Lastminute refusing to refund hotel on FCO non-essential advise

worriednoob

Hi everyone,
We booked our holiday last year to travel to Egypt well before the coronavirus outbreak.  The flights and hotels were booked separately in order to keep costs down and were paid with a credit card.
Due to the situation rapidly changing, firstly our flight got suspended late last week and in the last 24 hours, FCO have advised against non-essential travel to Egypt.
I've been trying to contact Lastminute since last week, but as you can imagine, their lines are extremely busy.  Today I finally got through to them.
Their contact centre agent though has said it's not their problem as the hotel cancellation policy states that no refund would be issued if it was cancelled.

I would be grateful if someone can please give me advise if this is the case and whether anything can be done?
Thanks very much

bradders1983

Yes, you contact your travel insurance company.

worriednoob

Thank you bradders.  I've just spoken to the travel insurance company.  But they have said they don't cover cancellations and pointed me to page 16 of their policy, which is attached below:
https://www.transfernow.net/jTtOD5032020
I would have thought these circumstances should be covered?

benjus

I have two travel insurance policies, one provided via my bank account, the other via work. The work one includes cancellation cover for any reason beyond my control, but with an exclusion for pandemics and epidemics. The bank account one only covers cancellation for a specific set of reasons, similar to the ones in the policy document posted above. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to get caught out by this, unless I'm missing something.

Westin

As others have said, try your travel insurer.

In these circumstances when separate holiday elements are booked, particularly with perhaps the cheaper and restrictive conditions like "non-refundable" - you take an element of risk on yourself.   Hotels might make concessions in these circumstances but they don't have to. 

TUI and Jet2 who offer full packages have been very quick to cancel whole holidays in the immediate period and offer full refunds.