24 May 2023
My family booked our tour in April for a trip in late May. On the day of our tour, 30 minutes beforehand, the CIS tour guide called us to say that he was unable to take us because of an issue with the booking company and wanted to cancel our spots so that he could sell them to someone else. The guide or manager who contacted us refused to tell us what the problem was or how to fix it; he was only interested in reselling our spots. He only offered us a partial refund, meaning that our canceled tour was a bonus for him - he got to sell the spots twice while keeping the tour the same size. We asked him to please wait so that we could call the booking company and attempt to fix the problem, but he canceled the tour anyway. He claimed on the phone that this happened "200 times a day" and there was nothing he could do about it. At best, this is poor customer service, and at worst, it is an outright scam.