This cruise ship passenger made a big mistake booking an excursion. Can we help?

Cruise ship passengers beware: It matters how you reserve and pay for your shore excursions. A group of disgruntled cruisers recently learned this expensive lesson after making the mistake of booking an iceberg tour through a fellow passenger. 

Here’s a warning about booking third-party cruise excursions and tours.

Many cruise ship passengers dreaming of setting foot on Greenland have been disappointed recently. The hard-to-reach island is often surrounded by thick fields of ice stretching for hundreds of miles engulfed in heavy fog. The reality is that most large-capacity cruise ships aren’t really optimized to navigate such harsh conditions. If you’re planning a cruise to this or any other elusive destination, you’ll want to book only refundable shore excursions.

Carnival passenger Susan Eagle faced that reality last September when her Greenland cruise only made it to Canada. Heavy winds, dangerous waves, ice, and fog forced the captain of Carnival’s Legend to change the course of the ship. 

Luckily for Eagle, the iceberg tour in Nanortalik, Greenland, that she booked through a company called Sandra’s Cruise Tours, was refundable. The owner of that agency, Sandra O’Leary, would promptly refund Eagle the $278 she’d paid for the now-canceled excursion. 

At least, that’s what O’Leary promised to do.

But that isn’t what happened.

Eagle and hundreds of other passengers soon discovered they’d made a big mistake booking with Sandra’s Cruise Tours. 

O’Leary, also a passenger on Legend at the time of the cancellation, quickly made a course correction of her own. She quietly hopped off the cruise ship in Canada after assuring her customers that she’d process their refunds the following week. However, after extricating herself from the disgruntled crowd, she changed her tune about the fate of their cash. The cruise excursion which she’d told her customers in writing was refundable if the ship didn’t make port suddenly became nonrefundable.

It’s been over a year now since this cruise fiasco began. O’Leary is still promoting her services to Carnival cruise ship passengers unaware of her questionable business practices.  And Eagle and the other victims of her actions are still fighting for justice – and their money back. 

Here’s what we’ve been doing to help and what you can do to avoid making this same mistake when booking a cruise excursion or tour.  

Booking a cruise excursion with a stranger is a mistake

When Eagle and her sister decided to go to Greenland, they chose Carnival Cruise Line. They liked the fact that they could board the ship in Baltimore and enjoy Canada and Greenland. Neither had been to the “World’s Largest (non-continental) Island” before. They looked forward to viewing the unique landscapes and colorful little cottages perched on hillsides they’d seen in so many photos.

During this particular cruise, Legend’s itinerary included two ports of call in Southern Greenland: Nanortalik and Qaqortoq. 

“Carnival informed us on the third day that we weren’t going to Greenland,” Eagle recalled. “Instead, we spent extra days at sea and more time in Canada.”

Of course, maritime law says that a captain can change his ship’s itinerary for nearly any reason, and safety always overrides cruise passengers’ desires to see a destination. Although the news disappointed the passengers onboard Legend, most understood the need for the course adjustment. 

Eagle had one excursion booked with Sandra’s Cruise Tours on Greenland and another in Nova Scotia. 

When Carnival announced the cancellation of the Greenland portion of the cruise, it reassured its passengers that refunds for their excursions there would be immediate. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for the several hundred who had booked their iceberg tours with O’Leary.

Refunds are on the way for the canceled cruise excursion

O’Leary, also aboard Legend, suddenly had hundreds of disgruntled “customers” in close proximity asking about their refunds. To quell the uprising, she sent out a reassuring email blast to all her fellow passengers who had purchased the Nonortalik iceberg tour from her.

“Good news. I expect to have the funds by Friday of next week,” O’Leary wrote.

Then, in the next port, O’Leary left the Carnival cruise and did not reboard. Her angry customers sailed away from her and have been battling for their refunds ever since.

How a credit card dispute should have helped this cruise ship passenger

When Eagle returned from her cruise and  O’Leary began backpedaling about the refundability of the excursion, she filed a credit card dispute with Barclays.

The Fair Credit Billing Act allows consumers to file credit card chargebacks against merchants in the following circumstances:

• Billing errors
• Services or products not provided as agreed 
• Outright fraud by a merchant

Cruise ship passengers who’ve paid for a canceled, refundable excursion should receive a prompt refund. If the merchant doesn’t return their money, the consumer has the power of the Fair Credit Billing Act behind them. By filing a credit card dispute, their bank should investigate and force a refund from the merchant.

Eagle should have won her credit card dispute. But unfortunately, as we’ve seen in other credit card dispute cases gone wrong, some unusual factors interfered with the regular flow of the process. 

• Related:  How did I lose a credit card dispute to a bankrupt tour operator?

After Barclays opened the chargeback investigation, it gave O’Leary 30 days to provide her side of the story, which is standard in a credit card dispute. O’Leary responded by telling Barclays that the cruise excursion Eagle booked was nonrefundable. She provided that statement to the credit card company in writing, even though her rebuttal could easily be proven false.

Why would Barclays reject this valid credit card dispute?

Eagle was about to find out the reality of credit card disputes. These are not in-depth investigations, as a consumer might hope. If a merchant provides a statement supporting its stance, in most cases, the customer will lose the chargeback. (That’s true even if the merchant is a complete fraud, as in this case: How did I lose a credit card dispute against this scammer?)

Eagle provided document after document showing that something fishy was going on over at Sandra’s Cruise Tours. Unfortunately for her, a credit card dispute is not like a court of law. Consumers do not get to present a case that is reviewed in front of an attentive judge and jury. 

Because O’Leary provided a false statement about the iceberg tour’s nonrefundable status, Eagle lost her chargeback. O’Leary claimed to be going above and beyond for her customers and told Barclays she had secured a $96 refund for Eagle.  

Case closed according to Barclays. 

Or was it?

Asking O’Leary about the refundability of those cruise excursions

I contacted O’Leary to find out what was going on. Over the course of several weeks, O’Leary called and emailed me to justify her behavior. But these conversations were filled with bizarre circular explanations that alternately confirmed that these tickets were refundable and later, in the same discussion, nonrefundable. 

Here is an excerpt from one of our email conversations:

The terms indeed do say if the ship does not call into port 100% refund unless otherwise noted.   There is a discrepancy as to when nonrefundable was put on the site. But regardless of that, the email that was sent to all guests offering the refund was perfectly in line with the terms and conditions to which Jill agreed [Eagle’s sister].

The email offered a 50% refund immediately (so guests did not have to wait for all the calculations) and a second refund to follow, which would be reduced by penalties and amounts not returned to me, foreign exchange losses, bank fees etc.

See highlighted areas on the terms. 

O’Leary of Sandra’s Cruise Tours.

This shows the cruise passengers are owed a refund

So, I did exactly what O’Leary asked and looked at her highlighted terms. That’s when things got even more strange. What she had highlighted proved that she owed these cruise ship passengers a refund if the ship didn’t port. Since Carnival’s Legend didn’t go to Greenland, she should have quickly refunded her customers. 

Confused, I pointed out to O’Leary that what she just shared proved she owed all those cruise passengers refunds for the canceled excursion. It also made it clear that she had fibbed, in writing, to multiple credit card companies to win the chargeback cases.

“I was required to respond to all of those credit card disputes, and it took up a lot of my time,” O’Leary complained.

Her response ignored the glaring problem that she had given nonfactual statements to multiple banks to keep the money collected for the canceled iceberg excursion. By her own account, she had booked “between 800 and 900” Carnival passengers on that particular tour. Each ticket cost $139, so it wasn’t difficult to understand that thousands and thousands of dollars were at stake here. Eagle was just one of many.

In another conversation, O’Leary told me that she refused to refund Reiter, Eagle, and others due to their involvement in a Facebook group that portrayed her negatively. She was also upset because Reiter had encouraged others to file credit card disputes against her. O’Leary seemed surprised when I told her that, as a consumer advocate, I would encourage them to do the same. 

Since O’Leary had given me all the information I needed to help some of her former customers, I thanked her for her time and ended our talks. My next stop was Santander and Barclays. 

A tale of two sisters, two credit card companies and a canceled cruise tour

I appealed to Reiter’s and Eagle’s credit card companies, Santander and Barclays, respectively. Unfortunately, one of these banks wasn’t swayed by the mountain of evidence supporting its customer. 

As I’ve mentioned previously, during a credit card dispute, your bank may only take a cursory look at your documentation. Consumers should not waste time providing hundreds of pages of documents to prove their case, as these sisters did. I can tell you this for certain: No one at your credit card company is reading through all that stuff. In many cases today, credit card disputes are only casually reviewed, if at all, by a human. 

Just like other areas of customer service, the outcome of a credit card dispute is often assisted by artificial intelligence. If the merchant responds, the consumer will likely lose the case.  

• Related: A Vrbo host charged his nonsmoking guest for leaving a crack pipe behind. What’s going on?

Both sisters initially lost their credit card dispute and appeal. 

Reiter’s bank, Santander, continued to reject her case even after I provided O’Leary’s own words, showing the tickets were refundable. Their executive team did, however, confirm that they would assist in any legal cases against O’Leary if need be.  

But there was good news on the horizon for Eagle. 

Asking Barclays about this missing refund and lost dispute

I sent all the facts over to our executive contact at Barclays, whose team is always very helpful.

Here’s an excerpt of my correspondence:

…the refundable tours booked with Sandra’s Cruise Tours should have been immediately refunded. Sandra O’Leary, the owner of Sandra’s Cruise Tours, who was also aboard that ship, first announced that she would refund her customers within the week. However, after she aborted the rest of the cruise and got off the ship away from her customers, she told them she could only afford to refund half and then the other half some other time. She encouraged these people to commit what amounts to insurance fraud by claiming that their excursions were not refundable so that the insurance companies would repay them and she could be relieved of her obligation to refund the refundable tickets. Many of her “customers” did so. Susan Eagle did not try to participate in that scheme. 

Instead, Susan filed a credit card chargeback with Barclays as is her right to do under the Fair Credit Billing Act since she paid this woman for something that was never provided. Unfortunately, continuing on with the shenanigans, Sandra claimed the tickets weren’t refundable to various credit card companies. [That seems to be what] she reported to Barclays to win [this chargeback case]. I have spoken to Sandra and she has acknowledged that the tickets were refundable minus “fees” which she is unable to define. She also would not identify the tour operator in Greenland, who (she says) kept all the money.

Could your team have a look at these details again and reconsider [Eagle’s credit card dispute]?  Thank you! 😃 ”  

Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer advocate

I also included a copy of the original article we published about this situation:

• Carnival canceled Greenland. Why won’t this agent refund my excursion?

Barclays reverses course. Here’s a refund for the canceled excursion

Within just a few days, the office of the President of Barclays had re-reviewed Eagle’s case. She soon received the very good news. After three credit card dispute rejections and a year of battling to get her money back from O’Leary, Eagle got her refund.

First I heard from our helpful executive contact at Barclays.

Hi Michelle, 

Thanks again for reaching out on behalf of our cardmember Susan Eagle.

Our Office of the President will be sending a hardcopy letter to Ms. Eagle with the results of our investigation and the nature of the resolution.

While I’m unable to discuss cardmember accounts with third parties, Ms. Eagle is free to share the results of our investigation with you.

Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention—and for the work you do on behalf of your readers. 

Barclays Spokesperson

And I soon heard from Eagle as well.

Hi Michelle.

Barclays has found in my favor and I am finally receiving a refund of [the balance of the tickets].

Thank you for your help in this matter. I truly believe that without your help, I would not have been refunded my money.

Susan Eagle

Although Eagle is relieved with this outcome, she hopes that her fellow passengers, including her sister, will receive a similar outcome.

And that’s what we hope for as well. If you’re a regular reader of this site then you know sometimes after we publish an article and the court of public opinion weighs in, companies will rethink their position. Perhaps now the executives at Santander will have a course correction of their own.

How to avoid costly mistakes while booking cruise excursions

Booking shore excursions independent of your cruise line can be tricky business. Here’s what you need to keep in mind if you choose to make your own plans during ports of call. 

1. Ask for excursion recommendations from other cruise ship passengers

Visiting a web forum like Cruise Critic can provide you with lots of recommendations from fellow passengers. Cruise Critic hosts a heavily moderated forum. Their team weeds out spam and fake reviews, so you can typically rely on the guidance there.

Before using any third-party booking agent you should always look for positive reviews around the Internet.

2. Carefully read the terms and conditions of the tour

Never, and I mean never, should a cruise ship passenger book a nonrefundable excursion through a third-party. Always keep in mind, if you buy your tours directly through the cruise line and the ship misses a port, you will receive an automatic refund. This isn’t true with third-party tours. Ask questions and make sure to get the cancellation terms in writing before booking. 

3. Only pay for cruise excursions with a credit card

Remember, the Fair Credit Billing Act only applies to credit card transactions. If a third-party quasi-agent asks you to pay cash or with an instant money transfer service like Zelle, press the eject button. You will have zero purchase protection if you use anything other than a credit card to pay for your excursion.

Zelle is meant to exchange money between friends and family, not to pay virtual strangers for high-ticket excursions, tours, or other products. The only time you should ever consider using Zelle to pay a company for goods or services is if it is U.S.-based and has been approved for a special program called Zelle Small Business. You should avoid any other company asking you to pay with Zelle. 

It’s interesting to note that today, Sandra’s Cruise Tours only accepts Zelle for payment. This should be a giant red flag for any cruise passenger considering booking an excursion or tour. Not only do Zelle transactions come with no purchase protection, but they’re also irreversible — not to mention Zelle is not legal in Canada where O’Leary lives and operates her business from.

3. File a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Consumers can file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if a valid credit card dispute is repeatedly denied. This complaint would be against your credit card company, not the merchant. 

4. Consider a small claims lawsuit

Although it is unlikely that this will result in you getting your money from a company in another country, if it conducts business in the United States, you can file a small claims lawsuit in your jurisdiction. A default judgment may feel like some type of vindication, and it may even convince your credit card company to reopen a previously lost credit card dispute. 

5. Ask Consumer Rescue for help

In my experience, most credit card companies want to correct the wrongs perpetrated on their customers. It’s unfortunate that some banks didn’t protect their customers from this particular person. If you are still struggling to get your credit card company to see things your way in this case or any other, send your request through the button below.

Every day, our advocacy team rescues consumers from their problems. Our help is always fast, friendly, and, of course, free.    (Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer Rescue)