More And More That Caution “Buyer Beware” Should Be Considered When Planning Travel
If you don’t know Groupon they’re an online company that was originally intended to help local businesses promote their company using discount coupons. Working mostly with restaurants, Groupon promoted the discount with prepaid vouchers online and through emails to subscribers. There have been issues but most problems involved a few dollars, but times have changed and they’ve even expanded internationally.
Groupon, The Good, The Bad And ?
Just recently we wasted several days and several hundred dollars trying to use a Groupon deal to visit Busch Gardens Tampa. We still operate an online business and wholesale products to some local shops and we needed to get away for a few days before the holiday rush started. It was planned as a three day road trip to Tampa with the centerpiece being a day in Busch Gardens. We had Groupon admission tickets (both printed and digital) that included the park’s meal package that clearly stated on both that the ticket expired in early December. We made reservations at a hotel near the park for two nights and in the first morning went over to Busch Gardens to spend the day. At the entrance we were told that the tickets had expired on October 27th.
The Busch Gardens people insisted that it didn’t matter what the ticket indicated, the bar code showed it clearly had expired and they had no responsibility for the error. We needed to contact Groupon. It took two hours to start an online chat with Groupon while sitting outside the entrance. There is no phone number that works so we downloaded the app. On the chat we explained that we had come from out of the area and had spent $300+ on a hotel and were now at the entrance to the park. The Groupon agent indicated that they would need to contact Busch Gardens to resolve the issue but unfortunately Groupon could not issue a new corrected ticket. At one point they did offer to provide us with a $10 credit on our account for “the inconvenience”. After another hour plus we were informed that it could take seven days to resolve the matter with Busch Gardens and they would look into a refund but couldn’t guarantee what would happen (after all their policy is no refunds).
The final irony of all this is that Busch Gardens was currently running a special that would make the tickets only $3.00 more than what we paid Groupon. We could not get a refund on the additional night at the hotel and with no other options we just went home…
P.S. Busch Garden’s claim that we purchased though a third party so they were not responsible for the problem is legally incorrect. As far as the law is concerned that is not the case. They had entered into a contractural arrangement that allowed Groupon to represent them and offer those tickets and they had obviously benefitted financially the sale and legally both parties are responsible (odd how nobody accepts responsibility any more?). Again the only Busch Gardens contact we had was the gate attendents and they kept insisting that there was nobody else we could speak with. The cost of seeking redress however is probably to difficult to pursue. Exploring options regarding Groupon we discovered that some years ago Groupon lost a class-action case. It seems that after that they changed their official policy. Today by buying from Groupon the small print states that you accept that you cannot sue them. You can contact an arbitration company – but after several hours on the indicated website I couldn’t even find the submission form.
While traveling there has always been a hiccup or two – language problems, a cancelled flight, a too short connection, a missing reservation etcetera. It just is one of those things you need to deal with. Something has changed recently and it seems we are running into serious issues on a regular basis. There was a last minute cancelled trans-Atlantic flight that cascaded into problems that took days to straighten out with nobody on the travel business side seeming to care or was even interested in helping with a solution*. On that same trip a reservation for late arrival in Amsterdam at a hotel couldn’t be honored because they overbooked. Transfers that don’t show, wrong directions as to where to go, train service that changed without notice. Often today these are not small inconveniences but serious travel disasters and in more and more cases – you’re on your own!
The Groupon Final Outcome
It took a bit longer than seven days, a whole three weeks. Groupn agreed to refund the purchase price but wev never got the $10..
The Intentional Travelers 