I got bored looking out at snow, I’ve run out of beer ( Saltaire Brewery delivery cancelled due to adverse weather conditions) so had a look at unopened emails.
LV, with whom I have an annual policy, sent an email late December re cancelling policies and obtaining a refund. Phoned them on their 0800, and a pro rata refund was made within a minute. No cancellation fees, refund back onto my c card. Easy.
When I next travel abroad, if it’s still against FCO advice, which it was last October, I’ll take out a policy with an insurer providing Covid health cover as I did then.
Should have cancelled my LV policy three months ago !
|
I'm down by a €200 hotel in Ghent for a 2 night stay booked for last May. They gave us a credit note till this May which will probably be useless (unless we've had full course of vaccines etc) and have refused to extend it further, or refund. I possibly could go through insurance but not sure I can be bothered as I suspect they'll say we have been given a credit note which we could have used in the summer.
Also I have a credit for Eurotunnel which has to be booked by end April but can book a year ahead.
We lost a bit on an unused non-cancellable car hire last March too.
Also have lost £90 (poss £320, depending if owner refunds us herself) on an AirBNB booking for March - booked after Airbnbs cut off date for free Covid cancellation.
Also have an airport parking for March (c £90) to negotiate - hoping at least they they will allow a rebooking next March.
To be fair the last two were entered into once Covid was out there and we knew we were taking a risk. If we'd gone we'd have spent a whole lot more!!
Not sure of your age LL but some insurances are more difficult to get over 60- or over 65, incl one of the Covid insurances.
|
The battleface policy I took out to provide covid cover when travelling against FCO advice to SA was a lot more expensive if you were over 59. As it was, I’m 49 and it was less than £60 for 20 days cover. And they refunded in 48 hours.
Maybe I’ve been lucky, or perhaps because of who I booked with, but I had 4 holidays booked in 2019 for travel in 2020 cancelled - Malta, Zanzibar, Thailand and Australia. For all 4 I had full refunds for what I’d paid. Most were booked with BA or BA holidays, and were refunded in a matter of days. The flight to Thailand was with mainly with Qatar and had a complex routing so was booked via a travel agent. That took about a month to get refunded. The hotels for that trip (Copenhagen, Oslo, Doha, Bangkok) were booked on booking.com and cancelable without penalty.
Even the SA trip I booked in December for December was refunded in under a week - separate components of flight (avios), hotel (BA holidays), car (Avis), parking (purple parking) and insurance (battleface). I’ve got a voucher from BA for the hotel and from purple parking, the rest were refunded. If I’d been in tier 4 when I cancelled I’d have got a full cash refund from BA for the hotel, but I wasn’t and I cancelled a few days before flights from SA were banned. But the vouchers will get used so I’m not bothered by that.
So I have still yet to ever claim on any travel insurance, despite possibly the most disrupted period of travel I can remember!
|
Travel insurance refunds - smokie
