Select International Tours & Cruises

My friend and I remitted $12,425 for a tour which was cancelled due to COVID-19. We did not purchase "cancel for any reason" trip insurance because the cost was 10% of the price of the tour! My friend and I are healthy and knew that there was a VERY slim chance we would need to cancel. The organization also discouraged paying by credit card by charging a 5% fee to pay with a credit card so we could have no recourse through our credit card companies. They want "cash only". Their response is we have 3 options: 1 - rebook for the tour scheduled in 2022! and pay $150 2 - get a credit for future travel OR 3 - cancel and lose all of our money. The contract was very deceptive because it had a section for cancellation policy which states: "Prior to 90 days before departure, a $750.00 per person cancellation fee is withheld. Within 90 days all payments are non-refundable." NOT in that section it states that after final payment is made on Feb 21, 2020 ALL PAYMENTS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE. That is very deceptive because if I am looking at the cancellation policy, I look in that section! We did not realize we would be giving them over $12,000 after our final payments EVEN if THEY cancelled on us...which they had to.