Cayman Aggressor: When does it become too much?

[boulderjohn]

Clearly they want you to buy trip insurance, which also means that they are not out any money if they actually cancel the trip rather than the customer.

A problem with trip insurance is shown in this thread. When you consider the entire cost of a trip, in most cases, on the rare occasion that a trip is canceled, the overwhelming majority of the cost is fully recoverable without insurance. You end up paying a lot of money (trip insurance is absurdly expensive) for the small percentage you would not have recovered anyway. In the long run, if you never take out trip insurance, you are usually money ahead because of the rarity of cancellations and the fact you get most of your money back anyway. In this case....

 

[Dan G]

A problem with trip insurance is shown in this thread. When you consider the entire cost of a trip, in most cases, on the rare occasion that a trip is canceled, the overwhelming majority of the cost is fully recoverable without insurance. You end up paying a lot of money (trip insurance is absurdly expensive) for the small percentage you would not have recovered anyway. In the long run, if you never take out trip insurance, you are usually money ahead because of the rarity of cancellations and the fact you get most of your money back anyway. In this case....

I do not disagree. I think Aggressor is placing the burden of cancelations (even their own) onto the customer. The burden is either placed on the customer in the form of lost money or on the insurance company who pays out the claim.

 

[O-ring]

A problem with trip insurance is shown in this thread. When you consider the entire cost of a trip, in most cases, on the rare occasion that a trip is canceled, the overwhelming majority of the cost is fully recoverable without insurance. You end up paying a lot of money (trip insurance is absurdly expensive) for the small percentage you would not have recovered anyway. In the long run, if you never take out trip insurance, you are usually money ahead because of the rarity of cancellations and the fact you get most of your money back anyway. In this case....

I do not disagree. I think Aggressor is placing the burden of cancelations (even their own) onto the customer. The burden is either placed on the customer in the form of lost money or on the insurance company who pays out the claim.

IMHO, you guys both hit the nail on the head. I chose not to buy trip insurance for my Aggressor trip last month and instead spent what I would have spent on trip insurance going down a few days early and staying on island and doing some boat diving beforehand. I'd rather use my money that way than pay an insurance company, but I realize this wasn't a replacement for trip insurance. I was just protecting myself for what I considered the most likely possible trip interruption - flight delay/cancellation causing me to miss the Aggressor's departure time and lost baggage. I figured a few days on the front end would give me time to handle most scenarios. I did look at "cancel for any reason" trip insurance and many lols ensued. It's way too high compared to total trip cost to make it an effective long term solution and, like John said, you come out way ahead just never buying it over your diving career even if you end up eating the cost of a trip or two in full.

 

[chillyinCanada]

A problem with trip insurance is shown in this thread. When you consider the entire cost of a trip, in most cases, on the rare occasion that a trip is canceled, the overwhelming majority of the cost is fully recoverable without insurance. You end up paying a lot of money (trip insurance is absurdly expensive) for the small percentage you would not have recovered anyway. In the long run, if you never take out trip insurance, you are usually money ahead because of the rarity of cancellations and the fact you get most of your money back anyway. In this case....

Rare isn't so rare these days

 

[SlugLife]

I don't think that threat would have the effect you think it will. Aggressor has a long history of awful customer service and bad reviews - many of which are posted in various threads here on scubaboard and other travel sites. I've never been a customer of theirs, but I've seen many a negative post about them. Since they've already got so much negative publicity - what's one more? I guess people don't search for reviews of Aggressor or maybe don't believe all the trip (or non-trip in this case) reports. Don't get me wrong, there's some good reviews as well - as you can see from Dr. Rich's posts.

This is the first time I've heard anything about Aggressor, since I haven't done much scuba-travel yet. I have no idea if I would have been a customer, but it's very unlikely now after reading this thread.

 

[Diverlady13]

That ought to be enough information to just hang up and look elsewhere.

I agree. We likely won't book with them again considering their policies. At the time, travel was still pretty difficult to book and count on. (We booked in February, IIRC.) We had originally thought to do a Maldives LOB (not Aggressor), but due to how we like to travel that was turning into a logistical nightmare. Rather than compromise on that trip, we decided to stay closer to home, particularly since we weren't vaccinated yet. Belize was a good option especially considering that Aggressor did take the step to bring covid testing to the passengers rather than us having to try to make arrangements.

We did have a fantastic trip on the Aggressor. The crew was particularly wonderful and Belize was easy to travel to especially because we were both able to get vaccinated in time to not have to test prior to leaving the USA. However, and I've found this with other travel businesses, it's always a concern for me when there are no refund options "no matter what". What if the company shutters? I tend to feel like companies that run that way are doing so because they don't have their finances fully under control and that a cancelation could very well mean your money is gone forever.

I'll note that Aggressor is far from the only company with such policies. We were supposed to take a small ship Antarctic cruise in March 2020. We rebooked for 2021 and of course that didn't happen either. The company tried to pressure us into rebooking for 2022, but we said "no, refund us". That company had already given our money to the ship line and tried to refuse a refund. Our EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE travel insurance wouldn't cover because they weren't covering pandemic cancelations, so I was already out thousands just for the insurance. I did end up getting the cruise refunded, but I had to make a stink to get it done. Basically I had to threaten to post my story all over social media and Google. After all, what if the ship company went bankrupt? Or the company I booked through!? Bad policy not to offer refunds (except in the case where the traveler cancels). Meanwhile, American Airlines refunded me every penny within a week the trip date passing. (The plane tickets cost me more than the cruise, so I was pretty impressed with AA.)

 

[Diverlady13]

A problem with trip insurance is shown in this thread. When you consider the entire cost of a trip, in most cases, on the rare occasion that a trip is canceled, the overwhelming majority of the cost is fully recoverable without insurance. You end up paying a lot of money (trip insurance is absurdly expensive) for the small percentage you would not have recovered anyway. In the long run, if you never take out trip insurance, you are usually money ahead because of the rarity of cancellations and the fact you get most of your money back anyway. In this case....

I think that's often true, but the insurance companies have weasled out of a lot of claims in the last year or so by saying that their insurance doesn't cover cancelations related to the pandemic. Super frustrating when your insurance company won't work with you and also won't refund your insurance costs. We have DAN now and it's extremely inexpensive. However, when I booked our Antarctic trip I used Travelex. I can't remember if the policy was $2400 total or if it was $2400 each, but it was single trip coverage (not the yearly coverage I have with DAN). They wouldn't cover the trip at all and I wasn't even asking for our airline tickets to be covered since AA refunded me directly. PLUS, they really didn't want to change the policy dates to cover the reschedule. (We did talk them into doing that, but then of course 2021 was canceled as well, so we're out that money.)

I'll just note, before anyone passes out after reading the cost of that insurance, that that trip was a very expensive trip which was why the coverage was so much.

 

[O-ring]

Hmmm...I'm seeing a business opportunity here. Trip insurance trip insurance! "We pay when your primary trip insurance doesn't pay**"

** probability of payout not guaranteed and will vary with the degree of weaselness we are able to muster to get out of paying your claim.

 

[living4experiences]

Yes. I have a friend on the east coast (USA) that owns a travel business. I met her on the Belize Aggressor. She doesn't dive, but her husband does. They took the Aggressor LOB because her company had just recently gotten a contract with Aggressor to be able to sell their liveaboards and safaris and river cruises. What my friend said is that the Aggressors in the Caribbean are all company owned and run. This is apparently true for the Kona Aggressor as well. I'm not sure about Galapagos or Socorro, but it's my understanding that the remainder of the fleet are actually franchised and/or licensed, so not necessarily run the same way as the corporate ships. That said, I believe the "no refund" policy is company-wide. When we booked our LOB, it was made very very clear that there would not be a refund if the trip got canceled - even if Aggressor was the party to cancel. That was pretty annoying, but we didn't book very far in advance and I was confident that there wouldn't be a cancellation.

The travel companies know how bad Aggressor is, so why do they continue to sell their trips? I know the answer.....money, money, money.

 

[Diverlady13]

The travel companies know how bad Aggressor is, so why do they continue to sell their trips? I know the answer.....money, money, money.

To be fair, for my friend it's not all about the money. (Not that I have any issues with making money.) Anyway, she JUST got the contract early this year. She's newer in the travel industry (bought into a business with a friend) and is not a diver. So it's likely that she isn't totally aware of these complaints, though she did seem to feel that the corporate owned boats offer better or more reliable service. We had an amazing trip on the Belize Aggressor IV. In fact, I was super impressed with the crew and how organized they were....and also how friendly everyone was. I had been very apprehensive before that trip, but now I want to do more liveaboards.

I'm thinking that perhaps travel companies aren't as aware of the issues as they could be. Personally, I knew about the no refund policy, but until this thread I wasn't aware of the issues with the pandemic cancelations and Aggressor standing its ground. Seems like they could be much more accommodating - even issuing credit toward any other Aggressor voyage would go a long way, IMO.

Incidentally, I did feel like it was all about the money when it came to our Antarctic trip. That was at the very beginning of the pandemic and we decided to rebook considering our government made such a big deal of "it's just 2 weeks" and then back to normal, we felt confident that the trip would go off this year. Hahahahaha.