Not surprising at all.

That won't hold up in Europe or Britain.
Consumer protection laws mean the organisers are obliged to refund where they haven't delivered the 'product' paid for.
Just as airlines have been told to stop fecking about dodging refunds for cancelled flights.

That won't hold up in Quebec either. Consumer protection laws are a different beast here.

The British Isles are still part of Europe post Brexit ;-).

Yes. Quite correct Sir. (But don't tell the British equivalent of Trump Ballsuckers).

and I still have a EU passport (I can't go much beyond my own front door at present without the local Filth wanting to arrest me for carrying a cup of peppermint tea in public,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/...-derbyshire-55560814
so the passport is largely ceremonial. But nonetheless European 😁

Good ole US of A.

My thing about it is that if you extend the protections it ends up being that you could cancel for any old excuse at all and just pocket the money. "I just didn't feel like holding the event, so we cancelled it".

Sorry, but a line has to be drawn somewhere with taking on risk in a business. You're in business and that involves risk. I don't deem it good financial policy in the world to allow businesses to shift risk to consumers.

We must understand all the contingencies beyond the organizers' control but who cares about ours? As somebody said before, not surprised at all!

i don't see them as shifting risk to the customer, rather they're sharing the risk with the customer. they aren't saying - as i understand it - that your money is gone. they're saying your money is there, as a credit, toward a future race. that said...

as i have been writing for decades, the race industry is only equaled by the travel and the concert industries as offering a product in which you have no equity in consideration for your money paid. what IM is doing now is close to what i think would be good: it's at least giving you value toward a future purchase.

but what we've always needed is this - a deferral option - along with a sort of stubhub like secondary market. i had a discussion with a USAT executive about this just today.

but as to the practice here, this is no worse than your insurance company's force majeure clause in the exclusions. the business model of a company like this contemplates a normal business environment. if object to this approach, ok, but it's late. better to have done what i do, and just not enter a race you can't afford to take a risk on, because of an act of nature, or a war, or you lose your job, or you have triple bypass surgery.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You'd hope (!!) that eventually people Will vote with their feet (and wallets).
Though it seems (from 4000 miles away) that MDot has a near stranglehold on mid and long distance events in North America. Not a fully monopoly but defo a dominant market position.

What I've seen in the UK this past year is that typically the smaller + independent Co running an event, the better they have treated the customer. The bigger the Co (not just for Tri but for things like music) the more they have treated the customer with contempt. Not just IM. The worst was the organisers of Velo Birmingham closed road sportive (total tossbandits I'd not piss on if they were on fire).
Long Course Weekend took the piss a fair bit with the level of refund / amount kept too.

I'm in independent races in 2021 - and resisting some peers to go do IM Austria in 2022 (I want another go at an Xtri like Celtman run by a properly independent good bunch on people).

One other option for WTC is to allow for transferred entries between individuals.
- They already have the entry fee.
- Give a transfer code to the registered athlete.
- allow the original athlete to sell or give away their entry, using the code to transfer it.
- The registration company could collect the transfer fee (and their cut), give a partial or complete entry refund, then using the transfer code ensure the waiver documents, license data, etc. is recorded and verified.

The possible drawback is that if WTC overlooks and that number get transferred, it could cause issues.

I wonder if post-Covid, deferments will continue.

I think the transfer code is a good idea since Ironman (or any race organizer has the money). The only issue is people who have no interest in racing registering and then selling on a scalper market for an extra charge, thus artificially driving up price in the open market. The flip side is scalpers caught holding the tickets. They would also have to go through the pain of registering many times with fake names (let's say they want to register 100 entries) with 100 credit card numbers from 100 IP addresses, so really the practical side is its only a few transfers here or there that get sold for an uplift by real athletes who cannot go and want to sell to a friend who does want to go.

Your pain point is easy to overcome. Look at the concert world or sneakerheads. Online bots can buy up thousands of units in microseconds, each with unique "customer" data

if reselling entries showed to be profitable people would get in the game in no time, driving the end users price up.

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Boots
Fleet Feet Rochester, NY
Fleet Feet Buffalo, NY
YellowJacket Racing, Rochester, NY

Highly doubt that.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I have never understood why people are so upset about this.
As the judge pointed out, it is pretty clearly stated no refunds in the agreement that you don't read when you sign up. My understanding is that legally, WTC didn't have to do anything. But they still did, they gave you a deferral to the next year's event, or a choice of other events. And they are losing money too obviously, because they lose out on the entry fees they would have otherwise gotten for that next year event.

All the complainers on here, no one is forcing you to do WTC events in the future, take your money elsewhere. But there is obviously a reason that WTC events will continue to sell out, and it isn't because they are evil.

Common sense prevails...

yet it has already happened in some european markets, main example is germany. they get a voucher if they dont use it next year IM has to return the money.

Here in Europe you do not get your money back from the liftcompany when the skilifts don't go due to bad weather. (That's why I do not buy week-skipasses: only day-skipasses).
So I do not think your assumption holds.

Honestly, I don’t get all the complaining about no refunds. The deferral options seem generous if you ask me. No one refunded me for all the plays, concerts, and other events I prepaid for. Why should races be any different?

Is that true - I mean if an event is postponed, or if it is cancelled due to force majure and the organiser gives you the choice of going to the postponed event or free entry to any other event in the next year, that is not considered enough protection for the consumer? Cause that is what Ironman did. I thought it was excellent customer service and I did not find it problematic at all.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Ironman does have a lock on the long course market in North America. But the reason for that is because - in general - they offer a much better product than the independents. Sure, the WTC haters will come on this forum and go blah, blah, blah about why Indie Race X is so great and miss the entire concept of "in general". I've done a number of independents and have come to the conclusion that you get what you pay for. I.e., most independent races lack a competitive field, lack an exciting race atmosphere, lack a decent number of spectators, lack an adequate number of volunteers, and are more likely to lack safety and organization. Saving a $100 on registration doesn't make up for that in any way which is why independent long course events in North America are usually low key, laid back affairs with only a 100 or so participants.

And Xtri is a different animal altogether. Choosing between IM and Xtri is like choosing between the London Marathon and the Marathon de Sables.

In regards to "treating the customer" one way or the other. Atleast in the U.S., I dont think there is that much of a difference. In fact I think IM actually treats it's customers overall very well, it just seems like they are easy to beat up on vs the "small guy" trying to just "make it". I think overall we let slide the small scale race and sorta pat them on the head feel vs the "big bad" IM brand, when in reality I would venture to say IM probaly treats it's customers as well as the indie races.


Our tri shop puts on a "local" marathon that is fairly well attended and is a pretty big race for the local community. I dont think a "refund" was ever an consideration for the racers, as we simply rolled their entry into the following year + gave them their free swag and turned the race into a virtual event. I also don't know how many people "demanded" a refund, with the caveat that they got a free entry for "next year".

I think what IM has done with all their referrals and options is pretty damn good.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Maybe you got unlucky, but I think for most of the concerts, plays and races I pre paid for I was given some options.

I have season tickets with a theatre group to see plays at a specific theatre. For every play that got cancelled I got offered a refund or the option to donate the ticket. I chose to donate the ticket so they could use the money to pay what limited staff they had left and stay in business.

For concerts if they get cancelled outright you usually get a refund. If they get rescheduled you usually are automatically given a ticket to the rescheduled date. If you can't make that date you probably could request a refund.

I also have a season pass for skiing or snowboarding. If I don't use my pass this season I can apply the cost paid towards next seasons pass.

For my races I was offered no refunds. Only deferrals to the next years event or transfer to a different race.

I would be curious and maybe Slowman could do some investigating into this *somehow* (poll?).

I wonder just how many people would take the refund for races? Especially an IM, that's sorta a "mile stone" event, so I wonder if it's far less want a refund then would actually take it.

ETA: I should say for legit race cancellations not for athlete error- IE injury themselves in pre race build up.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I completely understand why that lawsuit got thrown out. Basically don't sign sign that you accept the cancellation rules - when in reality you don't.

We stagger it in our race. Before March 1 you get 75% of your money back when you walk away, before July 1 you get 50% of your money back and from July 1 on you get nothing back. When we announced in late July that we had to postpone our race until late October (now November 7) 2021 and we offered a 50% refund to those who had other plans for that time frame. Of the 85 teams that had already registered only 2 teams wanted the refund, the remaining teams all opted to be moved to 2021. And many of them inquired if they could help us out financially, by buying swag from us.

But all teams we accepted since March of 2020 are being held in a Waiting Room and will only be able to register fully (pay their entry fee) in late Spring when we know more. We can't even submit our permit request to the park until March. So 2021 will be tricky in many ways still.

But I believe that most races with smaller fields than 500 starters will likely take place.