What to when you're being blackmailed by a travel agent?
Our family is at a genuine loss of heart.
We paid a U.S. travel agent to plan an itinerary to meet my daughter in Shanghai, China at the completion of her internship and travel to the orphanages she and her sister were cared for and their "discover" sight.
Unfortunately, while in Shanghai I had a stroke and was admitted to the hospital for four days. After completing test and confirmation of the stroke, I was released with no restriction.
When released the agent contacted us and asked whether we wished to continue our tour. He was advised the priority was to visit our daughters' orphanages and discover sights. He commented that the Beihai orphanage was very understanding and we would still be able to visit.
We thought we were all set, until he sent us an email a half an hour later demanding $4800 additional dollars immediately to continue our tour.
I asked for an itemization of the bill to provide to our travel insurance agent and he stated it was entirely to comprehensive for him to provide.
As a close-knit family we all decided we would not pay such an unexplained demand. We were already loosing money on portions of the tour that were and would be missed without refund.
We never spoke to the agent again and ended our tour before it really even started.
Do we have any recourse with this agent?
Besides what I really really want to do.
Best Answer
For starters you are not being blackmailed, you are being charged for changes to your itinerary.
When you first contacted your travel agent, they likely then contacted an inbound tour company in China who put your itinerary together. You probably paid a per person amount for that package deal
You started the trip and then suffered your stroke. The services scheduled for you, transport, hotels, guides, etc were likely pre-paid and were forfieted when you were a no show.
The agent had the itinerary reorganized and since some previous payments were forfeit, you were asked to pay additional fees.
The agent can't really itemize costs since they were likely quoted a package price. Your insurance company should only need medical proof, original invoice paid and itinerary change cost paid.
On the other side of the coin, if the travel agent billed you originally on an itemized invoice (listing every hotel, transport, etc seperately), then they should be able to itemize the changes. But 95% of travel agents book destination packages through local inbound companies.
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