Reply from GradCity Travel LLCApr 28, 2020
Dear Richard,
With the fluidity of this situation, we are doing our best to provide the GradCity and assist customers. The closure of destination borders and the US Global Level 4 – Do Not Travel healthy advisory restricted any non-essential travel; making it impossible for GradCity to provide the scheduled trip/program. These events are beyond GradCity’s reasonable control, and could not have been foreseen and are unavoidable.
After discussion with our vendors, Group Organizers, Sales Reps and Operations department, GradCity notified groups that we will be postponing our April program until the end of June/early July. Our notification stated that if you are unable to make these new dates and/or no longer wish to travel to contact our Customer Care department.
GradCity notified this group on March 24, 18 days before your scheduled departure date, and gave anyone looking to cancel until April 30 to send us their final confirmation. We notified groups as soon as possible given the evolving pandemic.
Many of our vendors are offering free changes (postponing the trip) but not free cancellations. Individual travelers were able to deviate from the group and cancel their account for a refund minus a cancellation fee. The cancellation fee is a combination of non-refundable/non-recoupable deposits for airfare, accommodations, transportation, events, etc. along with travel insurance and processing fees.
The basic travel insurance that is included with the GradCity package covers an array of travel related items such as trip cancellation (exclusions apply), trip delay, lost luggage, medical while on the trip, etc., it does not cover pandemics. From our experience with COVID-19, no travel insurance covers pandemics. The basic insurance does cover trip cancellation due to a family/medical emergency such as sickness, death in the family, loss of job, etc..
I truly hope you understand the reasoning behind the options provided by GradCity. If you have any further questions, we advise you to contact our office so we can directly assist you.
Sincerely,
GradCity