Have you had your holiday refunded?

[FlamingoAndJohn]

I was thinking it might be helpful to have a list of holiday companies that have refunded without fuss.
It would certainly influence my choice when booking in the future.

I was booked to go away with Lastminute.com. Although the refund did take a little longer than it should to come through I got every penny back.

Virgin cancelled our holiday in early May, two weeks before we were due to travel. I immediately requested a refund but heard nothing back and a voucher was attached to the cancellation email.

It took me until last week to finally get to speak to someone about changing the voucher to a refund and when they did that it put me in the queue for a refund which they are saying takes up to 120 days from that point....so 113 days left to wait unless they change it again as it’s gone from 45 days to 90 and now to 120.

There’s a very active Facebook group for people waiting for refunds from Virgin and quite a number are still waiting for refunds for holidays that they should’ve gone on in late March.

I’ve always really rated Virgin and have always flown to the US with them but never again. Their handling of this is losing them a lot of customers if the Facebook group is anything to go by.

I had flights to Slovenia booked with jet 2. They refunded straight away after cancellation. Luckily I hadn't got round to booking anywhere to stay so didn't have anything else to cancel.

My EasyJet flights were cancelled and I opted to rebook for April next year at to no extra cost. I think the price of flights could go through the roof before then.

@hairygodmother

Sykes. Bloody awful. No personal communication, impossible to get hold of, one holding email sent with no salient information. Website no useful info either. Automatically deducted the quite considerable cancellation fee. Shocking behaviour.

Same here thankfully they only got the deposit of 200 quid not the full holiday price. Say only but not thrilled about it

A person local to us who runs holiday accommodation & was not entitled to any government support has just taken their own life.

It was inevitable really, he might have had enough to get by had he not been forced to refund deposits - which in the T&C's were non refundable. Many people have no means of protecting their businesses.

I'm not trying to shame anyone or blame people for pursuing refunds, losing a holiday must is tough, but there are losers in all these situations.

Trailfinders - no problem at all. They contacted me and asked if I wanted a refund or to rebook for another time. No push back at all when I said refund. A dream to deal with and would definitely book with them next time.

Air Transat - voucher and no refund. Currently trying a chargeback on credit card.

Air BnB - refund seven days after asking for it.

Norwegian Airlines refunded very quickly for flights at end of July - however, they had made a change to the outbound flight, so I think that might be why it was so quick and easy.
Airbnb and Booking.com great - but I had chosen ones that offer free cancellation until a couple of weeks before.
BA long haul flights in October to a country likely to keep restrictions - we are only eligible for a voucher, or just airport taxes if we want a refund. We could hold out to see if it's cancelled but I think we will take the voucher.

I had flights booked with Norwegian and requested a refund after having changed the date initially. They've refunded me £270 so far, but the total flights cost was £1601, so confused as to what is going on. None of the options on the phone line is to help with refunds so that's not useful. Fortunately I work in my company's travel team so I've asked my corporate account manager to take a look what is happening with my claim.

Just to put some things into perspective, although a lot of the companies mentioned are big, they're not necessarily cash rich. Norwegian and Lufthansa are two airlines struggling to keep their heads above the water at the moment. To suddenly have thousands of people demanding cash is something they have to manage carefully, hence why they'd like you to take a voucher instead and are taking time to process any refunds. I know that's not the consumer's problem, and we'd all like our money right now, but helps explain their tactics and delays. Don't be surprised to see some of these companies go bust trying to deal with the financial implications of CV19.

The reason why a lot of these companies are taking so long to refund is that they don’t usually operate with big cash balances - they don’t hold your deposit til your holiday, they use the money when it comes in to pay their immediate bills. They won’t have the money to actually pay out refunds until people start booking holidays again and that brings in some more cash. If people don’t start booking in large volumes within a month or two it will become increasingly difficult for these companies to avoid insolvency as they value of the claims against them will exceed the value of the company itself.

Anyone who’s been offered a voucher / switched their booking to next year / etc should be very aware that this is the risk they are taking. By the time you come to use the voucher / go on your deferred holiday the company might not be there anymore.

Yes, I was very impressed. We were supposed to fly out in May (on my 30th birthday ), just London for a few days but I was really looking forward to it.

We booked a non-refundable rate at the hotel but they gave us back the full amount. BA originally said we could claim a voucher online but I phoned them and they gave us a full cash refund, no quibbles.

@Piggywaspushed
After phoning Villa Plus every day and emailing several times, we finally had contact from them, but only after contacting them via Facebook Messenger (and they replied at 11pm at night!). They said they’ll look into our case but we haven’t heard anything since....
Needless to say, we won’t be using them again!

Sykes cottages have just turned their phone off and refusing to take any calls 🤷🏼‍♀️

Jet 2 were brilliant. We didn't have to contact them at all. We had an email saying they would be working on refunds in chronological order and when our turn came we got another email and the money was paid into the account the following.

I will definitely be using them as soon as we are able to travel again.

… the following day.

Emirates Airlines shocking at refunds . Booked Direct Flight cancelled end of March. Despite offering refund and chasing frequently on Twitter I am yet to see the money

I want to book a UK cottage next year... who should I avoid or go with? Any advice as don't want to give money to those who were not giving people good customer service. I want to support the nicer companies.

@Raindancer411 don't touch Sykes cottages. They've been appalling and have just ignored everybody and switched phones off. They've been in the press a lot

BA were amazing and refunded within days of them cancelling. Deposit could only be refunded in form of a voucher though, but that was fine for us

Canvas holidays refunded with no problems even though I cancelled by choice at the start of lockdown, I lost £99 deposit but was happy to accept that instead of waiting until they cancelled the holiday.

Car hire booked directly with easyJet was refunded in full immediately.

easyJet flights - I had to wait until they cancelled the flights, which they did 2 weeks ago. No refund yet, still waiting.

Premier Inn emailed and offered me my money back I'm glad they did as I had forgotten I had booked to stay at the airport for the night before the flights!

Qatar refunded without issue. Europcar also refunded quickly.

Still waiting for Ryanair and think I could be waiting a lot longer. Accor Hotel in Paris refused refund but have given a credit which I will hopefully use next year.

Forgot ---- EuroStar refunded instantly - very impressed.

We were due to fly 2nd May with TUI.

We got refunded 2 weeks ago.

After several very long phone calls where we were on hold for hours, fobbed off, cut off but we got there in the end.

Full refund from Tui. You need to read the small print, but once I found the correct link to request a refund there was no problem.

[quote molifly14]@Raindancer411 don't touch Sykes cottages. They've been appalling and have just ignored everybody and switched phones off. They've been in the press a lot [/quote]
Thank you :)

@Raindancer411
What about going via Air BnB? We found a lovely cottage in Anglesey via them and the owner has been amazing. No hassle at all and a fantastic place to stay.