Cancelled/postponed trips due to COVID - please share your outcomes

[JesterDiver]

Are they acting as a representative for you and purely booking the spots you requested on your behalf or did they purchase a half or full charter with discount spots and are reselling them to you/others (either at retail or amortizing the discount for the free spots which the latter is usually less likely as that is usually their profit) and subsequently possibly putting their own cancel policies forward?

The boat shows as chartered by Equator Diving on the Dive Damai site.

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

You may find the boat is offering them reschedule and they are offering you nothing...but it’s hard to believe that they would be that ethically terrible. They would have to be awful people and I don’t believe they are....

 

[Jay]

A quick note from DAMAI:
we never use platforms as Scubaboard to debate with guests, in the end we all have our own views and opinions and so should be. But in this unique occasion we are forced to reply as what this person has stated is unjustified, defamatory, and untrue.

We will just reply to this specific post and unless there are more posts stating facts that are incorrect and damaging, we will be not engage in further discussions and be back to what we should be doing: taking care of our guests and our crew

To state that "


is absolutely FALSE.
Anyone who has been with us and anyone who knows us is perfectly aware that we do take care of our gusst in the best possible way.

• It is false that DAMAi has cancelled any trip, we still have our vessel's ready and the crew as well.Of course we recognized the difficulties for many to arrive to the harbor and the impossibility with others and we were in communication with the agent who chartered the vessel to find alternatives
• It is ABSOLUTELY FALSE that we have not offered any alternative and decided to keep with a 100% of the funds collected from the trip

We take this accusations very serious and cannot let them unanswered.

We understand our guests’ concerns regarding their upcoming trip. We also hold our agent partnerships and the satisfaction of all guests to be an extremely important element of our current and future business. The safety of all passengers as well as our crew must always be the first priority.

We have always advised everyone to take out full trip cancellation insurance for events such as these (Terms & Conditions | Dive Damai .

When there is a travel lockdown then this insurance will be claimable. Unfortunately no operator is in a financial position to pay their overheads through a crisis such as this whilst giving full refunds for trips that are cancelled so close to the departure date. The vessel and company MUST remain in operation while there are no guests that are able to travel on our trips. Maybe that will be in a few weeks week or maybe in months, We just do not know.

Our cancellation policy is very clear set out in our terms and Conditions. It is also why we highlight the need for all our guests to take out trip cancellation insurance. My partners and I have been operating in this business in Indonesia for over twenty years and have seen many travel crises in that time including the SARS pandemic.

It is our goal and responsibility to remain solvent through this next crisis. This will enable us to fulfill our obligations to customers after the crisis ends. We made a decision that the best course of action was to offer the option of compensation to those who are unable to travel due to the lockdown through issuing a credit note/voucher. This will enable our guests, if they wish to follow this route, to have more flexibility to book again in the future or indeed transfer the voucher to someone else for remuneration.

However, we have overheads that are constant even if we are not cruising; such as staff salaries, licenses and clearances, office costs etc
We find it fair that a part of these overheads should to be subtracted from the total amount collected.
This will allow DAMAI to keep all our crew employed without having to reduce their salaries and thus reassuring their well being, that of their family and their loyalty towards YOU, OUR GUESTS.
this is our first priority at this time: the crew, keep their salaries intact for a s long as we can and make sure they and their families are well looked after in a country with little no no benefit and with a not very well established heath care system. it is not for no reason that we decide to impose a re-booking fee

So, to make it very simple: DAMAI is indeed offering the possibility to reschedule all existing bookings affected by the horrible crisis, and we do provide and /or have already provided vouchers to all affected parties.


We also agreed, that when the time comes for guests affected to redeem these vouchers, their new trips will be quoted at cost and not with the published rate.Again, DAMAI will not be profiting from this,

The truth is DAMAI, as many other small companies, will have to spend tens of thousands of dollars from tto cover and absorb the vast majority of the costs associated to these cancellations, while having little to no collections Guests, could have the opportunity to claim, either partially or their entire trip from their insurance.

we have proof time after time that we take care of our guest, that we are decent and honest and wehn adversity has come, we have not spared efforts, time or money and always put our guests and crew's interests before ours.

One is of course entitle to express their opinions and to disagree with out policies or with others, this does not give the right to anyone to state FALSE ACCUSATIONS, less in these sad and tough times for all of us.

We do expect an apology from the person witting such a defamatory statement and of course, if required we will also invest time and efforts to peruse any appropriate action, once this situation is over, to claim responsibilities to those who spread false accusation with the sole purpose to damage the reputation of our small family business.

it is clearly nobody's fault that we are going through these challenging moments to all of us, but it is also vert clear that we are not legal responsible for the expenses of guests.
We could of course argue that we do have moral obligations; but why should any company have to cover for the losses experienced by a traveler who freely decided not to buy any travel insurance?

We will have to make our very best to go though these period of uncertainty with our heads well up and proud of how we do it.


Sincerely

THE DAMAI FAMILY

Bolding is mine (in the quote):



I think you'll find that even though most of us carry travel insurance, it's useless once an epidemic or pandemic has been declared as any cost (excluding medical) is not longer covered. I've seen one case on SB where a diver thinks they have insurance post pandemic. I'd be interested to see if that claim is accepted. Here's a poll to see where diver's generally stand with it: COVID-19 Insurance Coverage? (non-medical)

I don't disagree with the haircut or rescheduling concept. @TabeaK is saying you don't offer refunds. That's accurate. S/he extends that to rescheduling ... that's not clear*, as well as you "keeping 100%" -also not clear (as in what happens if client refuses to take the voucher).

*It seems that of the amount paid, let's assume it's $4k, you'll take some "overhead" $, impose a re-booking fee, and provide in return a voucher for a new trip at cost.

My question is, say the new trip (say next year) and old trip are exactly the same. How much is my shortfall? (in $).

Sounds like either Dive Damai is changed their policy or the agent's been trying 'amend' the terms. One of those two appear not to be telling the truth, someone will be able to show correspondence that demonstrates it wasn't them.

I still want to now how much $ hit is the customer going to be taking by rescheduling after 'charges'?

Well right now since we aren't being given the option of rescheduling its over $7k.

what I was looking for, was how much ($) @divedamai was proposing they keep. It’s unclear from their mail:

*It seems that of the amount paid, let's assume it's $4k, you'll (DiveDamai) take some "overhead" $, impose a re-booking fee, and provide in return a voucher for a new trip at cost.

My question is, say the new trip (say next year) and old trip are exactly the same. How much is my shortfall?

 

[Dan]

Perhaps @Equator Diving could clarify ATOL and TTA with respect to both UK and international customers.

Also @Equator Diving needs to clarify why @JesterDiver & @TabeaK stories are so different than the response from @divedamai

 

[chris kippax]

In all honesty Deep Six & Underwater light dude are the only vendors I have seen on Scubaboard do them selves any benefit. There may be others (Possibly Tobin but peoples opinions differ on that )
Looks like Dive Damai and Equator have entered the quagmire

 

[TabeaK]

Well, we have asked for clarification from all involved parties - if and when we get some feedback, we'll be happy to report back - including to set the record straight where necessary.

What I'll say again is, no proactive communication from either Equator or Damai at any point during these developments - which is the bare minimum of what I would have expected.

These are definitely unprecedented circumstances, but we are pretty seasoned travelers and based on my prior experiences with Damai I would have expected better customer service. First time dealing with Equator for us, so have no frame of reference there...

 

[TabeaK]

Are they acting as a representative for you and purely booking the spots you requested on your behalf or did they purchase a half or full charter with discount spots and are reselling them to you/others (either at retail or amortizing the discount for the free spots which the latter is usually less likely as that is usually their profit) and subsequently possibly putting their own cancel policies forward?

We booked through Equator as they were the one's selling the itinerary/timing we wanted - so we did not instruct them to go and get us spots with Damai, we went with what they were already reselling. On Equator's site the trip showed as sold out, on Damai's site the trip showed as having available spots even 2 weeks ago - so maybe it was a half charter? Honestly, I am speculating at this point and do not know for sure.

Maybe another lesson from this is: do not deal with re-sellers/agents; only go through the boat directly?

 

[chillyinCanada]

Liveaboard trip booked in Raja Ampat with Calico Jack departing on 29-March. Boat offered to reschedule in next 3 years so that's good.

Flights been booked with Swiss Airlines and Garuda.
Swiss cancelled flights and will do full refund.

Garuda Indonesia only offering voucher to be used until March 2021. Not happy with that as unlikely we'll be able to use it by the deadline and it's £2K flights for us. Luckily it seems we are covered by travel insurance for this.

For the future Garuda will go on my less preferred airlines list. Whilst they are not bad to fly with, their response during these crisis times was very amateurish; no refunds, local London office not wanting to deal with my booking because it's been booked online etc. I'll stick to better regulated airlines.

Really? Which airline do you plan to use when you're finally able to go to Raja?

 

[outofofficebrb]

Really? Which airline do you plan to use when you're finally able to go to Raja?

PBI. Indo is a twice a year routine for me in a big way and I have to say Garuda has been obnoxious to deal with each time with little notice on flight changes or cancellations. Their customer service number (24 hour Indonesian one) is a pain to deal with since it hangs up on you after a few minutes and tells you to go to their website if no one picks up before then while you’re on hold. Any refunds or changes have to be made via email if you booked your original ticket online. They’re slow as molasses to get back to you on emails when you do email and you’re left wondering if they’re processing it or not. The only reason why I ever am biased towards them is because of their generous baggage policy for scuba gear or if they’re the ones going direct. I actually enjoy the overall experience of flying Batik more (Lion Group). They don’t have volatile schedule changes as much. In general I book through Nusatrip and they are amazing to work with even when issues come up. This time, Batik/Lion is offering refunds and Garuda is not at all.

 

[CWK]

Also @Equator Diving needs to clarify why @JesterDiver & @TabeaK stories are so different than the response from @divedamai

I suspect there is some misunderstanding and it will be cleared up quite soon.