Trying to get money back

sadkitty

In January my mum booked a holiday to Eurodisney for her first wedding anniversary in September. She was diagnosed with throat cancer a few weeks ago and it turns out that she will be at the end of her chemo/radiotherapy around that time and will be completely unable to travel.
She tried to cancel the holiday and get a refund but had to pay cancellation fees and was told that her cancellation reason was not serious enough for a refund so she needed to claim on the insurance to get any money back. When she checked her insurance (she didn't check the terms at the time was just told she had to take it), the excess was so big that she will lose most of what the holiday cost.
Is there anything I can do to try and recover the money for her? It seems extremely heartless considering the situation. The companies involved are Eurodisney, Air France, Hotel L'Elysee Val d'Europe and was booked through Travel Republic.

littlereddevil

Insurance is your only hope. Never heard of an excess being more than the cost of a holiday, that's a shame.

agrinnall

None of the organisations that were booked with have any responsibility beyond the terms of their cancellation policy, this is definitely an issue for insurance. How exactly is the excess being applied, is the full excess levied against each part of the booking? I find it hard to believe that the level of the excess is high enough that it would wipe out most of the holiday cost in total, so perhaps some further information would help us to understand and suggest ways to proceed.