Honeymoon Cancellation due to Pregnancy & Zika Risk

Adamski89

Hi Guys,

My wife & I booked our honeymoon to Mexico back in November & we are due to depart in 2 weeks. Today, unexpectedly we have found out she is pregnant & due to the Zika Risk in Mexico we will probably cancel our honeymoon pending Doctor's appointment & advice on Monday.

Thankfully I had purchased travel insurance on Wednesday. Does anybody have any advice or previous experience to share on this matter? What is the likelihood of the company paying out? Our travel provider seemed to think we would have no problems with claiming back, but I'm not so sure.

The FCO website says pregnant women should consider only necessary travel to Mexico & the FCO stating 'only travel if necessary' is one of the eligibility criteria on our policy. Another criteria was 'complications during pregnancy'; however Zika Risk was not on it. Is there a likelihood that insurance providers may view cases on an individual basis as there appears to be a grey area surrounding this?

Best regards & apologies for the long post 😀
Adam

richardw

If you booked a package can you change it to a different destination?

baza52

that was lucky you bought insurance the day before you found out this.

Westin

baza52 wrote: »

that was lucky you bought insurance the day before you found out this.

Isn’t it just. Hope the insurance company is not suspicious of this.

For the future you really should look at buying travel insurance earlier and having it in place from your booking date.

Adamski89

I know it sounds terrible. The agent still needed to book a domestic flight to get us to Manchester, so I waited until that was sorted(Wed)before getting insurance 🙈

I would have liked to try & switch destinations, but the agent seems pretty adamant that's not possible 🙈

Thanks for the replies guys!

jackieblack

Adamski89 wrote: »

I would have liked to try & switch destinations, but the agent seems pretty adamant that's not possible ��

Really? I know of three couples who’ve been in a similar position and they were all offered a change of destination - two had to pay a little bit extra, one was a more expensive destination the other was a hotel upgrade.

Which TO and who is the agent?

happyandcontented

This reminds me of a previous poster who had booked a similar holiday but was trying to get pregnant and wanted to know the cancellation rights.

Enterprise_1701C

If the agent thinks you cannot change it, have you tried going directly to the holiday company.

I know this may be difficult, but it might be worth ringing up and asking if you can confirm what the agent is saying? It could just be that the agent really doesn't want the bother.

In my opinion it was perhaps a little silly booking for somewhere with a Zika risk if you were trying to get pregnant.

And you should always take out insurance as soon as you book the holiday, what if one of you had become ill or broken a bone or somesuch a couple of weeks back? It could have been that you were classed as unfit to travel, you would have lost the holiday and the money.

Keep_pedalling

You have little chance of an insurance payout. You booked a destination that was known as an affected area when you booked, and your partner was pregnant at the time you took out insurance. It might have only been confirmed the day after, but she must have been aware that she may have been pregnant a little while before that.

The actual risk in Mexico depends very much on which part of Mexico you are going to. Many areas have no recorded cases in 2018, so the risk in those areas is no higher than going to Florida or Texas, which have both had very small numbers of cases that were acquired from mosquito bites in those states. The following Mexican government link shows numbers associated with individual regions .

https://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/424933/Cuadro_Casos_ZIKA_y_Emb_sem_51_2018.pdf

Congrats on the baby by the way.

gettingtheresometime

Unusually for me I'm going to be a little charitable & admit I read that the pregnancy was unplanned.


I don't know if the insurance company will pay out - though I suspect not due to the timing of the policy being taken out & pregnancy being confirmed.


as a side issue I was surprised Megan went to Fiji given that that's a Ziki risk area as well but I'm sure she was given advice before going.

Adamski89

Thanks again guys. The pregnancy was definitely not planned - hopefully the fact I've booked non-refundable UK flights this week to get us to Manchester (our Mexico departure airport) will show this, only time will tell.

Although unplanned, the Zika virus is a risk we aren't willing to take especially with staying at Riviera Maya which is slightly outside Cancun and hence more vegetation etc.

I will take the issue up with our provider Stewart Travel & see if we can transfer.(I think they book through Thomas Cook who seem to have been sympathetic to our scenario historically).

Thanks again for all your inputs.