Intrepid Travel
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DO NOT TRUST INTREPID TRAVEL
I am not going to write a detailed post of my ongoing dealings with Intrepid Travel, as it mimics every single one that has already been written by so many frustrated customers. In a nutshell, they canceled my trip, promised a 150% credit towards future travel if pandemic or other events outside of their control will require them to cancel the trip. Then they shamefully backed away from their promise and when we demanded the refund, they ignored every single point we made and just send us a standard reply about only offering a refund minus 'irrecoverable fees of 15%" An no, I don’t not consider them paying salaries and rent and utilities and other overhead as something that should be considered 'unrecoverable' and passed on as cancelation fees to your customers. As some of you stated, I am questioning the legitimacy of these fees as no hotel, guide, or operator would refuse to cancel Intrepid's deposits. It’s easy to provide us with specifics of money paid and not refunded to them. But they of course will not be willing to do this. Trust me, they have the leverage with these providers to get refunds of anything they paid and certainly have ways to protect themselves. As far as overhead expenses, well, every business is incurring expenses like this, its a cost of doing business and not a reason to steal your customers money. A few points are really important for anyone considering traveling with them EVER again in the future. The company markets itself as a socially responsible travel operator, but how can we trust ANY of their claims based on the way they IRRESPONSIBLY treating their customers. I am now questioning how much of what they say they do being a sustainable and responsible operator that they actually do. Yes, the trust is lost completely. On their page they say “We understand that some of our customers have also lost jobs and income as a result of the pandemic and a credit simply won’t cut it. We are not denying those people refunds, and their wellbeing is extremely important to us”. Be honest and state CLEARLY in this section that you are withholding 15%…NOT OFFERING FULL REFUNDS. I had multiple trips booked this year with others, and every single airline, hotel, and travel operator provided me with a 100% refund. Not Intrepid Travel. No airline or hotel in the world would charge customers for flights canceled or hotels being unavailable outside of their control. It BAD BUSINESS and you will likely see the effect of your poor decisions soon, by ruining business that took years to build. Social media is very powerful tool and all of you who had this negative experience with them should use every social media channel available to you to let others know what they might expect. In conclusion - DO NOT TRUST THEM. Book at your own RISK. 110% Credit they offer may not be there if they have no customers or the trip that you want to take, or they decide they no longer want to offer it (like they did with 150% credit offer) or just raise their prices by 10% so you win absolutely nothing. There are SO MANY OTHER WONDERFUL TOUR OPERATORS. Why support these guys? Finally, I think what they are doing is without question UNETHICAL and possible ILLEGAL. There should be enough complaints and support for a class action suit. At the least they will be forced to itemize their ‘irrecoverable’ costs.