"Deposit is no longer refundable" email - sent by mistake; resolved

Have called the RS Office yet?

Might be worth a telephone call to the office?

I didn't call, but did send an email. Got a response 2 hours later apologizing that they had sent the wrong email and my deposit will, indeed, be refunded. So - all's well. However, I would really have appreciated not having to go through the stress/anxiety in the first place. Hope to be able to do another tour later in the year. We did the Italy My Way tour last May and really enjoyed it.

Did this all happen today between 9:05 and 9:52 this morning? Mistakes happen and it sounds like it was corrected rather quickly.

The erroneous email came in at 2:30am MST. I replied at 8:58 am and got a response at 10:09 - so closer to one hour than two. It was resolved quickly.

IMHO a 1 hour response window is pretty darn good. The people at Rick Steve’s Europe have been pretty awesome over the years that I have been dealing with them.

Agreed. It was handled quickly and professionally. Mistakes happen!

It is a shame you could not wait until you had tried to resolve this yourself before posting this!

Thanks so much for that. My anxiety level, because of the erroneous email, was very high for a couple of hours. At first I thought I'd miscalculated and canceled too late. Nope. Then I thought I was mistaken about the policy, in the first place. Maybe I have dementia like my parents! I dug through my emails and found the one saying 120 days. I was very polite when I emailed Rick Steve's and think I've been pretty reasonable this whole time. Figured I'd check the Travel Forum to see if there was anything posted, but there wasn't. Now there is, and the next person who's worried about their $800 can find solace here.

So, when they get an email saying "I’m sorry to hear you and xxx will not be able to join us. Your booking has been cancelled and while your deposit is no longer refundable we are happy to offer you a credit..." hopefully they'll get another one saying "It looks like my colleague who processed the cancellation just sent you the wrong email by mistake; since we cancel so many bookings, we have readymade drafts that we can select, rather than typing all the information out each time. The note on your booking and the cancellation paperwork both state that we are refunding your $800 deposit to your credit card. I would expect the refund to be processed later this week and to appear on your statement within a few business days from then. Sorry for the confusion, it appears to have been simple human error and you are correct that your deposit is indeed still refundable."

For future reference, if you had made the deposit with your credit card & had documentation that you should have received a refund, you could have simply contacted your credit card bank and they would have taken care of it once they had a copy of your written documentation. There is no need to go through anxiety over something like this. Your credit card bank would take care of everything.

This is a good example of why we need to periodically check our tour accounts. The cancellation dates and payment due dates are listed there.

I’m sorry this happened to you. Unfortunately human errors do happen. RS is very easy to work with. FWIW, you made me look at my tour account.

I would suggest either deleting your post or modifying the title to say your refund was received. Otherwise, several of us will be reading through the whole posting thinking something has changed in their trip policy.

I updated the heading. Good suggestion.

In regards to the comment about contacting my credit card company - you're right. But not always. If the charge was made long enough ago (as in this case) it's not a simple case of clicking the dispute button. I know from experience, when I was unsuccessful disputing a refundable payment for an excursion I had to cancel due to the pandemic. It wasn't Rick Steves'. And I know I'd get my money back from RS.

Anyway, I hope this post helps others in the future. Take care.