EF Educational Tours review: Trip to Germany and Switzerland

Our son was signed up for an EF Educational Tours trip to Germany and Switzerland. We had been paying monthly installments for a year and a half when we were informed by the school 4 months before the trip was to take place that the tour was cancelled.

Upon calling EF Educational Tours to receive a refund for the cancelled tour, we were informed that we would have to pay a $585 cancellation fee ($95 cancellation fee - which we were aware of - and a $490 insurance fee, of which we were not aware), even though it was the school that cancelled the trip, not us.

EF Educational Tours's position is that because THEY were not the ones that cancelled the trip, the trip was therefore not considered cancelled at all, since we could have rebooked our son on one of the school's other tours, none of which were of interest to us.

In researching EF Educational Tours online, we find countless terrible reviews exposing the company as a scam. Many other families have also been forced to pay the same $585 fee for trips that they themselves did not cancel - it seems to be part of their business model. The company has a 1.16/5 star rating from the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General of Colorado has investigated them under the Consumer Protection Act. (https://www.bbb.org/us/ma/cambridge/profile/travel-agency/ef-educational-tours-0021-15313)

We wish we had done this research before signing our son up. We would highly recommend no one sign their child up for any EF Educational Tours programs.