LOVE HOLIDAYS

[chocolateluvva]

We have a holiday booked with love holidays due to go out next week, however my parent is critically unwell and on end of life care (wasn’t at the time of me booking this holiday) however I called to have it amended today and they said someone will be in touch. We want to now change it for November. They are now asking for £1400 more plus whatever Tui will ask as our return is with them. However when calling to have it amended today they said it’s based on live booking and that currently is £3500 for november and we paid £3600 for October. How do they work the difference out?

Doesn’t your travel insurance cover you?

Yes, travel insurance is the answer.

It's probably the flights. You can't just change the date, you have to rebook afresh.

I'd have thought your travel insurance will cover it though.

I hadn’t even booked travel insurance yet. Is that something I can do now? As I haven’t gone ahead with amendments?

Travel insurance won't cover a pre-existing condition, so I fear you may have missed the boat for that. It really needs to be taken out at the time of booking for that reason. Seems like a massive price hike though. Good luck OP

Pre existing? My parent wasn’t traveling with us. However they are now receiving end of life care and I’m an only child so feel I can’t leave them and go. Does the insurance question still stand?

Unfortunately your parents situation has now happened so you can’t insure for it now OP. Sorry.

Travel insurance won't cover for something you knew about when you took out the policy I'm afraid. I had a similar issue recently and the first thing they asked was whether my parent had been diagnosed with the condition before we took our the policy.

Ah okay now I understand. I really don’t know what to do now! They want me to pay £1404 and then an additional cost to Tui for the flight change to them. I only paid £3690 to start off with for the whole holiday

Sorry to hear that your parent is so unwell but I don’t think there’s anything that you can do about the holiday unless you can sell it to somebody else and pay the name change fees.

You should always book insurance as soon as the holiday is booked, if not before (like an annual policy). You cannot take it out now, knowing that the problem exists. That would be like taking out car insurance after the accident and expecting them to pay out.

Unfortunately it sounds as if the holiday that you’ve booked isn’t a package so every element will be subject to amendment fees as well as paying any additional costs. That’s why we never book with Love Holidays no matter how cheap it looks

It was a package holiday I believe - flights, transfers hotel AL

i really don’t know I’ve never been in a situation like this so head is all over the place

A holiday is to some extent a "sunk cost" (as the economists call it) as soon as you've booked it. That's especially true if you don't take out cancellation insurance at the time of booking, but if your parent is now dying of, say, cancer, you would have to prove that they were not known to have cancer at all when you booked, which (forgive me reading between the lines) seems like it might be difficult. So on that basis, what is now happening was always a possibility and may well not have been insurable even when you booked.

The way I look at these things is that in the worst case, you just don't get to go on the holiday. That's not great, but it's not the same as if your car is stolen and you have to buy another one. You aren't more-or-less obliged to buy a like-for-like holiday — whether you go on the trip or not, you are down the same amount of money, just without the tan and the photos. DP and I have been going on holiday for nearly 40 years and never booked cancellation insurance, and we reckon we have saved the cost of a couple of holidays that way. But everyone will have a different view of financial risk.

So there was no pre existing condition for my parent. They’ve had a fall and bleed on the brain. They were being treated for this but 2 weeks ago the hospital have made the decision to turn life support off, stop all monitoring & feeding and for them to receive end of life care.

I'm so sorry, OP. That must be devastating news. Take care x

Bit strange but possibly might be worth a check, my home building insurance with Direct line weirdly includes travel insurance, as does my bank account. Worth checking if you have anything like that you aren’t aware of.

I’ve gone ahead and accepted the changes and forked out the extra £1400 🤦🏽‍♀️ not happy but nothing else I can do.

I now need to get travel insurance can someone best advice me where to get this from and do I start it from now or my travel dates?
I want it to cover cancellations, sickness etc

Go compare or compare the market can be a good start.

You need it to start now. If you had had travel insurance, you might have been covered for your mother becoming ill. It will depend on the policy, the cheaper ones might not have covered it.

Sorry about your parent OP. It's a hard lesson to learn but you should always book travel insurance the same time as you book the holiday.
If you're young and healthy it's peanuts. It doesn't just cover cancellation but also medical costs abroad in case of accident or illness. Look at those GoFundme cases where someone has become seriously ill and can't pay the hospital. Most policies would also cover the cancellation if a close relative died unexpectedly.

I don't think Love holidays are technically a package holiday company

Love holidays are agents that operate a booking system platform.

A very stressful situation for you with your sick parent.

I would always urge people to get travel insurance on the day they book and/or pay for your holiday. It doesn't just cover you for when you are away, it's to cover in case you need to cancel for reasons just like this. It's no use getting it a few days before as you have found out OP when you needed to cancel or amend.

It may be difficult to get insurance now that would cover any eventuality of cancelling due to the health issues of your parent. But I'm not an insurance expert so would advise you to call a couple. Go to Compare the Market and get some quotes then contact those that seem affordable and see what they say.

Sorry about your parent. That’s terrible.

You should always have travel insurance. Look at an annual policy for your family, it should be fairly cheap.

Love Holidays is just a booking platform, they’ve got a terrible reputation. I would always go direct myself or use a reputable company like Jet2holidays