Don't let this happen to you, a classic bait and switch!
2 Groupons were purchased in May for an 18 day tour thru Europe with Intrepid vacations. The purchased tour would start in early September. We received our documents 2 weeks prior to our departure date and they showed all the hotels had been changed to accommodations that consisted mostly of hostels. Nothing like what had been advertised.
Intrepid Vacations was called and we were told that we could have a voucher for $500 for each Groupon purchased towards a future vacation, that was turned down and then instead an offer for $500 credit back on our credit card for each Groupon purchased was offered and accepted.
It was at this time I did some on line research and found out that Intrepid Vacations had done this before. There had been previous comments and a variety of complaints on sites. We still decided to go mainly because this trip had been planned for months and the round trip air tickets to New York had already been purchased as well as other hotels at our expense.
An email to Groupon was sent letting them know that the accommodations had been changed and that we were willing to accept the credit on our credit card that was offered for the change in accommodations.
Next thing I know our participation in the tour is canceled and when Intrepid Vacations is asked why, the response that was given to me by Brian John, the CEO of Intrepid Vacations, is that because I complained to Groupon. He went on to say that he would try to get us back on. After numerous phone calls to him to follow up and days going by with out any word on whether or not we had been re-instated, it was becoming apparent that this was some sort of game. On the morning before we were to leave for New York, I called Customer Service and was told that Brian John was on the phone with the ground tour people to get us reinstated and that he would call when he knew something. He called us at 4:30pm New Jersey time to let us know that we in fact were not re instated.
You can make your own determination on what was really going on, my advise, BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID when dealing with this company. read more