Travel Plans Gone Wrong! Any Suggestions?

Since Nov. 2009, my mom, aunt, & I have been planning a nice 2 wk trip to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London & to Paris.  This was going to be the trip of a lifetime!  We have been mkg payments & to this day, we've been charged $13,440 & were $4380 away from having the entire trip paid for. 

Now, we have to cancel the trip & the travel co won't give us back a penny.  No, we hadn't gotten travel insurance yet, but we weren't done paying for the whole thing either.

My mom's definitely planning to get an attorney.  The total was charged on two of MY credit cards.  I disputed a few thousand so far on one.  The bulk of it, I have to call a certain dept on Monday.

Does anyone know of any travel attorneys in southern California?  Anything else you suggest?  Thank you!

Whoa I am sorry you are having such problem. That is a lot of money to be out.

Was there anything in the fine print that states you wont get a refund or money back if the trip is cancelled.

Im sorry I am not much help, as I have never been in that position. Hopefully the attorney will be able to help you, but he will cost a lot of money himself.

I was just thinking.....Is there anyway you can finish paying off the blance of the trip you owe for it to be paid in full and then sell the tickets to someone else?

From all the trips I have made overseas, I have never had an airline ticket that was transferrable, so I somehow doubt very much those could be sold. I assume all that money was going towards hotel rooms as well? If so, those you might be able to flog off, but it really depends if the case is the same as above. Would you have been given hotel vouchers in your name once you had finished paying? If so, it would probably depend on what the hotel's policies are. I've had to cancel trips before, with my hotel bookings and airline tickets already prepaid, due to unforeseen things coming up but was still able to get my money back, luckily. But I was also not booking/paying for those hotels through North American or European agencies. They were paid for through South East Asian agencies & airlines, which have much fairer, more ethical policies. I've found that agencies/airlines in Canada will not make customers' lives that easy, unfortunately. I never use Canadian airlines for that reason. They couldn't care less how much money a person is out. Expedia also tried to rip me off before to the tune of $3000+. I just called my bank and told them. They did a chargeback and then cancelled my card so Expedia couldn't try ripping me off again and FedExed me out a new cc. No idea what it's like in the US. I really hope you get your money back from those blood suckers. Good luck

Thanks guys.  No, I don't plan to pay the rest & try to sell to someone else.  There's no one else I know to sell to. 

THis is some travel company in my state of California.  I've never visited them in person.  I found out about them online. 

Oh well, we'll see what happens.