If that is denied, then send the copy of the rejection from the insurer to Equator and see what happens.
The insurer will require an email chain from the agent stating that the trip is not refundable or reschedulable to proceed, hence that is probably not entering the discussion at this point. It's procedural in order for you to file a claim with insurance. At the moment I can't find anything stating definitively that you either do not have insurance or that your insurance will not pay out (apologies if I have missed that), and for that I mean you have emailed the insurance and got a reply saying they will not process on covid-19, not just a generic "the internet says it wont work and i'm going along with it".
Luko
Contributor
Not this time everything went (quite smoothly) on the phone. Have you tried contacting their AMS call center? we had them, it was quite simple for rerouting and postponing our tickets with minimal fee.
On the other hand I had once to claim through LionAir (not this time)... phew, luckily they have a Singapore phone number otherwise I think they wouldn't answer to anything. Clearly their customer relationship policy is why I have put them on my blacklist. Never again...
LionAir is to me a disorganized company from booking to flying, at any stage this operation is a mess, even their airport staff seem on drugs, their checkin seems like a wet market, nobody knows how to perform simple operation, their work process is obnoxious, they forget gate change announcements, sometimes even lead their pax to the wrong tarmac bus.
That's a joke Scuba_Si
Perhaps not translatable into every culture.
In.any event, the customers do want to come, very very much
However, they are not able at this time or nesr future and perhaps even foreseeable future.
We don't want anyone's business to fail because we want to come to them as soon as we can
There needs to be some balance between customer and operator.
risenangel7
New
@JesterDiver @TabeaK
I'm the operation manager of @divedamai and am replying on behalf of my boss who probably have yet to read through the remaining thread or your responses since he posted the original reply as he doesn't visit ScubaBoard regularly. Anyway, my email is operations@dive-damai.com and would appreciate if you can write me an email so I can follow this through with him and come to a resolution. At this moment, he's a little overwhelmed as well with influx of incoming cancellation all the way till July 2020. I know your trip is in April and should be put into priority and I would like to do that for you. And yes, we will definitely want to come into a reasonable outcome and find a win win solution for all. So let's get in touch with me and we can take it further from there. We can always update this thread once we come to an agreement so people can have a reference to the progress.
I'm the operation manager of @divedamai and am replying on behalf of my boss who probably have yet to read through the remaining thread or your responses since he posted the original reply as he doesn't visit ScubaBoard regularly. Anyway, my email is operations@dive-damai.com and would appreciate if you can write me an email so I can follow this through with him and come to a resolution. At this moment, he's a little overwhelmed as well with influx of incoming cancellation all the way till July 2020. I know your trip is in April and should be put into priority and I would like to do that for you. And yes, we will definitely want to come into a reasonable outcome and find a win win solution for all. So let's get in touch with me and we can take it further from there. We can always update this thread once we come to an agreement so people can have a reference to the progress.
I am checking into this thread a bit late in the conversation but I hope I can add some useful information.
When a diver books a trip with an agent there is an implied contract, services in exchange for payment. So the contract is between the agent and diver, NOT the diver and LOB or resort.
When an agent books a group on a LOB or resort, the arrangement becomes a bit more convoluted. The travel agent has a contract with the LOB or resort and any individual who books a group trip or full/half boat charter has a contract with the agent, NOT the resort or LOB. If the agent fails to fill the charter or group, financial responsibility is that of the agent and the agent is responsible for the full group regardless of the actual number of divers in the group. So there is a financial risk to the agent, not the LOB or resort.
As is the case with TabeaK, the contract is with Equator and NOT with Damai. The LOB is not obligated to make any contact with the end customer, nor should they. I have no clue if Equator has a full or half boat charter but Equator is responsible to the diver as their customer, and it is Equator's responsibility to keep the customer informed of important communication as in situations like this. Unfortunately for the agent, a full boat charter does not always go as planned and I speak from experience. I had two full boat charters on a premium Indo LOB, one I was able to easily fill, the second I could not and had to cancel to avoid a huge loss. I was able to turn two bookings over to the LOB and I did lose $4,000 USD deposit on the charter. LIfe as an agent is not all fun and roses.
As with many businesses, the owners try to best reduce risk and push it on to another party. In the travel biz, risk is pushed to the travellers from resorts, airlines, cruises, etc with the assumption that the consumer will have no risk because they can buy insurance. Of course we all know the insurance companies try their best to avoid paying claims and in the CV-19 world, I have yet to find a company that covers this event. And I know few divers who actually buy the recommended travel insurance. Other divers may have been more successful with their insurance provider. So that makes this whole situation more difficult for all parties. No one takes responsibility and we all have families to feed and no one wants to lose money.
As for Damai, over more than 10 years, they have always been professional and gone beyond the call for me and my clients. I have within the last two weeks had them issue credit vouchers before we even requested them. I will continue to book travel with the Damai for both individuals and groups and have a full boat charter booked for 2021 with no intention of changing. If for any reason my charter happened to be in this time period, the financial responsibility between me and the LOB and between me the divers would remain unchanged. And there would be no implied relationship between my divers and the LOB.
With Equator as they are a UK company and are covered by the UK travel insurance system, it may be possible for TabeaK to find recourse through the agent and the UK insurance system, but I am only speculating.
I will be glad to answer any questions off line.
Stay healthy and stay safe...! We will dive another day.
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