Seeking help in requesting refund

reach out to the travel consumer advocate Christopher Elliott for advice, there's also an occasional column in the NYT that helps travelers.

Hopefully you used a credit card, file a dispute.

We emailed and called several times prior to the trip to clarify meeting place with no response. We arrived 30 min early, but did not recognize our guide

How did you know where to meet the guide if they didn’t respond to your question about where to meet the guide?

I'd start with your credit card company, assuming (and hoping) that's how you paid for it.
It did sound as if they'd gotten back to you with a meeting place, right?

As noted, you might want to file a chargeback with the credit card company.

They will ask for details, and then contact the provider and attempt to understand
the situation, and decide if they will do anything. The good news is that they will
do the legwork on your behalf, and if the tour company gets a lot of bookings
through that card, they will provide at least their side of the story.

But you need to be honest and open about what happened as well. If there is
some possibility of error on your part, you need to be prepared to acknowledge
that. It does sound like there was some possibility the meeting place was
ambiguous or misinterpreted.

Note that once the provider is contacted by the credit card company, they may
become a bit hostile, so if the credit card company decides not to give you your
money back, you may not have any informal options.

One lesson learned: Don't pay over the odds for something that you do not need an organised tour for. The best way to do this tour would be to just gat a (Saver) Day Pass, and just take the trains...

What is in the contract or on their website regarding "Refunds"?

It takes some reading between the lines but it seems they gave you a meeting location. Have you determined if you were at the correct place?

It appears you were offered a credit but not a refund; did they explain why the 'no refund'?

If you were at the right place at the right time and the guide was a no show, then the credit card claim may be the best route to go.

The Elliot group will want a lot more details than you have provided here to be able to suggest a course of action or take some action on your behalf.

While a $1000 isn't peanuts, a legal action is not financially feasible.

Whether they can be 'embarrassed' into giving you a refund is unknown

Good luck. Hope the rest of your trip was less problematic.

Actually Joe, sometimes $1,000 is what you will get

https://liveandletsfly.com/hotel-pool-towel-wars/

I had a similar experience where a guide simply did not show up for a tour. There were two other people waiting as well. We tried texting and calling and no response. We were eventually refunded as we could document all our efforts to find the individual.

Your case is a little different. If I am reading this correctly, the company claims its guide was there and you were not. What can you document? Did you take pictures of you waiting at the meeting point and the time? That is what helped us. We also had text and email log of us trying to contact them.

Or, did you go to a different spot by mistake? Is that where the issue lies?

[Swiss here] In Switzerland we have Civil Law, like most of Euorpe and unlike the US. Civil law is rule based and generally speaking companies are very good at sticking to the rules, even when it is to their disadvantage. Because of this we also have very little consumer law over here.

So your starting point is your contract, what does it specifically say about when you are entitled to a refund and more over which clauses of the contract in particular are you making your claim under?