Recovering Weather-Cancelled Trips

When the federal government writes a contract, it names unusually severe weather as an excusable cause of non-performance and prescribes a single remedy: the delivery schedule shall be revised. Not a refund, and not a default.

None of that binds a fishing guide, and it is the clearest available statement of the principle a weather cancellation should run on. A day lost to conditions nobody controlled is a scheduling problem, and treating it as a refund problem gives away money and a client at the same time. The clause also does something else worth copying: it gates the excuse on the failure being beyond your control and without your fault, which is a test you should apply to yourself before offering anything. Below the clause is read from the regulation, then the recovery sequence. The clause governs federal contracts and has no application to you. Nothing on this page is legal advice. The running the business hub collects the pieces around it.

What does the clause say?

Nine excusable causes, and severe weather is the ninth.

The excusable delays clause at 52.249-14 of Title 48 provides that, except for defaults of subcontractors, a contractor shall not be in default because of any failure to perform if the failure arises from causes beyond its control and without its fault or negligence.

It then gives examples: acts of God or of the public enemy, acts of the Government in either its sovereign or contractual capacity, fires, floods, epidemics, quarantine restrictions, strikes, freight embargoes, and unusually severe weather.

Paragraph (a) closes with two conditions worth noting. In each instance the failure must be beyond the control and without the fault or negligence of the contractor, and default includes failure to make progress so as to endanger performance.

Which is a stricter test than the everyday use of the phrase act of God suggests, because it excludes anything you contributed to.

The clause is carried on the eCFR.

How the cancellation call itself should be made is covered in the weather cancellation piece.

Catch A Trophy, TX

What is the remedy?

A revised schedule, on request, after the facts are established.

Paragraph (c) provides that upon request of the contractor, the contracting officer shall ascertain the facts and extent of the failure, and that if the officer determines the failure results from one or more of the listed causes, the delivery schedule shall be revised.

Two features of that are worth borrowing. The remedy is a new date rather than money, and it follows an established set of facts rather than an assertion.

Applied to a guided day, the parallel is exact: the default response to weather should be a new date, and the new date should follow a short honest account of what happened rather than a vague apology.

The clause also makes the revision subject to the government's rights under the termination clause, which is the acknowledgement that a rescheduled obligation is not an unlimited one.

For a guide that translates into an expiry on the credit, which is the part most operations leave open.

Why an open-ended credit is a liability is covered in the voucher liability piece.

Clearwater Inshore, FL

Why does the fault gate matter?

Because it separates weather from everything else.

The clause repeats twice that the failure must be beyond the control and without the fault or negligence of the contractor, which is the line between a genuine weather cancellation and a cancellation you caused.

A river blown out by a storm is one thing. A trip cancelled because the boat was not serviced, the trailer failed, or you double-booked is another, and treating the two identically is what erodes a policy.

Which means the honest first question after any cancellation is which category it falls in, asked of yourself before anything is offered to the client.

Where the fault is yours, the answer is a full refund plus something, and a reschedule offered as a favour rather than as the remedy.

Where it is genuinely the weather, the reschedule is the remedy and the client is not being done a favour.

How a double booking should be handled is covered in the double booking piece.

What should be offered first?

A date, named, before anything about money.

The order matters more than the content, because a conversation that opens with a refund has already conceded that the relationship is over.

One that opens with two specific alternative dates keeps it alive, and most clients take one.

Script: The river is unfishable and we are not going tomorrow. I have the fourteenth and the twenty-first open and the fourteenth looks better. Which suits you?

Naming dates rather than offering to reschedule is the whole technique, because a vague offer requires the client to do work and a specific one requires a choice.

The refund should be mentioned only if they hesitate, and then unprompted and without resistance.

What the call itself should sound like is covered in the weather cancellation piece.

What if they cannot reschedule?

A credit with a date, or a refund, and let them choose.

A visiting client who flew in for one week cannot take a date next month, and pretending otherwise wastes both of your time.

Which leaves two honest options: money back, or a credit with a stated life that they can use whenever they next travel.

Presenting both, with the credit slightly sweetened, converts a proportion of clients who would otherwise simply take the refund.

On a $650 day, a credit of $650 usable for two seasons is more attractive than the same money returned, because it is now a plan rather than a reimbursement.

What it must have is an expiry, because an open credit is a liability with no maturity and it will surface in four years.

How the credit should be tracked is covered in the deposit rollover piece.

How quickly should it happen?

In the same conversation, not in a follow-up.

A client told the trip is off and promised that you will be in touch about rescheduling has been given a problem to worry about.

Which is why the alternative dates should be in the same call, and the confirmation in writing the same day.

Momentum is the whole thing: a reschedule agreed within the hour holds, and one deferred to next week becomes a refund request.

Which means knowing your own availability well enough to offer dates on the phone, rather than needing to check.

That is a calendar discipline rather than a customer service one.

What the calendar should look like is covered in the scheduling piece.

What about a multi-day trip?

Move the day inside the block before touching anything else.

One unfishable day inside a four-day block is a rearrangement, not a cancellation, and almost every client prefers a substituted day to a returned deposit.

Which means the first move is to look at the block: can the lost day become a fifth, can two half days replace it, can a different water work.

Only where the block genuinely cannot absorb it does the money question arise, and by then the client has seen you try.

Where the block cannot absorb it, name the figure yourself rather than letting the client work it out, since a fifth of a four-day booking is easy arithmetic and awkward silence.

Raise it early in the block, because a decision taken with days left to play with is a rearrangement and one taken on the last morning is a refund.

Drafting the multi-day terms is the deposit piece.

Does the clause say anything about partial failure?

It does, and the phrase is worth borrowing.

Paragraph (a) closes by providing that default includes failure to make progress in the work so as to endanger performance, which extends the concept beyond outright non-delivery.

Applied to a guided day, that is the half-day that became unfishable at eleven, or the block where two of four days were lost.

Which means the honest question is not only whether the trip happened but whether what happened amounted to the thing that was sold.

A day that ran four hours of a booked eight has partially failed, and pretending otherwise because the boat left the ramp is the position clients resent most.

Naming a proportion yourself, before being asked, is the whole of the good handling.

How the shortened day should be priced is covered in the no-fish day piece.

What about the subcontractor limb?

It maps onto the shuttle, and it has conditions.

Paragraph (b) provides that a failure caused by a subcontractor at any tier does not put the contractor in default where the cause was beyond the control of both and without the fault or negligence of either, unless three things are true.

Those are that the supplies or services were obtainable from other sources, that the contracting officer ordered the contractor in writing to obtain them elsewhere, and that the contractor failed to comply reasonably with that order.

For a guiding operation the analogue is a shuttle that did not turn up, a lodge that lost a booking or a sub-guide who withdrew.

The lesson the clause encodes is that a failure by somebody you engaged is your failure where an alternative was genuinely available, which is a fair and uncomfortable standard.

Which is an argument for a second shuttle number rather than for a better excuse.

How the sub-guide arrangement should be documented is covered in the first sub-guide piece.

What should the terms say in advance?

That a reschedule is the remedy, and a refund is available.

A term stating that weather cancellations are rescheduled where possible and refunded where not gives you the reschedule-first position without appearing to withhold anything.

Which is the same structure as the federal clause: a defined excusable cause, a defined remedy, and a limit on how far the obligation runs.

Writing it down before the season means the conversation on the day is a reminder rather than a negotiation, and a client who accepted the term is not surprised by it.

It should also say who decides, because a weather term that does not name the decision-maker invites an argument about whether the conditions were bad enough.

Three sentences covers all of it.

What the wider cancellation ladder should say is covered in the refund policy piece.

What should be recorded?

The facts, because the clause makes them the basis of the remedy.

The federal version requires the facts and extent of the failure to be ascertained before the schedule is revised, which is a useful discipline even where nobody is checking.

Two minutes writing down which forecast you acted on, what the water was actually doing, what you decided and what you put to the client answers every question that can arise afterwards.

Photographs of the water cost nothing and are better evidence than any description.

Across a season it also builds a real figure for days lost to weather, which is a planning number almost nobody keeps and which decides how many dates you should be selling.

And where a client later disputes a charge or a credit, that record is the only thing that exists.

Why the record decides a dispute is covered in the chargebacks piece.

Where does weather recovery go wrong?

Five ways, and the first is leading with money.

Opening the conversation with a refund, which concedes the relationship before the client has decided anything.

Offering to reschedule without naming dates, which asks the client to do the work and produces a refund request instead.

Issuing a credit with no expiry, which converts a lost day into an obligation with no end.

Treating a cancellation you caused as a weather cancellation, which is the fault gate the clause states twice and which clients notice.

And deferring the whole thing to a follow-up, which loses the momentum that makes a reschedule hold.

How the no-show version differs is covered in the no-shows piece.

What the season's weather losses should feed into is covered in the cash flow piece.

Should the reschedule cost the client anything?

No, and charging for it undoes the whole thing.

A rescheduling fee on a day cancelled for weather asks the client to pay for something neither of you controlled, which is precisely the outcome the excusable-cause framework exists to avoid.

It also converts a goodwill act into a transaction and makes the refund the more attractive option, which is the opposite of what you want.

Where the reschedule genuinely costs you, for instance a shuttle already paid or a lodge night forfeited, that is a conversation to have honestly rather than a fee to impose.

Most clients will meet a real out-of-pocket cost stated plainly, and almost none will accept an administrative charge.

The distinction is between recovering a cost and monetising an inconvenience.

What the per-trip costs actually are is covered in the per-trip cost piece.

What if the weather clears?

Do not reopen the decision.

A forecast that was right at six in the evening and wrong by seven the next morning happens, and the temptation is to phone back and un-cancel.

Which is a mistake, because the client has already rearranged their day and a second call converts a decisive guide into an unreliable one.

The exception is where you called it very early and said explicitly that you would look again, which is a different promise and should be kept.

Otherwise, a cancelled day stays cancelled, and the correct response to a beautiful morning is to fish it yourself or do the boat work.

Being wrong occasionally is the cost of deciding early, and deciding early is worth far more than being right every time.

Why the decision time should be stated in advance is covered in the weather cancellation piece.

What is the working sequence?

Decide, phone, name two dates, confirm the same day.

Ask yourself first whether the cause was genuinely beyond your control, because that decides whether this is a reschedule or an apology with money attached.

Phone rather than message, state the decision, and offer two specific dates in the same breath.

Mention the refund only if they hesitate, then offer it plainly and without resistance, alongside a credit with a stated life if that suits them better.

Confirm whatever they choose in writing the same day, while the momentum holds.

And before leaving, note the forecast, the state of the water, the call you made and which option they took, with a picture attached.

The clause sits in a part whose amendments are recorded at 72 FR 27394, and the statutory framework for federal procurement is at 41 U.S.C. 1303.

How the season should be planned around weather losses is covered in the storm season piece.