Need to cancel a holiday and stand to lose ££s - any advice/tips?!

[sunseeker19]

Our family has a holiday to Egypt booked for 5 months time - due to the situation in the area we want to cancel or change the holiday. Onthebeach who we booked through, are saying that while we can get an almost full refund on the hotel, the flights they booked in the package via Tui are non-refundable. These flights are by far the most expensive part of the package. At best they "may" offer a transfer of up to 30% of the flight money to different Tui flights, but there is no guarantee of this and it still would leave us ££s down, especially once the change fees they also charge are taken into account. Do we have any other options that you can see? Any thoughts / advice gratefully received...!

Often travel insurance will refund if your destination is against FCO advice. Were you going to any of the places the FCO advises against here?

could you try selling on the whole thing on Facebook or something?
I’d probably still go though. If the foreign office decide it’s too dangerous to visit then would your insurance should cover it?

Have you got travel insurance?

You won't get cover from your insurance for "not wanting to go now" whatever the reasons are. You'd be covered if / when the FCO changes it's travel advice as above.

Just saw it’s 5 months’ time - I would be incline to wait and see how things are nearer the time.

Keep the flights and book a hotel further away from the border with Gaza? Longer transfer but at least you don't lose money or like others say see what's happening in the new year

Where are you going? We are just back from Hurgada not a sniff of trouble there. Hurgada and Sharm are nowhere near Gaza. Cairo a bit different I think.

I'd be minded to just follow the FCDO advice. If it's ok to go, I would go, if they change their advice then your insurance should cover you.

"Disinclination to travel" is not covered by insurance. You just don't fancy it any more - the reason for that is irrelevant. The resort areas of Sharm el Sheikh, Hurghada etc are 400 miles from Gaza.

You will not get your money back through insurance, if they are saying no refunds on hotel then you either have to write the money off, or go on holiday.

Hi, have you tried looking at selling on https://www.transfertravel.com/ ? I wasn't able to go on holiday anymore when I found out I was pregnant with my little one so put my holiday on there and it sold. I didn't get all of the money back but I got more than I would have if I had cancelled with my travel agent. Worth a look anyway, hope this helps!

We are just back from a week in Sharm, family of 4, 2 teens. We did consider cancelling but so glad we didn’t. Locals lovely, no talk about the conflict unless we mentioned it and we didn’t feel at all anxious when there.

I think you will struggle to get your money back OP and your best better is reselling the flights. We were due to go to Cairo and Nile last month and didn't feel comfortable following the terrorist activity over the border. The tour operator wouldn't refund but did 'reassure' that there were now armed guards at our hotel and on our boat! Unless the FCDO change your travel advice or you have a very lenient tour operator you wont get your money back. Unfortunately, we suffered a family bereavement just before the holiday and so were able to claim on insurance, but I was prepared to resell the holiday.

Some really useful ideas here, including ones we hadn't thought of, thanks so much everyone!

Coming back to update... After this thread we spent a while longer considering our options, including possibly going on the holiday, as we're aware that holidays are still operating perfectly safely to that area. However, during that (dithering) time the tour operator said they were cancelling our flights so we were eligible for a refund on the whole holiday! It turns out lots of tour operators are cancelling and consolidating onto far fewer Egypt flights at the moment, so if you are in a similar situation to ours, you may find you end up with the option to change your flights or receive a full refund. Hope this update helps someone else!

@sunseeker19 ad your sorted (sort of). We were booked to Marsa for Easter & notified our flight was cancelled a few days ago due to reviewing operations. Unfortunately their alternative wasn’t suitable so back to the drawing board sadly.

Sorry to hear that @EcoCustard . Hope you get refunded so you can find a great alternative holiday !