Can anybody help me? Thailand!

countrygirl84

We are getting married 2 weeks today and 6 months ago, we booked our honeymoon to Thailand. After weeks and weeks of shopping around, we found our perfect holiday. We booked it and it's all paid for in full. With all the disruptions in Thailand we have been in contact with our holiday company. We have been told the following:

Thomsons (who we booked it through) told us that they are following instructions from Hayes and Jarvis (who they booked it through).

Hayes and Jarvis are telling us that we have to wait until we are contacted. Which will be a few days before we are due to fly (please also bear in mind that we get married 2 days before).

Our travel insurance told us that they won't do anything unless our flights are cancelled. Even though the Home Office are advising no travel but essential to the whole of Thailand.

Trying to be ahead of the game, we decided to start looking for somewhere else for when the time comes and we are contacted. Our first stop was a hotel in Jamaica that we nearly booked before we decided on Thailand. Before we booked Thailand, we would've paid £3000 to stay at this particular hotel and that was for an upgraded room. If we were to book it today we would have to pay over £4000!!! Surely it's not our fault?! Why should we have have to pay the extra? We paid £3700 for Thailand and are staying in a private villa with our own pool, etc and have heaps of extras! A standard room with standard flights to Jamaica is going to cost us £500 more but before hand would've been £700 cheaper.

Does anybody know if there is anything we can do??? Any help would be appreciated. It's a stressfull enough time as it is without being told that we are going to have pay even more money for a holiday that isn't half as good as the one we had originally booked?!!

Quentin

If you cannot go to Thailand, then you should get all your money back.

It isn't your fault this might happen - but nor is it Thomsons.

Should the worst happen, you never know, Thomsons may come up with an acceptable alternative for you instead of giving you the refund.

Alan_Bowen

Firstly let me say how sorry I am that you have this added worry just before your wedding. Unfortunately things do not look to be getting any better at all in Thailand and I certainly wouldn't recommend ignoring the Foreign Office advice not to travel. Surprisingly a large number of people are continuing to travel but with attacks on hospitals and railway stations, it is probably only a short time before the Red Shirts close the airport, which they have done successfully in the past.

You should be looking a for an alternative in the Hayes and Jarvis brochure if that is where you found the first holiday and since they are all part of TUI who own your travel agency, they ought to be sympathetic in arranging a free transfer at this stage. For obvious reasons they don't want to cancel too soon in advance but if the operator knows this is your honeymoon, they may be more receptive to changing things sooner.

However, if your choice is more expensive, I think you will have to pay the difference, I entirely accept it is not your fault, but equally it isn't the tour operators either and they will have already issued and paid for the airline tickets to Bangkok, so they are actually out of pocket already. Choose what you would like to change to and then go and sit in the agency until they make the changes, agents aren't busy with new bookings at the moment, so its a good idea to do it as soon as possible

deedee71

What a terrible suitation. The same thing happened to me just before I got married (14 years ago) when we got a letter to say the hotel in Kenya had went bust. The TA (i think Thomson) took us through every option that would be available on our dates and we finally settled on another hotel in Kenya. When we got there we heard horror stories from people who had been at the other hotel - no food, electricity for 2 hours a day etc.

In the original hotel we would have had a suite and as the hotel we went to only had one type of room we got the "extra" refunded so we actually got £300 discounted off.

I would go back to the TA and tell them you want some resolution now, as you don't want to be getting a call on your wedding day. I'm shocked Thomson aren't handling this better.

Good luck.

Boozer

Where about are you going in Thailand?? i would imagine if it is a villa with private pool, then it is far away from Bangkok, maybe even just a stop over in the airport to transfer for your next flight.

I have said it on a few threads now but i would still be going.

travelgran

The problem with travelling against FO advice is that doing so is likely to invalidate your insurance. Please check first before going ahead.

Quentin

Boozer wrote: »

Where about are you going in Thailand?? i would imagine if it is a villa with private pool, then it is far away from Bangkok, maybe even just a stop over in the airport to transfer for your next flight.

I have said it on a few threads now but i would still be going.

If anyone goes to Thailand whilst there is this foreign office advice against tourists visiting the whole country (ie not just Bangkok) they will be going there with useless insurance!

Boozer

Well i guess i just have not cared enough in the past, i have been to Thailand about 20 times in the last 4/5 years, arriving during the last state of emerency also.
Which part of the insurance that you would not have worries people the most???
maybe i am just stupid but if my baby was not 3 months old and had not flown before then i would be on a plane next week.

countrygirl84

We were meant to be going to Bangkok for 3 nights and then on to Koh Samui for 11 nights.

Alan Bowen - I have no arguments in paying the difference if the holiday was more expensive. But the argument I've been trying to make to them is that that same holiday in Jamaica cost over £1000 cheaper only 3/4 months ago!I disagree with paying more for a holiday that isn't special at all and is just a standard room in a slightly above standard hotel.

I have mentioned to them that it is meant to be our honeymoon but the guy I spoke to was the least sympathetic person I've ever spoken to. He might as well of said, "Tell somebody who cares"!

I am not going to travel to Thailand if the Home Office are advising against. I know it is very unlikely that something will happen but I do not want myself or my hubby to be to come home in a body bag! Plus the travel insurance will not cover if the advice is to stay away.

I'm at a loose end. I just feel sorry for the people getting married this weekend and were planning on travelling to Thailand.

Quentin

Boozer wrote: »

Which part of the insurance that you would not have worries people the most???

All of the insurance would be invalid!

Travel insurance invariably has a condition that the policyholder must follow relevant government recommendations.

Heliflyguy

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

Firstly let me say how sorry I am that you have this added worry just before your wedding. Unfortunately things do not look to be getting any better at all in Thailand and I certainly wouldn't recommend ignoring the Foreign Office advice not to travel. Surprisingly a large number of people are continuing to travel but with attacks on hospitals and railway stations, it is probably only a short time before the Red Shirts close the airport, which they have done successfully in the past.

However, if your choice is more expensive, I think you will have to pay the difference, I entirely accept it is not your fault, but equally it isn't the tour operators either and they will have already issued and paid for the airline tickets to Bangkok, so they are actually out of pocket already.

May I say that this must be very stressful for you at such a time but to clarify the above points.

1. The recent event at the (1) hospital was most likely not an attack but a breakaway red shirt group looking for 1 soldier, there have been no reports of violence during this and a red shirt leader has apologised.

2. There was no attack on any railway station what happended was that the red shirts left some lorry tyres on a Skytrain station concourse, not even near the tracks, and the Skytrain operators decided to close the line, there are only 2 lines Sukhumvit and Silom.

3. The redsirts didnt close the airport the yellow shirts did and the likelyhood of any of them getting even close to swampy (BKK airport) again is remote.

None of his helps you but I does show how things can be exagerrated beyond the truth.

TUI are apparently moving people out of BKK to other areas or flying them home you need to put pressure on the agent to rebook you or refund.

http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2010/04/tui-orders-evacuation-of-bkk-guests/

Many countries are advising only to reconsider travel to Thailand,

http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2010/04/red-light-for-travel-to-thailand/

but with the insurance situation it makes the choice more difficult, I dont see how insurance companies can say your not insured full stop , I can understand that if you were stupid enough to go anywhere near the protests and got hurt then fair enough but a blanket void seems to serve only the insurance companies needs.
As an adult (some would disagree) I would go but then I have family there and know a little about the place.