The Times Weekend - UK (2020-08-01)

54 Travel

Don’t put

up with this

Trip cancelled

without warning

In June I booked a £17,500 family

holiday to the Ikos Olivia hotel in

Greece with Travel Republic. At the

beginning of July I logged on to the

British Airways website and saw that

our Gatwick flight had been cancelled

and we were being offered an

alternative from Heathrow. I couldn’t

accept the change because it required

an International Air Transport

Association (IATA) agent number.

I phoned BA, which couldn’t help. I

tried Travel Republic and realised that

its phone lines were suspended. For

ten days I tried to contact them and

then logged on to my booking to see

that the trip had been cancelled

completely. Can you help?

Katy Bassett, via email

You were one of dozens of Travel

Republic customers who took to social

media to complain that their holidays

had been cancelled without their

knowledge days before departure.

After my intervention, however, the

company quickly reinstated your trip. A

spokeswoman said that a small number

of customers had their holidays auto-

cancelled without being contacted first.

“This was due to a human error,

which grouped these bookings into a

number of holidays that were cancelled

because of Foreign Office advice,” she

said. “We apologise and regret any

unnecessary stress this may have

caused and would like to reassure all

customers affected that we will be in

touch to reinstate their bookings.”

It is still hard to understand why

a similar statement couldn’t have been

posted on Twitter at the time.

Q

My mum turns a youthful
80 in November and
would love to take us all
on a safari holiday for
about ten days next year,
possibly during February
half-term. There would be a group of
nine, including four children, and we’d
like leisure facilities, including a pool
and gym. Several members of the party
are particularly tasty to midges. Money
is not a huge issue, within reason.
Sara Jones, via email

A

One great safari spot in
February would be Kenya,
where you can see rhinos,
lions, elephants, buffalo and
more in one place — and
expect fewer mosquitoes, thanks to the
relatively high altitude and drier climate.
Big swimming pools and gyms aren’t
generally part of the safari experience,
but if they’re a deal-breaker, stay at the
Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club,
which has excellent facilities.
Kuoni could offer two nights in
Nairobi (visit the elephant orphanage,
which is perfect for children) plus five
nights’ full board at Fairmont Mount
Kenya for about £2,850pp. Game drives
and certain activities are not included,
though, and it would cost between £500
and £600 a day for the whole group to
go on safari (kuoni.co.uk).
For a more traditional safari
experience stay at Borana, a privately
run lodge in a rhino conservancy, which
has a pool (but not a gym) and a
spectacular setting in the shadow of
Mount Kenya. You could follow this
with a stay at the beach at Kinondo
Kwetu, a family-run lodge south of
Mombasa. Eight nights split
between the two properties starts
at £3,930pp, including internal
flights, accommodation, all meals,
house drinks and safari activities
(aardvarksafaris.co.uk). Kenya
Airways flights start at £570pp.

Q I’ve booked a holiday to the
Galapagos in November. My tour is
with a local company and so far I’ve

Travel doctor Solving your holiday dilemmas

Julia Brookes

Consumer expert

previous offer of settlement. Can it

do this?

Sarah Gloger, via email

A Unfortunately, once you accepted the

voucher, it meant that your contract

with BA was terminated, so when the

flight was cancelled, you weren’t covered

by EU Regulation 261 and couldn’t claim

a refund. According to the Civil Aviation

Authority, because of this, it’s unlikely

you will have any luck with an

alternative dispute resolution service.

But if you’re determined to go ahead, the

voucher is not a settlement and of

course you would be entitled to keep it.

BA said: “We always comply with

our legal obligations and if we cancel

a flight we offer customers the choice of

a refund or a voucher for future travel.

If a customer chooses to cancel their

booking for a flight that remains

operating they can choose to accept a

voucher.”

Contact us

If you have a gripe, suggestion or question

relating to your holidays, please email

[email protected] or you

can tweet your comments to Julia Brookes

at @travdr. Regrettably, we are unable

to accept postal correspondence

at this time.

paid £2,700 towards the total of £5,400.

The balance is due in September and

I have to pay by bank transfer. If I pay,

and the tour is cancelled nearer the

time, is my money protected? I have

also paid £590 for my flights to Quito

with KLM. What happens if my tour is

cancelled, but the flights operate?

Byron Jones, via email

A Ecuador declared the Galapagos

Islands Covid-19 free in June and

the Galapagos National Park has

reopened, so your tour may go

ahead. But unless the Foreign

Office changes its advice about

travel to Ecuador, this trip will be

off-limits. If the local operator won’t

refund you, hopefully it will let you

transfer the booking to 2021 because

paying by bank transfer means you have

none of the financial protection that

comes with card and Paypal payments.

You may be able to make a claim on

insurance. As for the flight, if it takes

off you won’t be entitled to a refund.

Q I have received an email from Pierre

& Vacances regarding a refund for a

skiing holiday that was booked for

Easter, but was cancelled because of

the French lockdown. It says we can

only have a credit note because it has

been instructed by the French

government not to refund in cash.

Surely this stance is against EU

legislation on refunds. What can I do?

Les Brunton, via email

A France is one of the countries that has

allowed companies to issue credit notes

instead of refunds, but EU law still

stands. You will, however, struggle to

get your money back and should email

details of your case to the European

Consumer Centre (ukecc.net), which

may be able to help.

Q I feel I should have been offered a

refund instead of a voucher when it

became clear that my travelling

companion and I wouldn’t be able to

fly with BA to Canada because of the

pandemic. We weren’t advised that

if we waited until the flight was

cancelled we would be entitled to a

refund (of more than £3,000) and

accepted the voucher because we

thought there was no alternative. BA

has told me it acted correctly and it’s

not possible for vouchers to be

converted to refunds. It said we can

complain to the Centre for Effective

Dispute Resolution (CEDR), but if

we do, and the CEDR takes on the

complaint, it will withdraw any

Elephants in southern

Kenya. Below: green sea

turtle, Galapagos Islands

GETTY IMAGES