The Golden Rule v. Dive Deposits

[KenE]

I believe you are taking the Golden Rule to an unreasonable extent. With your logic you would get a hotel refund, gas refund, rental tank refund, etc. The golden rule says we can call the dive for any reason, it does not say at no cost. Businesses need to be profitable or they will not exist for very long. I have called several dives and all were at my cost. My safety is priceless and that is the way I move forward. No money is worth the risk. So, consider the deposit part of that cost.

 

[stretchthepenn]

It is entirely reasonable for boats to have a policy of no refunds after a certain point. It is standard in other industries too. If you buy a plane ticket but wake up with the flu, does United give you a refund?

In my (limited) experience, an airline will defer your ticket and just resell the empty seat.

 

[Tracy]

First, for those who don't know it, the following is often called the golden rule of diving:

Anyone can call any dive for any reason without any questions.​

...
I am writing this after choosing not to do a dive I would have liked because the operator requires payment in advance. I am currently perfectly healthy, but I will not work with an operator that is consciously breaking the golden rule of diving.

So in your scenario, you feel a dive operator that shows up when you scheduled and does everything you asked of them should operate at a loss because you changed your mind?
There isn't a dive boat in the world getting rich. We make a living doing something we enjoy doing. Some years, making a living is a stretch. Some years the weather cooperates and we have a great season.
When someone books my boat, that takes away my availability for anyone else to book it. Most charters here book years in advance as many people are traveling from other states and countries. When someone backs out a day, week, or even month before the trip, the odds of that charter filling and running are slim to none.
Nobody ever makes you do the dive, but your money goes diving even if you don't. It is called personal responsibility.

 

[boulderjohn]

My experience is with a whole lot of dive operations in a whole lot of places, and I have only run into a few with a no refund policy, with the exceptions of major trips, as I mentioned in my first post. It seems some people think that any dive operation that does not charge you if you get sick and cannot dive will absolutely go out of business in short order. How is that 99% of the operators I have used have somehow managed to stay in business?

In response to another, I would not expect a refund after I have shown up, paid, and gotten on the boat.

 

[Tracy]

My experience is with a whole lot of dive operations in a whole lot of places, and I have only run into a few with a no refund policy, with the exceptions of major trips, as I mentioned in my first post. It seems some people think that any dive operation that does not charge you if you get sick and cannot dive will absolutely go out of business in short order. How is that 99% of the operators I have used have somehow managed to stay in business?

In response to another, I would not expect a refund after I have shown up, paid, and gotten on the boat.

Those 99% which I doubt to be anywhere near a factual percentage must be running either large boats with plenty of divers or in an area where they may get walk in traffic.

 

[Rob9876]

Even worse, I've seen some dive ops that say that even if the dive op cancels because of weather or mechanical issues, they will not issue a refund, just a credit for a trip some other day. That's little comfort if you live hundreds of miles away and only have limited travel days. I check refund policies very carefully now and don't book with those types of dive ops (they never know the business they don't get).

 

[johndiver999]

First, for those who don't know it, the following is often called the golden rule of diving:

Anyone can call any dive for any reason without any questions.​

​

It means that if someone is uncomfortable with a dive, either before the dive (because of conditions or anything) or during the dive, then the dive is over. Period. You do not in any way try to push someone to do a dive they don't want to do.

I have done many dives over the years, and there have been precious few that I have called. One was when it was snowing and 20° in New Mexico, and my dive buddy was ready to hop in. Nope. Not me. I have awakened feeling sick on the morning of a dive about 3-4 times. On another occasion, I drove two days for a week of cave diving in Florida, only to get a bad cold after the third day. So I have called dives, but it has been pretty rare.

I have recently encountered a dive operation policy that bothers me--a non-refundable deposit. I am not talking about major trips, like liveaboards, where you can protect yourself with trip insurance. I'm talking about small, daily dive boats. I can see why they want it. If they had a borderline number of divers to make a trip profitable and one or two drop out, they don't have a good choice. They can either cancel the trip at the last minute, screwing over the other divers who were ready to go, or they can run the trip at a financial loss. A deposit would make sense to them.

That deposit, however, puts pressure on the diver who has decided that he or she is too sick, or the conditions are too tough to do the dive. You may argue that the diver should be willing to pay that cost, but I think a lot of divers would instead choose to do a dive that may in fact put them at needless risk.

I am writing this after choosing not to do a dive I would have liked because the operator requires payment in advance. I am currently perfectly healthy, but I will not work with an operator that is consciously breaking the golden rule of diving.

What policy do you apply when a student doesn't show for a class or openwater dive?
Is it rescheduled for free at some future time?

 

[Eric802]

I was in Maui a couple years ago and had a dive booked. Pre-paid, as they all are there. I started feeling wonky the evening before and woke up at around 2:00 am knowing there was no way I'd be able to dive - all congested, headache, felt terrible. I emailed the dive op right away - but it was 2 in the morning and I knew they wouldn't get it until the morning. Went back to bed and when I woke up later in the morning I had a couple missed calls from the captain of the boat, asking if I was on my way, etc. Of course they ended up leaving without me and I received no refund.

They had a pretty clear policy on their website - no refunds if you cancel with less than 24 hours notice. It obviously wasn't fun to lose the $239 or whatever it was, but I didn't - and don't - feel their policy was unreasonable. They have X number of spots on the boat, I paid for mine, and they wouldn't have been able to fill it after I backed out.

You can certainly refuse to book a trip with a dive op that puts a limit on when you can cancel and get a refund - that's up to you. Calling a dive is 100% up to you. The decision of the dive op as to when to give refunds and when not to is 100% up to them, and as long as they're up-front about their policy I don't think one can reasonably complain about it.

 

[boulderjohn]

What policy do you apply when a student doesn't show for a class or openwater dive?
Is it rescheduled for free at some future time?

I am now retired, but when I was instructing, if a student is too sick to dive, the class is rescheduled. That was true in both shops where I worked, and it was true when I was independent.

 

[rick00001967]

i didnt yet read the responses but i will.

every business needs to decide what their goals are, and how best to achieve those goals. then they put those policies in place and hopefully stick to them as best they can.

if one of those policies is to collect a deposit from divers to secure their seat on a boat, i think that is fair. and i am sure it is common practice with many charter boats. in fact, many need to be paid in full. even the "not so large" ones.

whether or not to allow the diver to cancel is again subject to the shops policies. it may be a zero tolerance where the deposit is not returned under any circumstance, or there may be time lines given where a portion can be returned. these policies will be different depending on the size of the shop, the boat, how in demand their services are etc etc.

here are two examples:
where i live, the local dive boat would often get interest from local divers. they could only take 4 or 5 divers at a time. so we would often get divers who are are all excited about diving on the upcoming weekend, and then not show up. in the meantime, we had turned away other divers who wanted to go but the boat was full (or so we thought). so cancelling last minute was unacceptable in my opinion. but if they gave us 2 or three days notice, we might be able to fill their seat. and in that case i see no reason to not return the deposit if they actually paid one.

here's another:
what about this scenario?
i pay for a day of diving. two dives on two different advanced wreck sites.
i show up the morning of the dives to be told weather conditions are not the best and are asked if we still want to go.
AFTER we leave the dock, the captain says conditions are too rough to go to the planned dive sites. so we either agree to dive where he takes us (which were two novice sites), or we forfeit the money we paid.
hmmmmm.....that didnt sit so well with me or anyone else on the boat.