Hi Amy, I am really sorry that you have had this experience. I understand it can be frustrating when you can not get a refund when your plans change and you can not longer attend the event. Unfortunately we have to operate a no refund policy as we would be unable to cover the costs or confirm trips otherwise.
There are a lot of costs involved in the trip that are fixed. For example, we have to pay the mountain leader the same amount, regardless of how many people attend the trip and we have to cover the cost of the administrative work needed to make things happen. Organising of the event does take up a lot of time and our administrators work really hard to make sure the trips are run well, we could not ask them to do it for less due to the cancellation.
Additionally, the trip you signed up for is on the busiest weekend of the year and we had to pay for the rooms well in advance. We took a certain amount of rooms based on the number of bookings we had, and the potential few sign ups that we expected, and until those are sold out, we would be losing money if we offered you a refund.
We try to be as transparent about this as possible. We make it very clear in the event description, and in addition to reading this, you would have had to specifically tick that you agree with our 'no refunds' policy when you signed up for the event. If this is insufficient, could you suggest how else we could let the customers know of this policy?
However, we also try to be as flexible as we can and wherever we can, and we are happy to make exceptions when the events are full, or when you sell your place to someone you know. Have you tried sharing the event with your friends on social media? Perhaps someone you know would be happy to spend a lovely weekend away and pay the money back to you?
We really don’t mean to be difficult, but we simply can not afford to make a loss as we already offer events on a budget, and with any surcharges being very small, there is no other way to cover the loss.
Thank you,
Kat