When will the 2021 catalog come out?

Liz
Love your forward thinking, positive attitude!!!

Probably when they work out which hotels and transport companies are still in business, to be blunt - which guides survive and which airlines are still around to get you there. It could be some time!

The typical schedule has been to open most following-year Rick Steves Tour sales online in mid-summer and to send out printed catalogs in September. But dates are never finalized this far ahead and there can be many factors contributing to next steps. You might want to sign up for the Tour News email, under Publications at the bottom of this web page, to stay in the loop.

I wish RS would offer just a few spring dates in 2021–not to the public—but to those of us who have had to cancel with no tour refund/only reschedule options. We are already losing out with our flights and insurance.

blank_cathy- just curious why you canceled instead of waiting so you could get a refund when RST canceled your tour?

As with all RS tours, the balance is due 60 days prior to tour date. Lucky for us, we only paid the deposit on our 5/17 Europe 14-day tour. Since the company has not yet cancelled that particular tour date, our only choice was to cancel before 3/17 in order to have our money held with RS for a future tour. Possibly the fall or 2021. (Our friends who are traveling with us had pd the full amount —$4200 x 2–so it is very unfortunate for them to have that large sum of money held for such a long period of time....$800 for us as compared to over $8,000 for them.). We don’t think it will be safe to travel in the fall. We pd a high premium for our travel insurance —and it’s not worth a thing! Our flights with United are budget economy, and can’t be changed. We’re not happy.

AND I personally would like to see RS tours privately offer (to those who are in my situation) some spring 2021 tour dates that we can plan for. I don’t think those dates should be open to the public yet (until all our deposits are put into a new tour date.). I think We should have preference before the public.

Thanks, I’ve tried your good insurance idea...they won’t even respond to my emails the past few weeks....but I will keep trying! Appreciate your suggestions.

From the RST website: "Therefore, when we cancel tours due to the coronavirus, we won't be offering transfers at the time of cancellation. Instead, we will automatically provide a full refund and we encourage you to see our available tours to make a new booking."

Wondering when catalogs for 2021 will be sent.

Given the current world situation, I am not looking to see the catalogs until very late this year. How can tour schedules be determined now when we don't even know if we will be healthy enough as a world for anyone to even want to go?

I agree with Mark. In fact, if I were in charge of marketing/promotions for ETBD, I would recommend NOT printing a catalog this year and simply (if even that) mail a letter informing people on the mailing list when trips on then posted on line.

Cathy, as far as hoping you will get first-grabs on tour choices/dates, I would be willing to bet that 2021 dates will not sell out quickly. Let's hope the virus issue is even solved by 2021 (which would be unbelievably fast, given that a vaccine would need to be developed and proven effective and the bulk of the populations of our county and other countries have a chance to have it administered) and that other countries would even be open to allowing Americans to travel into their countries.

Nothing wrong with being hopeful, IF balanced with a very sober look at potential reality, too.