Frequently Asked Questions

Are tickets sent electronically?

In most cases, yes. Some memberships and the National Parks pass require physical tickets to be mailed, and for these kits we ask that you give us at least 2-3 weeks lead time before your preferred trip date. For all other locations, tickets will be delivered by email usually within 24 hours of trip planning form submittal. Kits are digital-only. No physical materials or tickets are included in the kit itself; purchase provides access to our digital materials and future booking service when you’re ready to reserve tickets.

What is your return policy?

Kits are service reservation digital products and have no cash value. As long as you haven’t planned your trip and your kit order is less than 2 weeks old, we can issue a full refund. If your kit is over 2 weeks old, we can issue a full store credit which can be used on other approved field trips, or we can cancel and refund the order minus a $30 cancellation fee per kit. Once tickets are purchased there can be no refunds, returns, or store credits issued, except in the event of a location cancellation, postponement, or rescheduling. In those cases, Explorer Field Trips will request a refund from the location and pass any refund received through to your school within 30 days or reinstate the kit as unused.

How long does it take to get the kits?

This depends largely on the processing time of the individual schools. Once your school orders online they will automatically and immediately receive a confirmation kit email to forward to you which contains all of the instructions you need to plan your trip. Once you plan your trip by submitting the trip planning form, tickets are usually emailed or mailed within another 1-2 business days, with the exception of some locations which require more time.

How long do I have to use my kits?

Kits are service reservation digital products and have no cash value. They expire one year after the date they were purchased. It is best to use your kits relatively soon after their purchase date to make sure you don’t hit the expiration date. Kits cannot be used, returned, refunded, or converted to store credit once they are expired.

Why can’t kits be used past their one year expiration?

Ticket prices and location offerings change constantly, and our pricing agreements with locations are time-bound — after one year we can no longer guarantee that the kit price covers the actual cost of the tickets. Our school vendor relationships also come with reporting and compliance requirements at the federal, state, and school district levels that require us to maintain strict kit timelines. We’ve had this policy since the beginning, and over the years these requirements have only become more structured, making exceptions impossible even in cases where we’d genuinely like to help. Expired kits cannot be refunded, credited, or extended under any circumstances. We strongly recommend planning your trip soon after your school places the order. Thank you for understanding!

What’s included in the cost of your kits?

There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to create and support these field trips. Ticket purchasing fees from the locations, taxes and/or shipping, merchant processing fees, Master Explorers hosting, purchase order processing and invoice management, reservation planning, trip organizing, location liaison dedication, and one year of kit price protection for unexpected ticket price increases or changes to location offerings are all included in the kit price. We check location prices and offers multiple times throughout the year, and will always lower prices whenever we can. Providing the best field trips and excellent customer service are super important to us, and every penny of the kit cost goes to that end. Thank you!!

How does the ticket service work?

Explorer Field Trips acts as a concierge procurement service, purchasing admission tickets directly from locations on behalf of and at the direction of the purchasing school. Tickets are procured in the name of the school’s students using information provided by the school or on the trip planning form. Explorer Field Trips is not a ticket reseller, ticket broker, or secondary ticket marketplace, and does not acquire tickets speculatively for resale.

What about COVID?

Kits purchased before the COVID closures were given an extra year of use upon reopening. This was to match the ticketing policies of the locations, who, almost without fail, extended their expiration dates by a year. Since locations reopened beginning in October 2020 and through April 2021, this means that all kits purchased before or during the COVID closures were usable through April 2022. We continued to give medical exceptions through April 2023 where possible for locations we still worked with. There are no longer any exceptions due to COVID closures or complications.

For more detailed information, please see our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy pages. Thanks!

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