Looking for other help? Check the train or coach company’s website to find out how to claim. On 16 November after numerous phone calls and web chats, she was promised a refund and collection of the cooker as Currys were unable to replace it, saying they had none in stock. Even if the package holiday firm or airline does cancel your trip, some travel firms are making it difficult to get refunds for cancellations and are only giving vouchers. If you're due to travel to an area which has a high volume of coronavirus cases but there's no Foreign Office warning at the time you travel, and you're worried about the heightened risk of the virus due to your age or underlying health conditions, speak to your insurer to discuss your options. You do not need to contact Sun holidays – your park will cancel your holiday with us and your refund will be processed automatically. Things are more complex if your holiday is running and your accommodation is open but you're unable to go due to lockdown restrictions either at your holiday destination or in your local area. Do check the small print of your contract for any specific exclusions though, and you may also want to consider showing forbearance if you can – if you're offered a rebooking instead of a refund and are happy to take it, it helps at a time when the travel industry is struggling as never before. At present … According to ABTA, the travel trade association, those who booked a package holiday which cannot go ahead as planned, are entitled to a refund. 2) Try going to your card firm and asking it for a refund (ask for chargeback first, then try Section 75 if that doesn't work). The name Loveholidays has become a scourge of many travellers during the pandemic. In Northern Ireland, it's not quite clear but we'll update the train tickets guide when we have more info. You may be able to cancel under your usual terms and conditions, or ask for more flexibility such as a date change. The holiday was cancelled the week prior due to the Covid-19 outbreak and we told Travel Planners that we wanted a cash refund, not a credit note. You may also find Brits are banned from returning to the UK from certain countries, such as passengers arriving in England from South Africa, amid new coronavirus strain fears. Those who make a new claim by the end of September should be refunded within 60 days. Claim a year's worth of tax relief. Instead they were told this was not available and they would have to accept a credit note. Travel firms named and shamed for refund performances – what did MSE's poll find? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. You can try the steps we outline above, but there are no guarantees and you may be less likely to have success if your trip isn't technically forbidden by law. For package holidays, trade body ABTA says providers are only obliged to put you up for three nights if your return trip is cancelled. BA Holidays. Important: This is a fast-changing situation. 3) If you are prepared to play hardball, threaten court action. Your rights explained as borders are shut around the world to control outbreak. If you can't get a refund this way and you had booked your cruise as part of a package holiday, you may have some protection under the Package Travel Regulations if you had a major alteration to your itinerary – though it's unlikely that changes to a couple of stops on a long cruise would count as "significant". Then there are the unknown eventualities, like Icelandic volcanoes or pandemics. If you're abroad for longer than planned due to your return journey being disrupted by travel bans, insurers we spoke to said your cover would be extended. If the flight is still going (or the hotel is still open) then some travel agents are saying that as the holiday can be provided, they are under no obligation to refund, or to only refund the parts of the package that aren’t able to be provided. Can I get a refund for a travel insurance policy I won't use? This is Money is part of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday & Metro media group, For canny savers it pays to go local: Building societies paying up to 1.65% while big banks offer just 0.01%, Forget diets, here's clever ways to pile on pounds! We've heard from MoneySavers who have had 'cancellation charges' of up to £75 per person taken off their refunds by their travel agent after an airline or package holiday firm has cancelled their trip. How much should you be saving for your kids to go to uni? See our Small Claims Court guide for full help. It should also include or link to guidance to filling out the claim form. We ask Tom Slater about its 105% return in a year, Tesla, and investments for the future on the INVESTING SHOW, Investing in the gift of gold: Royal Mint saw a 510% surge in gold sales in the  run-up to Christmas with more millenial customers buying in. You've confirmed you have received the money. 'Severely mentally impaired' council tax discount, Travel insurance for pre-existing conditions. What if everything's closed at my destination – can I get a refund? If you were due to pay on collection, you can cancel right up to the time your rental was set to start. Firms will naturally want to push you to accept a voucher or rebook your holiday, as it avoids them having to cough up. To give you an idea of what insurers are doing, here's what some of the big firms told us back in April – though their policies may have changed since then, so it's worth checking directly (unless otherwise stated, the info for each insurer in the table below applies to all its policies): Which travel insurers are issuing refunds for unused policies? If your flight is delayed for 5 hours or more, you can get a refund for the parts of your journey you did not fly. This deadline came and went after which you received an email stating Travel Planners staff were furloughed until 4 December and therefore, the refund would be processed after this date. Keep hold of receipts and only expect reasonable costs to be reimbursed. It has now been nearly nine months that you have been back and forward with the firm trying to claim a cash refund as opposed to a credit note. One package holiday customer had his family trip to Disney World in Florida cancelled last year. If you have consequential losses, you can follow the steps above to try and recover them. How to get a refund on your holiday if its cancelled and how long should it take to get cash back Contact your travel provider first. Separately, all international travellers returning to the UK now need to quarantine on arrival, while negative coronavirus test results also need to be submitted. Martin Lewis is a registered trade mark belonging to Martin S Lewis. Under the Package Travel Regulations, if you book a holiday including transport and accommodation that is cancelled by the operator, you are entitled to a full cash refund within two weeks. Even then, if the deposit is small and the balance is large, and you think you're very unlikely to travel, taking this hit may be an easy option. The best bet is to speak to your holiday or accommodation provider and ask what it'll offer. In that time, she's had to go out and buy another cooker so is now down £350 from Currys on top of the almost £500 she had to pay out for a new cooker. Some countries may also require you to show a negative test result on arrival. My family and I had a package holiday booked for July 2020 to Disney World Florida costing £8,040 through Travel Planners. I would ask for a chargeback. It's still worth checking with your insurer – but most policies won't cover you for coronavirus-related cancellation if you took out the insurance and booked your trip after mid-March 2020. (1) If purchased from 1 Jan - 14 Jul 2020, a three-month extension is added. To get a refund, you need to have booked your journey on or after 24 November 2020 - and before the rules changed on 19 December 2020. What if travel to UK accommodation by coach or train is also cancelled? After it replies, or after eight weeks if it doesn't, you can then go on to the free Financial Ombudsman to adjudicate. You'll also need to show proof of a negative 'pre-departure' coronavirus test before you are able to travel to the UK. Section 75 protection covers transactions costing between £100 and £30,000 - where at least part of the purchase was made using your credit card. 'I'm a pretty clumsy person at the best of times and a couple of weeks ago spilt tea all over my laptop keyboard, which broke the whole thing. But it's much murkier – and again, you need to remember these are untested situations and ultimately only a court can decide how the law applies in different scenarios. You told the customer service assistant this but they replied that many of their customers were 'fraudulently' claiming a refund and asked you to prove you hadn't – which you found ridiculous. My outbound flight's been cancelled but the return hasn't – what are my refund rights? a scheme where a customer's bank asks for money back from the supplier's bank. 'Due to human error her appliance wasn't collected when agreed. Yet if you've booked a package holiday and were sold on the basis that you'd be able to visit a specific attraction and this was the main reason you booked the trip, you could argue that the attraction being closed counts as a "significant change" to your holiday under the Package Travel Regulations, and therefore ask for a refund. Will my travel insurer cover me if I move my holiday? Welcome to our new weekly column, where This is Money consumer expert Grace Gausden tackles reader problems and shines the light on companies doing both good and bad. It was cancelled a week before but I still haven't got a refund. Until the CMA action, some Tui customers said they'd not been able to put their voucher details into the online refund form, and have had trouble calling up for help. If all else fails, there's the legal route. The info below is the best we have currently, but we'll be updating this guide daily. For any unrecoverable costs, you may be able to make a claim through your travel insurer if you have the right kind of policy. Think carefully about whether you want to do this and how hard to push. Millions of people across the UK have been left uncertain as to whether they're allowed to go on a foreign holiday, after more areas were plunged into England's top level of coronavirus restrictions today. If you're struggling to get help, you can also try contacting the UK embassy in the country for assistance. Save your house sale from the stamp duty cliff edge: It's predicted 100,000 buyers will miss the deadline and get a big tax bill, Home repossessions set to surge tenfold next year as support schemes dry up, BUSINESS LIVE: Inflation up to 0.6%; Strong e-sales at Dixons Carphone; WH Smith expects £15m-£20m monthly cash burn, What CAN Britain learn from Beijing? There is no upper limit to claims on claims of this nature. As insurance only covers unknown events, that's the period most classed the pandemic as a known event. There's no guarantee this will work, but some who've struggled to get other travel refunds, eg, for Ryanair flights, have had joy this way. Many airlines are offering different options for cancelled flights such as amendments or future booking discounts which you … BA is … It is not enshrined in law so there is no obligation to offer it, but it is a part of card rules for banks and lenders, though these rules may vary between card companies. If you've taken the test and the trip is still going ahead but you now can't go, you need to contact the provider you ordered the test from to see if it'll refund you - but there are no guarantees. If you do want to push for cash or you're struggling to get any refund, here's what we'd suggest, but there are no hard and fast rules: 1) Insist on a refund in writing. There is a cost for doing this – it's £25 to £300, and it's refunded if you win. Its guidance states that consumers should get their money back if they're not provided with a service due to lockdown laws, or can't access what they paid for "because, for example, lockdown laws in the UK or abroad have made it illegal to receive or use the goods or service". Want her to investigate a problem, or do you want to praise a firm for going that extra mile? With official advice constantly changing, how … And with both, if you are rejected you have the right to go on to the free Financial Ombudsman, which can adjudicate.". See more in I've bought travel insurance – am I covered? So if your holiday or accommodation booking is cancelled, you're likely due a full refund and should ask for one if it's not offered. UPDATE: Dozens more customers have been in touch about disappointing customer service from Currys on the back of my story in December. Many insurers will make a decision on a case-by-case basis. The key in both situations is often whether your travel provider has cancelled your booking. Is crypto really the new 'millennial gold'? And see below for full info on your rights if your travel plans are affected by lockdown restrictions. I've bought travel insurance – am I covered? Others tell us they've struggled to get in touch with the firms or have been told conflicting info – some were originally given timeframes of between 14 and 90 days, then told that it would take longer. But it adds that you may risk invalidating your policy cover if you travel despite being advised to self-isolate, because your policy may insist that you abide by Government advice. However some say they're struggling to get refunds, and it may be because some budget airlines don't consider it a return flight but two individual flights. But if you're booking trips for the future, see our Cheap Travel Insurance guide. But many of the UK’s biggest holiday providers are refusing or delaying cash refunds. All holidays before 15 May 2020 have been cancelled. If you opt for a refund credit note, you can choose at any point up to 30 September 2021 to cash it in for a refund instead. 30,000 have enrolled in the free MSE Academoney, 108Mb Virgin fibre b'band & line '£18.40/mth', Cheapest-ever iPhone 11 contract we've seen. After waiting four months, I chased again and was told my refund hadn't been processed as I may have tried to use the Chargeback scheme. I've booked a holiday but not yet paid in full – should I pay the remaining balance? The Government is providing parents of some children in England who qualify for free school meals with £15 food vouchers which can be used at multiple supermarkets, however M&S is topping up the vouchers for its stores to £20, covering the cost of the extra £5 itself. Miss: This week, a reader, Ray, also found himself struggling to get a refund from a travel firm, Great Rail Journeys. If you'd prefer, you can request a full cash refund at any time. 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