Cancelled holiday due to surgery.

[Iamacatslave]

We were due to fly to Corfu on 9th June to 17th June. We booked our holiday through Celestyal travel. Unfortunately we had to cancel, due to my daughter needing surgery, which she had on the 9th June. I asked our travel agent June 1st, if we could amend our dates, told no and would have to cancel our holiday. Ended up cancelling our trip. We do have holiday insurance, but if it does accept our claim it will be a fraction of the cost. I emailed the hotel and asked if they would have allowed us to amend our dates and they said yes. Unfortunately with it being booked through an agent, they can’t do anything. Am I being unreasonable to ask Celestyal travel to do the same. The flights were with BA business class.

That is very poor on the part of both the travel agent and the insurance company. I guess this is why you have to read the T&C very carefully. I am sorry your dd had to have surgery. I hope she is recovering ok.

Have you actually had a quote from your insurer? We had the same and the excess and admin charge was minimal.

Why doesn't your insurance cover the full cost?

BA will sometimes give you a voucher for the flights. I just used a BA voucher for a flight I couldn't use a year ago, it wasn't in connection with an insurance claim, I had an urgent family emergency and had to cancel.

I have never heard of Celestyal Travel. Are they a big company?

This is one for travel insurance. I wouldn’t expect any travel company to change things a week before.

was it surgery for a pre declared condition?

It’s usually covered by travel insurance. Why aren’t they covering the full amount?

Yes. It was a pre declared condition on our insurance.

Fairly big company, they are part of the Hays Group

I work for a Tour Operator. Frankly it doesn’t matter what the hotel say, or what the airline say, as you’ve booked with a third party and therefore accepted THEIR terms and conditions (and frankly hotels saying ‘oh yes we could change it if you’d booked direct’ to people who haven’t is the bane of my life). At my work for example we have our own contracts with hotels that differ from the terms they offer direct customers. We wouldn’t allow a change less than 2 weeks from travel either as our contracts likely wouldn’t allow it.

The benefit in booking a whole package of course is when something goes wrong with any element of it, then you’re completely covered. If BA had cancelled your flights then the Tour Operator would also have to refund your hotel, assuming they’re ATOL & ABTA registered. Often they’d still have to pay the hotel, we had to pay tens of thousands to non-refundable hotels (while also refunding clients) when flights were cancelled during Covid.

That said, I see no reason why you wouldn’t be able to claim in full less excess from your insurers, in this situation (unless your Daughter was waiting for a surgery date when you booked, that’s trickier).

It would depend on the policy limits for cancellation. For example the policy could only cover a maximum of 2k per person and they could have 100 xs per person.

If the OP skimped on insirance cover the this is the risk she took.

This is a shame. We had exactly this situation, our daughter had to have (planned) surgery and we were given a date a month before our holiday. TUI moved the whole thing free of charge as a good will gesture.

My back up plan was travel insurance though.

Absolutely

I have reread my travel insurance documents, it £5000 per person, not £5000 in total as I had originally thought. If they accept my claim, I should be able to claim for the majority of our holiday.

Many thanks for all your replies.

Brilliant 🤩 hope your daughters surgery goes well.

Thankfully I do have travel insurance.

That sounds much better!