Found Odysseys Unlimited’s air policies restrictive

My wife and I were about to take our first trip with Odysseys Unlimited (Newton, MA; 888/370-6765, odysseys-unlimited.com), and on Dec. 26, 2019, we made a deposit on the tour “Norwegian Splendor,” starting on May 17, 2020, to visit Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Then we discovered their very rigid air policy. For one thing, we could not book a day-early arrival at our first stop before the main tour due to, as they claimed, “our airline contracts.”

After booking Odysseys’ 3-night post-trip to Stockholm, we were able to have them add an additional hotel night (we would arrange for our own hotel-airport transfer), and Odysseys agreed to book our return flight for one day later, but it turned out they could not provide our specific air itinerary at the time of booking. It would not become available until after the deadline for final payment.

The only option was to book our own air, which would have left us vulnerable if the trip canceled or we were delayed en route.

Since these policies differed significantly from those of other companies with which we had experience, like Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) and Road Scholar, we canceled the trip on Jan. 15. We received a full refund of our deposit.

On the same day we canceled the Odysseys trip, we booked an international trip to Italy for June with OAT (Boston, MA; 800/955-1925, www.oattravel.com). OAT immediately provided us with our flight itinerary — our usual experience with OAT for all eight of our trips with them and their sister company, Grand Circle Travel.

For our upcoming Italy trip, we are not staying extra days after the tour, and we considered arriving a day earlier for the pre-trip but decided against the additional expense. It turned out that the cost of our seat upgrades would have been slightly higher for a flight on the previous day, plus there was the cost of the extra hotel night.

But, with OAT, we COULD have arrived a day early and left a day later than the other tour members, if we’d wanted to.

WILLIAM GREENWOOD
Okemos, MI

ITN emailed a copy of Mr. Greenwood’s account to Odysseys Unlimited, and they wrote the following to Mr. Greenwood in reply.

We regret that our air policy did not work for you to join us on tour this spring. As much as we would like to offer our guests more flexibility with their air arrangements, we indeed are restricted by our current airline contracts to day-of-tour travel.

As you note, we are able to provide some flexibility by offering an alternate return date at the end of a tour. And we do encourage guests who prefer more flexibility to take advantage of our “land only” option to secure their own flights, which typically has worked well for those who choose to do so.

We do understand, however, that some of our guests would prefer to arrive on tour a day or so early while, at the same time, taking advantage of Odysseys’ air as well as transfers and hotel reservations. For that reason, we currently are in the process of investigating opportunities to provide more flexible travel options to our guests when they travel with us.

Again, we are sorry that we could not meet your needs at this time. We do hope to have an opportunity to welcome you on a future Odysseys tour.

SUE BONCHI
Vice President, Marketing, Odysseys Unlimited

After seeing the company’s response, Mr. Greenwood wrote to ITN, “I’m glad to see that Odysseys is reviewing their policies, and if it results in changes, we will reconsider them in the future.”