Brandon Marsdin paid Sunwing Airlines $536 for an ATV tour in Los Cabos, Mexico. But when he tried to check in for his off-road adventure, an employee turned him away. And then Sunwing kept his money.
Can it?
Of course not (and if you think the answer is yes, you’re probably reading the wrong site). Marsdin is baffled that a company can pocket his money and give him nothing in return—and frankly, my lobbying team is baffled, too.
But we can fix it. Marsdin’s case makes one wonder:
- Are tour operators obliged to give you an itinerary when you pay for an excursion?
- Can a tour operator turn you away if you don’t have a receipt?
- How do you solve a problem with a missing itinerary from your tour operator?
We answer all of these questions – and more. But first, a few details about his missed ATV tour.
“My trip was invalid”
Marsdin was on a Sunwing flight from Vancouver to San José del Cabo last fall.
“While I was on board, I booked an excursion through Sunwing’s onboard sales,” he says. Sunwing charged Marsdin $536 for an off-road tour for four people in Los Cabos. It was a nice addition to his Mexico vacation and he was looking forward to driving along the Pacific and enjoying nature.
Even though Sunwing had charged him for the tour, they didn’t send him a confirmation email. But Marsdin wasn’t worried about that because he figured he could show them the credit card statement and everything would be fine.
But it wasn’t good.
When Marsdin tried to check in for the tour, an employee told him there was a problem.
“My trip was invalid,” he recalls.
“He wrote down my email address and room number and said he would contact me if anything changed,” he says. “He never did.”
Marsdin never took part in the ATV tour. But the real disappointment was yet to come.
Can Sunwing just keep the money for a missed tour?
You may be wondering: Can Sunwing simply pocket the money from Mardin?
Sunwing apparently thinks so.
Marsdin sent a short, polite email to Sunwing demanding a refund. In response, he received a series of form letters like this:
I apologize for the delay in replying. We are currently experiencing a high volume of enquiries and our response time is taking longer than usual.
Brandon, I read your letter and am disappointed to hear about the problems that arose with your booked excursion.
Please allow me to explain that while our Destination Team promotes and sells the excursions, Sunwing does not operate the excursions themselves as they are operated by a third party, so any refund must be approved by the excursion provider as the excursion voucher states that all excursions are non-refundable.
Marsdin patiently explained his situation to several people at Sunwing, both by phone and email. Sunwing kept going in circles, first demanding a receipt that he never received, then telling him that the tour operator would only refund the tickets if he had a valid medical reason. Mardin had to explain himself over and over, and as I read the correspondence, it seemed clear that he was dealing with either a chatbot or a human agent that relied too heavily on AI.
Although the airline promised to get to the bottom of the matter, they never refunded his money.
“I would have had no problem paying for the excursion if I had chosen not to,” he told me. “But the reason I didn’t go was not my fault. I simply did what I was told, which was to pay on board and contact a Sunwing representative at the resort to set up a date and time.”
Is something like this even allowed?
Let’s start with a fundamental question.
Are tour operators obliged to give you an itinerary when you pay for an excursion?
Yes. Because the Sunwing flight originated from Canada, the Canadian Consumer Protection Act applies. It requires businesses to provide you with a receipt for every transaction involving the sale of goods or provision of services. The receipt must include the name of the supplier, their address, their contact information, your name, a description of the goods and services provided, the date of the transaction, the amount paid, and any applicable taxes and fees.
In the United States, however, there is no federal law that requires companies to give you a receipt for your purchase.
A receipt or itinerary is especially important when dealing with a third party, as was the case with Sunwing and Marsdin. Sunwing was a subcontractor to NexusTours, which operated the ATV tour. A review of its records with Sunwing shows that the tour operator required some sort of authentication – a reservation number or QR code – confirming that it had paid.
According to Marsdin, a Sunwing representative told him that this was a common problem, so the airline was almost certainly aware of it.
It looks like Sunwing didn’t send Marsdin anything. It just charged his card.
But what about the tour operator? Could they just tell him to go away?
Can a tour operator turn you away if you don’t have a receipt?
Yes, it can.
And to understand why, you have to know something about the local tour operators. Their reservation systems are often quite rudimentary. They rely on fake programs to find out who has paid and who hasn’t. The smallest tour operators receive emails with a list of participants. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them still use fax machines.
So you can’t assume that a tour operator with a few off-road vehicles has the technology to connect directly to a partner airline’s reservation system. The agent needs to see your ticket to validate it. No ticket, no tour.
While the tour operator could have called to find out what happened to Marsdin’s purchase, the time for that has long since passed. He returned to Canada months ago.
(I suspect there was a fourth party involved. NexusTours is actually owned by Sunwing but is operated as a separate company. There was probably another party that owned the ATVs and worked as a subcontractor for NexusTours, and that may be where the confusion came from.)
Bottom line: The ATV operator could have turned him away, but it should have helped him instead of just writing down his room number and then never calling him.
How do you solve a problem with a missing itinerary from your tour operator?
What options do you have if a tour operator or third party does not provide you with a receipt or itinerary after purchase?
1. Check your spam folder
Most receipts are automatically generated, which means they often end up in your software because your email provider flags them as junk mail.
2. Contact the tour operator immediately
If you don’t have a receipt, contact the business immediately and ask for one. If you didn’t receive a receipt, there’s a chance your purchase didn’t go through. You need a receipt not only for security reasons, but also because you may need it for entry.
3. Check with your credit card company
If you made the purchase with your credit card, check with your bank or credit card company to make sure the purchase actually went through. Although tour operators will sometimes accept a credit card statement as proof of purchase, don’t take any chances. If you were charged for something, you’ll need a receipt.
4. Escalate your problem
If a company takes your money and gives you nothing in return, that’s a serious problem. The faster you resolve the issue, the better. If regular customer service channels don’t work, try our list of executive contacts.
5. And most importantly, don’t assume that everything will be fine
A missing receipt is a serious problem and can be an insurmountable challenge when traveling. Don’t assume this problem will resolve itself. It probably won’t.
So what does this mean for Mardin’s case?
Will this guy ever get his money back from Sunwing?
Can Sunwing keep Marsdin’s $536 for a tour he never took? Not if our advocacy team has anything to say about it.
I contacted Sunwing on his behalf and a few days later a representative contacted him and agreed to a full refund.
I’m happy with this solution, and so is Marsdin, but I think the airline could have done better. A full listing of what went wrong, including the other cases, and a promise to fix it would have been fine with me. But as it stands, I expect to receive a few more cases of lost Sunwing tours through this site.
