Help! I’m 93, My Postponed Cruise Has Been Postponed Again, and I’d Like My Money Back.

Dear Tripped Up,

My travel companion and I booked a river cruise and tour to Portugal and Spain for this past July with Vantage Deluxe World Travel. We paid in full, and bought insurance against trip interruption or cancellation through Vantage from TripMate. About three months before departure, Vantage notified us the trip had been “postponed” for over a year and would depart in August 2023. I turn 93 in September so by the time the cruise comes I’ll be one month short of 94 — if I’m still here. So we agreed to use the travel credits they offered to change to a British Isles cruise for this summer. Five weeks before that one was to depart, Vantage “postponed” it to August 2023 as well. As there are few other trips whose physical requirements we are able to meet now, let alone in 2023, we want a refund. They say we are stuck with the credits — in my case worth nearly $20,000. Can you help? — Bernice, New York

Dear Bernice,

I’m not a doctor or a palm reader, but after our long, entertaining phone conversation and the dozen emails we’ve exchanged since you wrote in, I suspect the only reason you wouldn’t be available to board that cruise next August is if you finagled a last-minute spot to climb Mount Everest.

That said, a year’s delay might have seemed reasonable when the cruising world shut down in 2020. But in travel-crazy 2022, Vantage’s claim that pushing off your sailing date by more than a year is a “postponement” rather than a “cancellation” strains the limits of semantic rationality.

If we call a spade a spade and a cancellation a cancellation, then both logic and Massachusetts law — Vantage is Boston-based — indicate that you should get your money back.

If only it were that easy. I tried to reach Vantage — and by that I mean I sent emails to the C.E.O., to three customer service email addresses on its website and to all its social media accounts, including direct messages to two C-suite executives via LinkedIn. Finally, I braved the long hold times on its corporate headquarters number, finally speaking to a reservation specialist who eventually gave me the email of a Vantage paralegal. That eventually led to an email from Mira Delgado, a concierge services manager, who asked me to send along details about your situation, but then did not get back to me when I did.

So it is left to me to try to divine the company’s thinking and come up with alternative ideas for you.

The second task is easier: You should file…