changing a date, moving a start, or canceling a reservation
Reserve a vacation package and know the cancellation terms before the request goes out
Twenty-six dated departures sit on the board this year at $1,615 to $4,855 per person, and each one carries the change and cancellation terms of the company that runs it. Those terms come to you on the written quote, in the operating company's own words, before you commit to anything. This office adds no fee of its own at any stage.
Every line on the whole board, all twenty-six departures carries a date, and some of those dates come around once a year. That is why this page is worth reading before the request goes out rather than after it. Reserve a vacation package and know the cancellation terms that ride along with that particular date, because the terms belong to the company that runs the trip, and two starts in the same month can hold you to two different rules.
This office takes the request, places the reservation with that company, and stays out of the money. The company bills you directly under its own name and pays this office a commission after you are home again. One consequence runs through everything below: an office that never takes a dollar from a traveler has no fee to refund and none to keep.
Whose terms are in force
The terms on your written quote are the operating company's terms, carried across in its language rather than softened into ours, and they are the ones that decide the outcome. They differ more than most travelers expect. A family guesthouse holding two rooms on the strength of a name and a date will often release them a week out at no cost, because the owner expects to fill them locally. A small chartered boat with a licensed crew and a fuel bill works the other way around: the crew is engaged, the fuel is bought, and the money is committed two months ahead whether six people show up or four. Where a trip crosses water, the operating company holds that passage under its own license and writes the rules for it. Read the quote against the trip in front of you.
Who decides, case by case
Seven situations that come up on this board, and the party whose answer is final in each one:
The operating company. At that distance most starts on this board release you whole, and the guesthouse trips nearly always do.
The operating company. Figures are quoted per person on a shared room, so the three who stay see their own number move, and it moves up.
The operating company, and whether that later start has reached its own minimum decides the answer more than the calendar does.
Two companies. The first has to release your reservation before the second will hold anything, and neither is obliged to wait on the other.
The operating company, and this is where terms diverge most. Some retain everything, some retain part, and the figure is written on your quote.
The operating company, on the deadline set in its own terms, and everything you paid it comes back to you.
The company on the ground. It is standing there and this office is a thousand miles away, so its call stands.
When a fixed date does not reach its minimum
Most starts on this board run on a minimum head count, usually between four and ten, and the operating company sets a deadline in its own terms for making the call: commonly four to eight weeks ahead, earlier for anything that has to charter a boat or contract a driver. If the number is not there on that day, the company cancels the start and returns everything it has taken from you. It made the decision, so it carries the cost of the decision, and there is no argument to have about it.
What that cancellation does not reach is anything you arranged for yourself. Your flight is your own arrangement, made in your own name with your own carrier, and a shortfall of two travelers on a small group start in October does not move it. That is the plainest reason to leave your own transportation alone until the operating company has confirmed the start in writing, and the quote tells you whether a given date is confirmed or still counting heads. When a canceled start was the only one of its kind in the year, the next one is twelve months out. When the same place appears twice on the board month by month at two figures, the second start is usually the answer, and it will not carry the figure you were quoted the first time.
Moving to another start instead of dropping the trip
A move is a new reservation plus a release of the old one, handled in that order so that you are never left holding neither. The later start is quoted at its own figure. A shoulder week and the week beside a public holiday are not the same product and are not priced as though they were, which is why the board carries the same place twice in the year rather than one place with a spread. Nothing from the first reservation carries across except your names. Ask for the move through how to ask for a written figure and both figures come back side by side before a line is released.
What this office charges to change or cancel
Nothing, at any stage, for any reason. There is no change fee, no cancellation fee, no service charge and no card on file to charge one against, because this office holds no card details and takes no payment of any kind, on a first reservation or a fifth. When a reservation falls away, what happens on this side is simply that the commission the operating company would have paid after your return is not paid. That is the whole of the exposure here, and you are not asked to cover it.
Writing to this office about a reservation you hold
Write to bookings@thirdcoastdispatch.com or call +1 (816) 525-2846 and give four things: the reference the operating company gave you, the month and start date as they appear on the board, the names on the reservation, and what you want to happen. This office reaches the operating company the same working day and sends you its answer in writing, because nothing about money or dates should rest on a phone call alone. The form below takes a change or a cancellation Whatever reaches the form is opened in the order it landed, and an answer goes back inside one working day., and every request is answered within one business day.
If you are still working out how a reservation is placed, how a reservation is actually placed walks through the sequence, and the questions that come up most often about moving dates sit on the straight answers. The office placing these reservations is Third Coast Dispatch Bookings LLC, at 600 SW Jefferson St, Suite 302 in Lee's Summit, MO.
Ask the office to hold a departure
Open 24/7, this form will take a booking request whenever you write it. Nowhere on it is a card number requested and nothing is charged, because no money is ever owed to this office. Whatever reaches the form is opened in the order it landed, and an answer goes back inside one working day.
Nowhere on this page is a card number requested, and none is kept by this office anywhere. Writing costs you nothing and ties you to nothing. Asking is not the same as holding: your date belongs to whoever asks next until the operating company has confirmed it on paper and you have read what it requires of you.