Vantage Deluxe World Travel Defunct – How Do We Get Refunded?

[PaulMCO]

On 7/9/2023 at 1:34 PM, CarolinaKathy said:

I was able to get my $1940 final payment AC reversed by my credit union as I requested within the 60 day window. Unfortunately, my nearly $18,000 payment I made last year is not eligible.

Was this a credit card payment???  If so VISA or MC???

[CarolinaKathy]

It was an ACH transfer not a credit card.

[ATL1234]

https://consumerrescue.org/news-and-alerts/vantage-travel-bankrupt-what-need-to-know-guide/

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

Thank you @ATL1234 – this article is an excellent guide to everyone affected by this tragedy.  I will repost it as a Sticky thread at the top of this forum so that people can find it easily.

[Host Jazzbeau]

Here is an update from Cruise Industry News about an order from the Bankruptcy Court:

Court Order to Address Creditor Communications in Vantage Case

[Host Jazzbeau]

New article on Cruise Industry News:

Vantage Customers Seek a Legal Voice in Bankruptcy Proceedings

[Guest ldtr]

The process of picking over the bones.

 

So who is going to pay for the cost of forensic accounting?  Another charge to the dwindling amount of funds.

 

If the group thinks that there was wrong doing by someone of some company outside of the bankruptcy then they should file suit.  Instead it sounds like that they are hoping the court will fund such an inquiry and they hope something comes out of it, instead of draining what little funds exist.

[Host Jazzbeau]

New article on Cruise Industry News:

Aurora Sweetens Offer, Wins Auction for Vantage Travel Assets

 

The credit offer for past customers has been sweetened too.

[Host Jazzbeau]

New article on Seatrade Cruise News:

Court expected to OK Aurora Expeditions' bid for Vantage assets

 

Aurora’s offer also allows Vantage customers to use existing travel credits to fund up to 50% of the cost of ocean voyages and 20% of river cruises and land trips, but this is not applicable to air travel or trip extensions.

[magnetman]

We had booked a trip in March for an expedition trip for the end of June. The trip was cancelled around the 3rd of June. We had paid in full in March by a bank transfer. After reading about all the trips that were cancelled, we file a fraud claim with the bank. And 2 months later we received a full refund from the bank. We were so thankful to receive our money back. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

3 hours ago, magnetman said:

We had booked a trip in March for an expedition trip for the end of June. The trip was cancelled around the 3rd of June. We had paid in full in March by a bank transfer. After reading about all the trips that were cancelled, we file a fraud claim with the bank. And 2 months later we received a full refund from the bank. We were so thankful to receive our money back. 

I'm glad to hear that you got your money back, and also that you were able to get it back this way (which I haven't heard success stories about before).

[ATL1234]

Lots of people have had successful charge-backs and ach reversals.  Consumer Advocate Michelle Couch Friedman has helped many customers, especially due to the Fair Credit Billing Act. 

 

You can check out this Facebook page that is helping former Vantage consumers:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/954817572208587

[ATL1234]

Most recent Boston Globe article about the Vantage bankruptcy:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/vantage-travel-is-bankrupt-but-what-about-its-owner-two-lawsuits-say-he-should-reimburse-customers-who-lost-millions/ar-AA1hc8Hs?fbclid=IwAR2Y0zMsGnOMRdVX-9y1_Ts0iA4VIde6ygcpNfJrK--7IiDxL6FMa9TRUqA#image=AA1g8uIo|1

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

On 9/25/2023 at 10:57 PM, ATL1234 said:

Most recent Boston Globe article about the Vantage bankruptcy:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/vantage-travel-is-bankrupt-but-what-about-its-owner-two-lawsuits-say-he-should-reimburse-customers-who-lost-millions/ar-AA1hc8Hs?fbclid=IwAR2Y0zMsGnOMRdVX-9y1_Ts0iA4VIde6ygcpNfJrK--7IiDxL6FMa9TRUqA#image=AA1g8uIo|1

 

Thanks for finding a link that isn't paywalled!

[Shmoo here]

On 9/25/2023 at 1:45 PM, ATL1234 said:

Lots of people have had successful charge-backs and ach reversals.  Consumer Advocate Michelle Couch Friedman has helped many customers, especially due to the Fair Credit Billing Act. 

 

You can check out this Facebook page that is helping former Vantage consumers:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/954817572208587

Sadly, not everyone is on facebook.  That won't work for us.

[MOssyLedge]

Some time ago, a participant on this Facebook group asked if anyone had gotten third-party Travel Insurance not connected to Vantage or to Allianz. We did that and the saga has continued up until a few days ago when we finally got paid from our claim for medical reasons made on June 6, 2023. So the process took 4-1/2 months.  We booked this travel insurance through Squaremouth, which is an aggregator of travel insurance companies including Seven Corners Travel Insurance. They are the most difficult people to deal with and I would recommend not dealing with them by anyone in the future. The saga has gone on for more than four months with them and I only got paid because I played their game and answered every question and did every bit of research and even did things like asking Allianz to send me whatever insurance credits that might come my way.

 

Allianz Travel Insurance said that they would send us $222 each for the part B insurance that was purchased through VantageTravel. They would never send us an email indicating that, just that I should note it in my own notes from our telephone conversations. To get that far with Allianz I had to make seven calls to Mexico City to their call center.  I never did get that money and I don't expect to get that money. Seven Corners turns out to be ruthless in terms of taking their time to do things.

 

Seven Corners asked me to prove a negative many times.   Until they tracked down everything that I gave them in writing, they wouldn’t pay us.  Once they did that, they sent an EBT to our account. Ultimately Seven Corners paid just $17,500 instead of $17,798. I guess that should be considered a win. There actually isn’t a real insurance company called Seven Corners.   Every decision that they made had to be cleared with their owner - United States Fire Insurance Company. 

 

The content below is from an email that I sent to Mr. Stiller of Seven Corners on October 2, 2023. 

October 2, 2023

For David Stiller

Senior Customer Care Person

 

Hi David,

As per our telephone conversation earlier today, from 10:00AM to 10:23AM, I am forwarding to you in this email the original pro forma invoice for a trip called ……. Jewels of Scandinavia, Baltic Capitals and St. Petersburg. You will note at the bottom of the invoice that we purchased Travel Protection Plans through Vantage Travel, through Allianz, for each of us for $999 each or a total of $1,998.00.   Please note that the Vantage Invoice, is dated January 5, 2021. The departure date was originally August 12, 2022. Vantage canceled this trip because they did not have a boat that they had bought, so it was all fraud. They did not actually cancel it and in their terms they postponed it. Apparently, all Allianz policies say that if they postpone the trip, they do not have to give money back to the travelers. But if they actually cancel it, they would have to. So, Vantage postponed it to June 2024.   If you want that email from Vantage, I can probably find it. 

 

When we were able to finally rebook a trip with Vantage, we decided not to continue with the Allianz policy, because it was all fraud. That, by the way, has come out in the testimony in the bankruptcy hearings in Boston. When we told Vantage travel that we didn't want to rebook the Allianz policy, they said since it was non-refundable they would keep $998 of the $1998 and we could get a credit therefore of $500 each on the invoice for the new trip.  It was worth it to us to give up that money to not have to deal with Allianz or VantageTravel. As a result, we decided to book a third-party travel insurance company for this trip, called the Ports of Timeless Wonders. And that's when we investigated travel insurance companies through Squaremouth and you came up as a good company. So we purchased Travel Insurance, the most expensive version that you have, for this trip.  I'm hoping that Seven Corners makes good on that promise to pay for trips that are have to be canceled for various reasons, including medical reasons. As you know my wife's knee replacement surgery was scheduled for July 17, 2023 and the trip was going to leave on July 15, 2023. So obviously we could not go on this trip which is why we made a claim with Seven Corners. As far as we are concerned, Seven Corners owes us $17,798.00 regardless of what Allianz might give us for the original trip which has nothing to do with this trip.

 

The invoice below is for the Ports of Timeless Wonders, showing the credit of $500 each which means that Vantage kept $998 of the original payment ($1,998.00) made to them for Travel Protection. 

 

 

 

Below is the invoice for the trip:  Jewels of Scandinavia which shows the fee of $999.00 each for our Travel Protection Plan, (TPP) bought thru Vantage and insured by Allianz.  It has come out conclusively that this policy has a  Part A and a Part B section. Part A was actually, behind the scenes, self insurance by Vantage for trips for issues that occurred before departure and Part B for issues after departure.  The premium that actually Allianz got from Vantage was $222.00 per person and that’s what they claim that they will give back to us.   There are actually thousands of emails from other travelers about this on a two different Facebook groups. Soooooo… I said, that I agreed to take the$222 per person that Allianz offered to all Vantage people when the trip did not happen.  

 

Immediately below is the Vantage invoice for this trip:

 

 

Immediately below is the original Pro Forma invoice from Vantage showing the total costs including the TPP  of $999 each.

Also please note that the date of the invoice is January 5, 2021.  That means that this saga is almost a full 3 years old.

 

 

 

I hope to hear from you, once you review these documents.  These were all previously sent to Seven Corners. 

 

Ports of Timeless Wonder Invoice 2.pdf Ports of Timeless Wonder Invoice 2.pdf Proforma Baltic Sea invoice 2.pdf

[ATL1234]

9 hours ago, MOssyLedge said:

Some time ago, a participant on this Facebook group asked if anyone had gotten third-party Travel Insurance not connected to Vantage or to Allianz. We did that and the saga has continued up until a few days ago when we finally got paid from our claim for medical reasons made on June 6, 2023. So the process took 4-1/2 months.  We booked this travel insurance through Squaremouth, which is an aggregator of travel insurance companies including Seven Corners Travel Insurance. They are the most difficult people to deal with and I would recommend not dealing with them by anyone in the future. The saga has gone on for more than four months with them and I only got paid because I played their game and answered every question and did every bit of research and even did things like asking Allianz to send me whatever insurance credits that might come my way.

 

Allianz Travel Insurance said that they would send us $222 each for the part B insurance that was purchased through VantageTravel. They would never send us an email indicating that, just that I should note it in my own notes from our telephone conversations. To get that far with Allianz I had to make seven calls to Mexico City to their call center.  I never did get that money and I don't expect to get that money. Seven Corners turns out to be ruthless in terms of taking their time to do things.

 

Seven Corners asked me to prove a negative many times.   Until they tracked down everything that I gave them in writing, they wouldn’t pay us.  Once they did that, they sent an EBT to our account. Ultimately Seven Corners paid just $17,500 instead of $17,798. I guess that should be considered a win. There actually isn’t a real insurance company called Seven Corners.   Every decision that they made had to be cleared with their owner - United States Fire Insurance Company. 

 

The content below is from an email that I sent to Mr. Stiller of Seven Corners on October 2, 2023. 

October 2, 2023

For David Stiller

Senior Customer Care Person

 

Hi David,

As per our telephone conversation earlier today, from 10:00AM to 10:23AM, I am forwarding to you in this email the original pro forma invoice for a trip called ……. Jewels of Scandinavia, Baltic Capitals and St. Petersburg. You will note at the bottom of the invoice that we purchased Travel Protection Plans through Vantage Travel, through Allianz, for each of us for $999 each or a total of $1,998.00.   Please note that the Vantage Invoice, is dated January 5, 2021. The departure date was originally August 12, 2022. Vantage canceled this trip because they did not have a boat that they had bought, so it was all fraud. They did not actually cancel it and in their terms they postponed it. Apparently, all Allianz policies say that if they postpone the trip, they do not have to give money back to the travelers. But if they actually cancel it, they would have to. So, Vantage postponed it to June 2024.   If you want that email from Vantage, I can probably find it. 

 

When we were able to finally rebook a trip with Vantage, we decided not to continue with the Allianz policy, because it was all fraud. That, by the way, has come out in the testimony in the bankruptcy hearings in Boston. When we told Vantage travel that we didn't want to rebook the Allianz policy, they said since it was non-refundable they would keep $998 of the $1998 and we could get a credit therefore of $500 each on the invoice for the new trip.  It was worth it to us to give up that money to not have to deal with Allianz or VantageTravel. As a result, we decided to book a third-party travel insurance company for this trip, called the Ports of Timeless Wonders. And that's when we investigated travel insurance companies through Squaremouth and you came up as a good company. So we purchased Travel Insurance, the most expensive version that you have, for this trip.  I'm hoping that Seven Corners makes good on that promise to pay for trips that are have to be canceled for various reasons, including medical reasons. As you know my wife's knee replacement surgery was scheduled for July 17, 2023 and the trip was going to leave on July 15, 2023. So obviously we could not go on this trip which is why we made a claim with Seven Corners. As far as we are concerned, Seven Corners owes us $17,798.00 regardless of what Allianz might give us for the original trip which has nothing to do with this trip.

 

The invoice below is for the Ports of Timeless Wonders, showing the credit of $500 each which means that Vantage kept $998 of the original payment ($1,998.00) made to them for Travel Protection. 

 

 

 

Below is the invoice for the trip:  Jewels of Scandinavia which shows the fee of $999.00 each for our Travel Protection Plan, (TPP) bought thru Vantage and insured by Allianz.  It has come out conclusively that this policy has a  Part A and a Part B section. Part A was actually, behind the scenes, self insurance by Vantage for trips for issues that occurred before departure and Part B for issues after departure.  The premium that actually Allianz got from Vantage was $222.00 per person and that’s what they claim that they will give back to us.   There are actually thousands of emails from other travelers about this on a two different Facebook groups. Soooooo… I said, that I agreed to take the$222 per person that Allianz offered to all Vantage people when the trip did not happen.  

 

Immediately below is the Vantage invoice for this trip:

 

 

Immediately below is the original Pro Forma invoice from Vantage showing the total costs including the TPP  of $999 each.

Also please note that the date of the invoice is January 5, 2021.  That means that this saga is almost a full 3 years old.

 

 

 

I hope to hear from you, once you review these documents.  These were all previously sent to Seven Corners. 

 

Ports of Timeless Wonder Invoice 2.pdf 141.62 kB · 0 downloads Ports of Timeless Wonder Invoice 2.pdf 141.62 kB · 0 downloads Proforma Baltic Sea invoice 2.pdf 630.64 kB · 0 downloads

Confusing - If you already used the Allianz TPP and then received a credit of $500 per person which you applied to a new trip; and then on that trip you purchased 3rd party insurance and were subsequently reimbursed nearly the entire dollar amount, including the value of the TPP vouchers - Why would Allianz owe you another refund of Part B?  Makes no sense at all, and could be considered fraudulent if I am understanding correctly.  I also saw your post on a FB page, and I am not understanding why you believe Allianz owes you Part B.

[ATL1234]

9 minutes ago, ATL1234 said:

Confusing - If you already used the Allianz TPP and then received a credit of $500 per person which you applied to a new trip; and then on that trip you purchased 3rd party insurance and were subsequently reimbursed nearly the entire dollar amount, including the value of the TPP vouchers - Why would Allianz owe you another refund of Part B?  Makes no sense at all, and could be considered fraudulent if I am understanding correctly.  I also saw your post on a FB page, and I am not understanding why you believe Allianz owes you Part B.

Also - technically Allianz does not owe any Vantage Traveler the Part B refund, they were doing this as a good will gesture although they played no part in Vantage's ultimate demise.  As per the invoices, the TPP is non-refundable.

[MOssyLedge]

So sorry for the confusion. When we switched from the Jewels of Scandinavia to the Ports of Timeless Wonder cruise (2021 to 2023), we opted not to get Allianz Insurance. The trips were almost 2 years apart and we didn't want an Allianz policy. We did not ask for a credit, but Vantage, for some reason, said they would give us a credit. I'm not even sure they actually did give us a credit. Since they've never paid us a dime, they didn't give us any money.  The only reason we went back to Allianz is that Seven Corners Travel Insurance contacted Allianz somehow through their own devices. Allianz, who said that we had filed a claim for theJewels of Scandinavia, for which we hadn't gotten any payments, Seven Corners assumed that we were owed money. So Seven Corners was concerned that we would get paid by them as well. That was the only reason we contacted Allianz, because Seven Corners wouldn't process our medical claim unless we could prove that Allianz had nothing to do with our new trip. Once Seven Corners did their own research and determined that Allianz had nothing to do with the Ports of Timeless Wonders, they were able to process our claim.  We did not want or expect anything from them, nor have we received anything from them. It's all part of the black box of Travel Insurance. So there's actually nothing duplicitous on our part because we don't expect anything and would be happy to return it to whomever. In fact, we had to sign a piece of paper for Seven Corners, saying that if we ever got anything from anybody for any trip with Vantage, we would turn that money over to them. So they know it's all a fake, but they were trying to protect themselves. I hope this helps.

[ATL1234]

1 hour ago, MOssyLedge said:

So sorry for the confusion. When we switched from the Jewels of Scandinavia to the Ports of Timeless Wonder cruise (2021 to 2023), we opted not to get Allianz Insurance. The trips were almost 2 years apart and we didn't want an Allianz policy. We did not ask for a credit, but Vantage, for some reason, said they would give us a credit. I'm not even sure they actually did give us a credit. Since they've never paid us a dime, they didn't give us any money.  The only reason we went back to Allianz is that Seven Corners Travel Insurance contacted Allianz somehow through their own devices. Allianz, who said that we had filed a claim for theJewels of Scandinavia, for which we hadn't gotten any payments, Seven Corners assumed that we were owed money. So Seven Corners was concerned that we would get paid by them as well. That was the only reason we contacted Allianz, because Seven Corners wouldn't process our medical claim unless we could prove that Allianz had nothing to do with our new trip. Once Seven Corners did their own research and determined that Allianz had nothing to do with the Ports of Timeless Wonders, they were able to process our claim.  We did not want or expect anything from them, nor have we received anything from them. It's all part of the black box of Travel Insurance. So there's actually nothing duplicitous on our part because we don't expect anything and would be happy to return it to whomever. In fact, we had to sign a piece of paper for Seven Corners, saying that if we ever got anything from anybody for any trip with Vantage, we would turn that money over to them. So they know it's all a fake, but they were trying to protect themselves. I hope this helps.

The July Ports of Timeless Wonder invoice shows a TPP Certificate credit of -$500 per person, so this mist have come from the Allianz claim for Jewels of Scandinavia.