Thomas Cook transferring a holiday

sontoon

Hi All,

I'm hoping someone can assist.

We booked a family holiday for 5 in January to go to Egypt at the end of August, absolutely lovely returning to a wonderful hotel. This was for myself, partner, 9yr old son, Partners' eldest son and daughter in law. We paid the first deposit at time of booking and paid today the 2nd part of deposit, with all monies due in May.

However, on Saturday we discovered that myself and partner are expecting.

I will be 29 weeks on departure date. My pregnancy history isn't a great one, with my first I had pre eclampsia, SPD, high blood pressure and bubs arrived 6 weeks early.

Now I understand that I am in very early stages and a lot can change, but I am very mindful of previous history.

We have decided that we would rather not be travelling at that time of my pregnancy.

But it appears that we are having serious issues with Thomas cook in changing our arrangements. We would like to bring the holiday forward for us 3 only as partners son and girlfriend still want to go on the original booking.

We are being told that we would lose our deposit and have to start from scratch as they cannot transfer us 3 out of a block booking and would have to cancel the whole thing and start again.

What I don't understand is nowhere in their T's and C's does it say you cannot transfer out of a block booking. I have read and re read the terms and conditions and I can't find anywhere that says to transfer passengers from part of a booking, they have to cancel the whole booking and start over. We are happy to pay any change payments but to lose 600 and start all over again seems very outrageous to me. They have said I can fly as long as I have a fit to fly certificate from the doctor.

So playing devils advocate what if we wait and then the doctor says I can't fly, We will lose all of our holiday money initially (I do have insurance with HSBC) I just don't get it.

Can anyone please advise as this is really starting to stress me

mgdavid

first check your HSBC travel policy and see if it covers pregnancy as a cancellation reason.

ttoli

It's not as straightforward as that , you are trying to split the booking, can the other 2 not change their dates ( i.e Travel with you ?), otherwise Yes it would be viewed as a part cancellation and I really would check that your travel Insurance covers pregnancy as a cancellation reason.

sontoon

That's the thing we don't want to cancel as such, just want to transfer our part of the booking to different dates and destination, they will still be getting their money as well as being able to resell our part of the Egypt holiday as its still 170 days away.

We would love our other travellers to be able to come with us but they can't due to work commitments

ttoli

then I'd hope to speak to a sympathetic Manager and simply advise them that you want to split the booking