Request for Assistance & Memorandum of Understanding
(if you claimed a spot at a retreat and will no longer make it)
Every year, we sadly receive a number of emails from people who signed up, but have since suffered a deeply tragic personal loss, a family crisis, a traumatic injury, an extreme health event, a financial crisis, or some other sort of life-changing circumstance.
We’re deeply sorry that you are no longer able to make it, and we’re deeply sorry that life has thrown something terrible at you.
As you know (from the booking terms that were emailed to you with your booking confirmation, and are also posted throughout our website and booking pages), we can provide our sign-ups with only a short window to simply cancel and get a refund. Unfortunately that window to cancel has now passed for you. When this is the case, we cannot issue refunds (or even a future credit) if you claimed a spot at a retreat but will no longer make it.
We know this sucks.
We hope that you purchased travel insurance (a “trip cancellation policy”), as we encourage on our Booking Terms page. If you did, let us know if your insurance provider requires any documentation from us, and we will be happy to provide it.
However, if you did not purchase a “trip cancellation policy”, you can still try to re-sell (or gift) your booking to a friend or teammate who might come in your place so that it won’t be a total loss.
Common Question #1: Is there anything Grappler’s Retreat will do to help me?
Yes: we can make some efforts to help you find someone who will re-purchase your spot. However, this is not easy. Many assume (since so many of our camps are ‘sold out’) that we simply have long wait-lists of people who will scoop up canceled spots. That’s not true. Unfortunately, 95% of our potential guests need at least 6-months to secure vacation time off work, to plan for childcare and other life commitments, etc. Most simply are not able to break away for a week unless they have been able to plan the trip many months in advance.
That said: we will reach out to anyone and everyone on our email list who specifically expressed interest in the date for which you are booked, and/or an interest in the specific guest instructor teaching those dates. This takes a lot of effort, especially while we are super busy running retreats and giving our full energy to those we are currently hosting — but we will be happy to do this for you if you make the request through the form below.
But please know: that is the limit of what we can do. Please understand that we cannot blast our full email list (our subscribers signed up for a newsletter, not constant re-marketing), we cannot re-hire our online marketer to re-promote your spot and we cannot run new paid ads (we don’t have the budget or personnel for this), and we cannot use our social media platforms to announce cancellations (people follow us on social media for fun pictures and stories about the retreats, and so using our social media as a “marketing machine for canceled spots” is simply counterproductive to our long-term viability).
Common Question #2: I get that you can’t return my money, but why can’t you give me a credit… or just roll me over to a future date?
We understand the question, but that is simply not how the finances work for organizing events.
The money you paid (when you claimed one of the very limited spots) must be (and will be) used to pay for the expenses of the retreat for which you booked. And so we can’t move your funds over to a future event, because your funds will have already been spent on the retreat for which you booked.
There are a very limited number of spots, and so every single spot matters. We count on every retreat filling (at base pricing) in order to make budget — if we “give away a credit” to a future event, then we won’t be able to pay the expenses of that future event.
Note #1: There is no “eccentric millionaire” behind Grappler’s Retreat LLC that can step in and cover costs if we come up short! These retreats must pay for themselves from the booking fees of the people who claimed the spots. This is why our Booking Terms are absolutely essential.
Note #2: around 90% of your booking fee goes towards covering the cost of that specific retreat (i.e. the instructor fee, the cost to use the facilities, event liability insurance, wages for chefs, drivers, organizers, camp hosts, etc., which must all be paid, regardless of your attendance). No one is getting rich off your booking fee. Many of us volunteer many extra hours without pay just to make these retreats possible.