Is there any hope of getting a refund? Over £500!

[TeacherMa]

Had rather optimistically booked a trip for my parents from London to Edinburgh from 30th Dec to 2nd Jan. Train was almost £200, hotel was almost £200. Then I booked theatre tickets and lots of little day trip things individually too. It was a joint birthday/Christmas/anniversary gift for them.

Understandably, parents are now anxious it won’t go ahead due to a possible lockdown. They’ve asked me today to start looking into a refund or switching dates.

Train tickets are non refundable under any circumstances. Hotel can be rearranged not cancelled. But theatre tickets etc are also non refundable.

Is my best hope to wait until a lockdown is announced?

Are you sure about the theatre?
Last Christmas I had a few things booked (theatre, Kew, HP world) and all were refunded.

Could you sell them on? That's what we're trying to do with our panto tickets as the theatre won't refund or reschedule. No one wants them though!

If it’s LNER I thought they were offering refunds on advance tickets before the end of the year. They definitely refunded me a couple of months ago. Have they given you a definite no?

The only thing you can do is ask and no harm doing so. I think though unfortunately if there is going to be a lockdown in Scotland it’ll be after the new year

But I must add I have no inside info for that I just live in Scotland and don’t feel a lockdown is looming but what do I know 🤷‍♀️

Rumours of circuit breaker lockdown so I'd just wait until that's announced. I'm due to go to Butlins on the 27th so I'm holding out to see if it gets cancelled.

Thanks everyone. Have spent this afternoon calling and emailing round.

Train tickets were bought through Scotrail. They'll allow for me to arrange a credit voucher if I request this up to 1 day before the trip.

Hotel will allow me to change dates of the booking 1 day before the trip.

Theatre will also allow me to amend date for this performance but say they can't swap it for another performance or credit voucher. Not great when the alternative performance dates are within weeks of originally booked date.

Most of the other things like afternoon tea etc will allow me to change the date but some wont allow me to cancel or swap date at all totalling just over £100 loss.

Since the majority can be rearranged 1 day before the trip, I'm just going to wait for an announcement. I'll get a full refund for everything if they cancel on us rather than us cancelling on them.

Check your train tickets t and c, they might be non refundable but you might be able to swap the tickets for the same journey at a later date, we did this for a London trip when DD got covid

Well that's theatres now cancelling so at least the show tickets will be refunded. Looks like everything else will be exchange only.