Lastminute.com cancellation help

Rainbowmum18

Good evening,

I apologise for the long post but I'm desperate or any advice.

So me and my husband planned a trip away for my 30th for 4 nights to Las Vegas, with 2 other friends he paid the deposit by credit card. Thought lastminute.com we only had the option to pay the rest of the balance in September. This is not the issue...

So a week ago today my 10 month old son sustained a head injury whilst in the care of a close family member, he had a significant bleed on the brain and a huge blood clot that was crushing his brain. We very nearly lost him.. He was rushed to Alder Hey for life saving surgery. He was in intensive care, in a coma, and there is an active police investigation.

We are due to go to Las Vegas in October however there is no way we can leave our son now, he is also unable to fly due to the severity of his head injury so its not an option to add him on. Our friends we booked the holiday with called lastminute.com and explained the situation and was basically told we still need to pay the outstanding balance plus and cancellation charges! In addition to this understandably me and mqy husband are currently off work and are very worried about having to pay all this money to last minute.

Has anyone had any experience with lastminute.com? Our flights were with Thomas Cook and the hotel is the luxor. Be didn't have insurance as we usually only get this a few weeks before and tbh it's the last thing we need right now. This is an incredibly difficult time so please be kinda.

TIA

z1a

Should take insurance out as soon as you book is the usual (Good) advice.

Hope child recovers fully and quickly.

photome

Sounds terrible, hope your son recovers. This is a prime example of why insurance should be taken at the time of booking. You don’t save any money by waiting.

You could ask them if they will move the holiday otherwise I am not sure what you can do other than read the t and cs to see what you owe

Rainbowmum18

photome wrote: »

Sounds terrible, hope your son recovers. This is a prime example of why insurance should be taken at the time of booking. You don’t save any money by waiting.

You could ask them if they will move the holiday otherwise I am not sure what you can do other than read the t and cs to see what you owe

[
QUOTE=z1a;76085091]Should take insurance out as soon as you book is the usual (Good) advice.

Hope child recovers fully and quickly.[/QUOTE]

We have had travel insurance before that we purchased at the time of booking previous holidays, the reason we no longer get it at the time of booking is because we had to cancel our last holiday as a couple when my preganacy became high risk and was taken into hospital for the remainder, the insurance proved pointless in that situation and we lost over £900... So believe me when I say we have now learnt the lesson the hard way.
We need to cancel as we are unsure when our son will be able to fly again and to be honest I would never feel comfortable leaving him with someone again, so moving the dates wouldn't be helpful either. I am just looking for advice from anyone that used lastminute.com before and has had to cancel WITHOUT insurance. Most travel companies you usually lose the deposit, however lastminute.com have told us to expect cancellation charges that could cost more than the holiday.... Any money we have saved for the holiday is having to be used so that we can be off work to help our son recover. We tried to pay the remainder of the holiday off back in May and was told we couldn't do this and had to pay it in one lump sum X amount of weeks before the holiday (sometime in September)...

hollydays

I’m afraid there’s nothing to add that hasn’t already been said.

budgetflyer

If you can pay it, pay it. If not , don't. I certainly wouldn't put my self under any more stress over an over due holiday invoice. Offer them terms to pay it up, over a year or so.

Rainbowmum18

Thank you so much. It was booked using our friends credit card so he's very worried... I don't need the stress of it all right now but it's not fair yo put out friends in this situation. It was a group booking and the circumstances of what is happening is having a knock on effect on them, we've enquired about another couple buying and last minute we're not keen on that, we asked if it was possible to change the booking to just our 2 friends and they would still go but that's not possible either. They have asked for medical proof which I have but have said that it probably wouldn't make a diffence and we'd still need to pay. Their customer service is shocking, this time last week we nearly lost our son, he's had life saving surgery, 2 days in PICU, 2 days on high dependency, there's an active police investigation into how he sustained his injury and I haven't got the strength to speak to lastminute.com who have zero% empathy or customer service. Sorry for going on I'm just at the end of my tether 😭

hollydays

its an awful lot to cope with x
I think it’s something that appears to be out of your control , so as already said, try to put your energies into something else. Or do you have a family member who could deal with it for you?Im wondering if this might be better moved to the debt free board?

cubegame

I certainly hope your son makes a fast and full recovery.

To add to the advice given about insurance it is worth to add the usual advice about travel agents.

Using an agent like Lastminute is quite foolhardy these days when it's normally the same price to book flights and hotels directly.

In this instance you would probably have been able to get your flight taxes back easily from the airline (an option Lastminute would offer with a HEFTY fee) and been able to get a cancellable hotel.

leylandsunaddict

Sorry to hear about your son.

You are bound by the terms and condition you agreed to when you booked. What did they say about cancellation? I think you'll find both flights and accommodation are 100% non refundable, which means you would have to pay the balance if you cancel, as well as any fees their providers charge, along with any Lastminute charge.

I hope your son makes a good recovery.

sheramber

I assume your friends also do not have insurance to cover their cancellation.