After David Fisher spends an extra 60 euros to get on a rescheduled Eiffel Tower tour, he wants to know if he can get a refund. Viator says yes — and then no. How do you resolve this Viator problem?
Question
I’m writing regarding my recent experience with a Viator tour in Paris. I recently booked the Eiffel Tower Reserved Access Tour and optional Summit by Lift Tour for four people.
The day before the tour, I received an email saying the tour operator had changed the time of the tour from 9:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., because of labor problems at the Louvre.
When we arrived at the meeting point, a representative told me that there was a “mistake” — their mistake, not mine — and we could not go on that tour. She said my options were to pay an additional 15 euros per person to get on a tour that included the summit that day, or cancel the tour, get a refund, and try to rebook for a later date.
We opted to pay the additional 60 euros, since we had other plans while we were in Paris.
Unbeknownst to us, the summit tours must make a stop at the second level to change elevators. Therefore, my party of four could have easily, and with no additional cost, been added to a summit tour to get us to the second level. We would have had no access to the summit, but we did not initially make a reservation for that anyway.
I have requested a refund through Viator customer service of the additional 60 euros charged me for the mysterious mistake, but to no avail. During my first phone call, I was told by a representative that “it would be taken care of,” and that Viator “had my back.” I then received an email indicating that I had requested a full refund of $305, which I did not. I even sent a copy of my receipt for the 60 euros with my email. Viator denied the refund twice, very curtly.
I’m very frustrated with this episode, and I hope you can understand what I consider to be a very reasonable request for money spent that I should not have been made to spend. — David Fisher, Nottingham, Md.
Answer
Your Eiffel Tower tour should have operated as scheduled. But if the tour operator needed to cancel it, then it should have given you the rescheduled tour at the same price — not asked you for more money. Making you pay more feels a lot like a bait-and-switch.
Is the is a Viator problem? Well, Viator is a platform that sells tours, and you’re absolutely right — it should have had your back. It looks like Viator believed you wanted a full refund for a tour you had already taken. So of course it would deny that request (and of course, you would never make that request to begin with).
Can you trust Viator?
Your Viator problem brings up a bigger question: Can you trust a site like Viator?
Yes, but you not blindly.
Viator has made numerous appearances in this column.
For example, here’s a case where Viator canceled a tour but then decided to keep a customer’s money. Can it do that? Of course not.
Here’s another case where a Viator system error charged a traveler for the same ticket three times. After I brought this to Viator’s attention, it issued a refund.
A majority of the Viator cases got like this: Someone contacts my advocacy team with a seemingly intractable problem, we give them the executive contacts, and we never hear from them again. (Presumably, Viator solved the problem.)
So yes, you can trust Viator, but it doesn’t always do the right thing. Sometimes, you have to apply a little pressure.
So what went wrong with this Viator problem?
It appears the tour operator didn’t follow Viator’s published guidelines, which say it should give 24 hours’ notice at the very least, prior to the start time of their experience. You were, in fact, surprised by the offer to either pay extra or cancel. Technically, you could have asked for a full refund, but who goes all the way to the Eiffel Tower and braves all those crowds, and then cancels on principle because the price of the tour went up by 15 euros?
I list the names, numbers and emails of the Viator executives on this site. A brief, polite email to one of them might have gotten you out of the cycle of robo-denials that you seemed to be in. You know, where they just keep sending you the same form letter denying a refund request you never made.
I contacted Viator on your behalf. Viator said you should have received a notification for your refund, and it refunded the 60 euros you had requested.
