Vacation Package Cancellation, Changes and Refunds

The one thing to understand first

You do not pay this agency. You pay the airline, the hotel, the ship, the tour operator or the car company, each directly. Your money sits with them, so any refund comes from them, on their terms.

This office cannot shorten a deadline, waive a penalty, or return a payment it never received. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

What that looks like in practice

Before you confirm

Nothing is owed and nothing is charged. Walking away costs you nothing and we do not chase

At confirmation

The operator's terms apply from that moment, and they are printed in your proposal in full

Deposits

Set by the operator, usually non refundable, and usually taken at confirmation rather than later

The balance date

Set by the operator, typically between sixty and ninety days before departure on these trips

After the balance date

Most of these operators retain most or all of it. On the two ship trips and the safari, all of it

Name changes

Some operators allow them for a fee, some do not allow them at all

Where the terms are hardest

Small ship sailings

Cabins are few and cannot be resold late. Expect the strictest terms on this list

Safari camps

Held per bed in camps with very few beds, so the deadlines are early and firm

Fixed departure groups

A cancellation can pull the departure below its minimum, which is why the deadlines are long

Independent trips with hire cars

The most forgiving of the four, and even these have a hotel deposit inside them

If the operator cancels

Then their terms decide what you are owed, and those terms are the ones printed in your proposal. This office will chase it on your behalf, keep a written record, and tell you plainly if we think you are being treated badly. What we cannot do is pay it ourselves.

What this office does not claim

Flexible cancellation

We do not offer it, because the terms are not ours to set. Any agency claiming flexible cancellation on somebody else's product is describing a power it does not have

A refund guarantee

Same reason

Free changes

Same reason

Travel insurance

Not arranged here. Whether to buy it, and from whom, is your decision to make elsewhere

The Sun Traveller sells nothing that it operates. The flights, the hotels, the ships, the vehicles and the guides described on this site all belong to other companies. This office finds them, checks them, books them and stays with you until you fly, and it owns no part of any of them.