Zika Virus beware of Thomson First Choice advice

[dhare1]

Another member suggested I post this here as well as travel hope it helps people to stay safe.

Thomson Holidays and First Choice Holidays do not recognise Cape Verde as having Zika Virus (despite 4000+ cases) so you may find you have trouble getting refunds/ changing your holiday - I'm currently in this situation would have no problem going if I wasn't 25 weeks pregnant.

They won't change my flights until the FCO put out a specific warning for Cape Verde. Staff in shops also giving out its "safe as far as they are concerned" advice.

So please be wary if pregnant and check all advice before traveling or booking. Trying to get their attention via twitter but seems to be falling on deaf ears any retweets greatly appreciated twitter.com/HareDawn/status/691344415592468485
I've already decided I'll not go whatever happens but want to help awareness for all pregnant women

really useful advice dhare1. wondered if we could drop MNHQ a line and ask them to put out some more robust advice.

what worries me is the number of woman who think this doesn't affect them when actually it might. lost count of the number of posts I have seen on here from woman who got pregnant on holiday or who booked and then found out they were before travelling. really worried that this isn't having the prominence it needs to have because of the power of the tourism industry.

Thomson have updated. Anyone flying to Cape Verde that can prove they are pregnant with a doctors note can change their flights free of charge.

Vaw1 - great news. lets hope people see it. just had a long section about Zika on radio 4. Brazil are starting to take it seriously but apparently affluent pregnant women are leaving the country if they can. they have mobilised the army to spray standing water because of carnival and the Olympics.

They are talking about the virus on Victoria Derbyshire (bbc2) shortly

Hi everyone, following my last post about Thomson not letting me change my holiday to Mexico because I'm trying for a baby but not pregnant, I went to the Drs today and they agreed it was risky and are writing me a letter to confirm this. Thomson have now said that if we send them the letter they'll let us change. So relieved!!

Vm82. That's fab!

Hi Vm82, I was wondering if you have an update on your holiday to cape Verde? Me and my partner find ourselves in exactly the same situation. I called the Thomson helpline today and they say they will not change unless we can prove she is pregnant. I advised we are trying and can prove so with a doctors note but they said we would have to pay to change. Do you have the name of the person you spoke to at Thomson. Many thanks.

Hi dean200180, we've spoken to two different people at Thomson but don't have their names I'm afraid. As soon as we mentioned that I'd been to the doctors, they said we just needed to send them the letter from the doctor then we could choose another holiday. We sent the letter two days ago to the email ad they gave us ([email protected]) and waiting to hear back. We're going to chase tomorrow so I'll let you know how we get on! They are a bit of a nightmare to deal with, I spoke to a couple of really unhelpful people at first but when my husband rang he had more luck!

Thanks for your quick reply. Yeah, I got the impression they weren't going to be very helpful when I spoke to them today. Hope you get an answer from them soon. Be good to hear how you get on. Best of luck Vm82.

really glad to hear that there is some movement now on this. its clear its a global thing and how could you enjoy your holiday if you are ttc or actually pregnant. I hope that they put up signs at airports because there are still people who don't get the level of risk here.

good luck to all of you trying to get a change in destination and thanks for the feedback.

Here is a patient information leaflet on Zika virus in pregnancy produced by the UK teratology information service (I work there!). It was updated yesterday so contains all of the most up to date info. Feedback very welcome

www.medicinesinpregnancy.org/Medicine--pregnancy/Zika-virus/

Dean200180 just wanted to let you know that someone from the Thomson directors office called my husband yesterday and they confirmed that we can change our hol free of charge. He said it wasn't their policy to do this but were allowing it on a goodwill basis. I had emailed the CEO a week and half ago to complain, so I think that may be why they allowed the change (in addition to Drs letter) If you're still having issues with them, you could maybe try that? CEOs name is David Burling. Good luck, I hope you get to change and good luck TTC!

Thank you for the update Vm82. Glad you got it sorted and thanks for the heads up on the CEO. Just out of interest, which destination did you change to. It's difficult to choose an alternative being quite early on in the year and not knowing where the virus will spread to. We were due to travel on the 1st April.

Also, thank you LittlePeasMummy1 for the link. I will let my partner know about the link.

Dean200180- we decided to go to Thailand (Phuket) as we were there last year in January and loved it. We had more strife with Thomson yesterday when we tried to confirm our change but eventually got it sorted. Their customer service is a complete joke!

Thanks Vm82. I will let you know how we get on in a few days. Got a feeling it won't be straight forward. :-/