Barclaycard used for deposit on Holiday- refundable?

parkingfinemagnet

Hi there,
I have a quick question but not sure if you can answer it.
We put £400 deposit on a holiday through Thomsons holidays using my wife's Barclaycard. Since then my wife has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy and will be unable to travel when the holiday comes round in May. We phoned up the travel company but they won't give us a refund of the deposit, which I thought was very unsympathetic.
Can she claim the money back through Barclaycard, or Thomsons?
Many thanks in advance for your help.

[Deleted User]

No. You would need to make a claim on your travel insurance.

TadleyBaggie

This what travel insurance is for. Barclaycard will not be interested as they would only cover you under Section 75 if Thomson were unable fulfill the holiday. In the instance where the consumer has a change of mind/circumstance this would not be covered.

McKneff

What's the betting there is no travel insurance. You should always take it out at the same time.


Hope your wife will be okay....

parkingfinemagnet

You lost your bet. We got travel insurance when we booked it, but it's £100 excess per person. With 4 of us going there would be no point claiming. We may transfer it to another holiday if she is better travel later in the year. Thanks for your help.

eddddy

parkingfinemagnet wrote: »

You lost your bet. We got travel insurance when we booked it, but it's £100 excess per person. With 4 of us going there would be no point claiming. We may transfer it to another holiday if she is better travel later in the year. Thanks for your help.

It sounds like you've checked with Thomson already, so hopefully they've confirmed the cancellation cost - because their t&cs say that the cancellation fee can sometimes be greater than the deposit. (e.g. if they've booked flights for you with other airlines as part of the package, with non-refundable fares.)


In answer to your original question, section 75 would have been an option if Thomson had misrepresented something or breached the contract. It doesn't sound like either of those apply in this case.

pacontracting

We had a very similar situation.

Booked deposit for cruise and non-refundable flights.

My wife's father was diagnosed with terminal cancer (he wasn't travelling with us) so we had to claim under the travel insurance that came with our CC as we wouldn't be sure what his condition would have been had we travelled.

They were very good and paid out fairly quickly (£50 excess total though for the four of us - luckily not per person).

We wouldn't have been able to claim S75. They did remind us that any travel booked after my father-in-law was diagnosed would not be covered - if that was the reason for the cancellation. Good advice.

stator

Write them a letter instead, it's more likely your letter will get passed to someone who has the power to make an exception. Tell them you understand the terms and conditions but ask them nicely to make an exception
If you were willing the local paper might write a short piece about your problem and this often results in the company offering a full refund for good publicity.