Back in 2008 I entered a contest in Cycle Canada for an all-expense paid trip for two to Morocco with a BMW motorcycle to ride while there.
Imagine my surprise when the editor (at that time) Costa Mouzouris called to tell me I had won. I later received a follow-up letter from the associate publisher Kim Malczewski confirming that I had won, and to contact the tour provider MotoCadia to make arrangements.
Alas, the Morocco trip was cancelled for lack of registration. But as stated in the letter "in the case where the trip was to be cancelled for any reason, the trip will be substituted for a more frequently available Portugal trip by MotoCadia".
Game on ~ let's go to Portugal then.
Not so fast. When I contacted MotoCadia again in April of 2009 (no trips over the winter on the schedule) I was informed they were just about going out of business and would probably not be sending me anywhere in the foreseeable future. When I called Cycle Canada about this they said they were not responsible if the tour operator would/could not uphold their agreement to send me on a trip.
EXCEPT....last month I looked online and lo and behold, MotoCadia did not go out of business and is offering tours to Portugal, Morocco, Great Britain and Scotland this fall.
Suffice to say the owner Julian Cade stopped replying to my emails back in 2009. So I contacted Cycle Canada's Kim Malczewski again three weeks ago to ask if they would be interested in assisting with this boondoggle. She reiterated again they were not responsible for ensuring the tour operator carried out their end of the deal, but she would "follow-up" with them.
And that's the last I've heard since then.
I've also posted to Cycle Canada's own web forum at http://www.passionperformance.ca/community/forum/showthread.php?p=10277#post10277
I can't imagine it being even remotely acceptable to offer a contest prize in a national magazine in Canada and not honor it.
The Canadian Competition Bureau has some pretty stiff corporate penalties for failing to follow through on delivering contest prizes, but it won't help my situation.
Man that's rough, I hope everything works out for you.
Sue for a check of the face value?
Here in the usofa you'd prolly get 50%... but teach them not to falsely advertise
Noted your post about the Cycle Canada competion schmozzle. Aussies are great travellers , so, had a look at http://www.motocadia.com/ site and, lo and behold, a Cycle Canada article from 2007 is being PDF'd to support Motocadia products. You know, in business publicity and reputation are akin to dropping a stone in a pond.....
Yeah, we are still working on a way to convince them to come through on their commitment - next stop is the Quebec Gaming Commission and the Canadian Competition Board.