Originally Posted by
doc4science
Thanks for the reply and as far as I know, no. Initially scheduled for one date set by the school/teacher with the itinerary CMH-FLR and FCO-CMH. A few days after the point where you could backout and the majority of the money was due they informed the teacher of the change in dates. At this point, to my knowledge the itinerary was still CMH-FLR and FCO-CMH and the students would miss one day of classes. Fast forward a few weeks and I got the flight information and was shown a CMH-FCO FCO-CMH itinerary with land transport (bus) to Florence. The itinerary also ended up leaving in the morning of the new date, not evening as promised, so the students will end up missing two days of class. All the flights are on United (CMH-EWR-FCO and FCO-EWR-CMH) and I assume they are not confirmed as the teacher does not have a confirmation code, but neither I nor her know for certain. Interestingly enough it seems as though the CMH-EWR flight they were planning on using (or booked) has been cancelled so they'll have to at least somewhat revise the itinerary.
In this case, I don’t think DOT would have any say.
If there were confirmed flights involved and a change was then subsequently made then DOT may show an interest if no refund (or at least a refund on the flights) was offered.
This sounds more like, we’ll aim for these dates and once you paid, we’ll actually check to see if it is even available. What if the flights the tour packager wanted wasn’t available within the +/- 2 day time frame? Do they eat the excess cost? Doesn’t sound like it in T&Cs.
Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
To what extent is this an official school function? It sounds like the teacher/organizer didn't consult with the school's legal services before signing the contract.
I’m thinking there should have been some approval on this at the school board level especially for small districts. A teacher is not going to take a class overseas on their own even if funded by students. Vendors would/should have been vetted as part of their procurement process which also sounds like weren’t done properly.