TUI refunds thread

louby40

My partner has spoken to TUI this morning. He got through pretty quickly (even though he was told the wait was an hour). He's just been told that everyone who requested a refund up to the 16th April will have their money in their account by the 1st May. 
So we shall see......

RalphWiggam

mmmm, will have to see, I have been waiting since 13 March.  I have had no contact from Tui at all since I got the email saying a refund would be in the bank in 3-5 days.   

louby40

RalphWiggam said:

mmmm, will have to see, I have been waiting since 13 March.  I have had no contact from Tui at all since I got the email saying a refund would be in the bank in 3-5 days.   

Neither had we. We held off ringing, but 6 weeks later and hearing about the odd person who see,s to have got a refund with no problem we thought we'd see.

Westin

RalphWiggam said:

mmmm, will have to see, I have been waiting since 13 March.  I have had no contact from Tui at all since I got the email saying a refund would be in the bank in 3-5 days.   

Your holiday was in August I think.
How did you initiate the cancellation and was this is writing?
Have you received a cancellation invoice? 
Is the booking still showing as active when you login and check on line?

Smarti2

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone has any advice.
Tui currently have guidance out saying any holidays may be amended free of charge if they are due to fly before the 30th of June. However, there is a clause in there (that is not obvious at all) that states that if the flights are with a third party that the new booking should be made with the third party airline the existing booking is made with, otherwise an amendment fee (normal booking t&c's) will be applied.

My problem is, when we booked our holiday almost a year ago, our flights were due to be tui flights. A few months after making my booking, an email was sent stating that tui have changed our flights to a third party airline. I still have this e-mail. We are now trying to reschedule our holiday to next year but the flights are all tui flights, and where they aren't tui flights the third party airline is not indicated. This means that when we go to book the new dates, on top of the difference of £2000 in costs for the holiday, which we're willing to pay, tui have added an additional £3000 amendment fee to the holiday at the point of check out. I'm a little annoyed, because when we booked our original holiday it was for tui flights, and purely because they changed our flights after the point of booking, we are now expected to pay £10000 for what was originally a £4500 holiday. We are also unable to cancel the holiday and rebook new dates, because Tui are only offering refunds to those who are due to fly before the 14th of May, and as we are meant to fly on the 24th May we can't cancel without losing 90% of our holiday. Please also bare in mind that the country we were flying to is slightly further behind the UK in the pandemic, so we are really quite reluctant to fly out there knowing we will be in their peak time.

Is there a way we should be going about getting this amendment fee removed from the booking? Does travel insurance cover the costs of the holiday if we were to have it cancelled due to the pandemic, including flight costs? Any guidance will be greatly appreciated!

Westin

Smarti2 said:

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone has any advice.
Tui currently have guidance out saying any holidays may be amended free of charge if they are due to fly before the 30th of June. However, there is a clause in there (that is not obvious at all) that states that if the flights are with a third party that the new booking should be made with the third party airline the existing booking is made with, otherwise an amendment fee (normal booking t&c's) will be applied.

My problem is, when we booked our holiday almost a year ago, our flights were due to be tui flights. A few months after making my booking, an email was sent stating that tui have changed our flights to a third party airline. I still have this e-mail. We are now trying to reschedule our holiday to next year but the flights are all tui flights, and where they aren't tui flights the third party airline is not indicated. This means that when we go to book the new dates, on top of the difference of £2000 in costs for the holiday, which we're willing to pay, tui have added an additional £3000 amendment fee to the holiday at the point of check out. I'm a little annoyed, because when we booked our original holiday it was for tui flights, and purely because they changed our flights after the point of booking, we are now expected to pay £10000 for what was originally a £4500 holiday. We are also unable to cancel the holiday and rebook new dates, because Tui are only offering refunds to those who are due to fly before the 14th of May, and as we are meant to fly on the 24th May we can't cancel without losing 90% of our holiday. Please also bare in mind that the country we were flying to is slightly further behind the UK in the pandemic, so we are really quite reluctant to fly out there knowing we will be in their peak time.

Is there a way we should be going about getting this amendment fee removed from the booking? Does travel insurance cover the costs of the holiday if we were to have it cancelled due to the pandemic, including flight costs? Any guidance will be greatly appreciated!

I believe that condition is really aimed at third party flying such as schedule flights (example: BA, Emirates, Vietnam Airways) where those schedule carriers will have their own ticketing and fare conditions which need to be taken into account, rather than a third party charter airline that TUI use (example:  Alba Star Airlines, Freebird Airlines, Pegasus etc).   Which airline/s are being used for your holiday and to where?  If TUI Airways > Charter then I wouldn't see that such a large amendment charge is correct, although this might necessitate a call to TUI to have checked and possibly manually corrected.

If the holiday gets cancelled bu TUI due to the current situation you would be entitled to a refund/credit note on the whole costs of the package. 

Smarti2

Westin said:

Smarti2 said:

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone has any advice.
Tui currently have guidance out saying any holidays may be amended free of charge if they are due to fly before the 30th of June. However, there is a clause in there (that is not obvious at all) that states that if the flights are with a third party that the new booking should be made with the third party airline the existing booking is made with, otherwise an amendment fee (normal booking t&c's) will be applied.

My problem is, when we booked our holiday almost a year ago, our flights were due to be tui flights. A few months after making my booking, an email was sent stating that tui have changed our flights to a third party airline. I still have this e-mail. We are now trying to reschedule our holiday to next year but the flights are all tui flights, and where they aren't tui flights the third party airline is not indicated. This means that when we go to book the new dates, on top of the difference of £2000 in costs for the holiday, which we're willing to pay, tui have added an additional £3000 amendment fee to the holiday at the point of check out. I'm a little annoyed, because when we booked our original holiday it was for tui flights, and purely because they changed our flights after the point of booking, we are now expected to pay £10000 for what was originally a £4500 holiday. We are also unable to cancel the holiday and rebook new dates, because Tui are only offering refunds to those who are due to fly before the 14th of May, and as we are meant to fly on the 24th May we can't cancel without losing 90% of our holiday. Please also bare in mind that the country we were flying to is slightly further behind the UK in the pandemic, so we are really quite reluctant to fly out there knowing we will be in their peak time.

Is there a way we should be going about getting this amendment fee removed from the booking? Does travel insurance cover the costs of the holiday if we were to have it cancelled due to the pandemic, including flight costs? Any guidance will be greatly appreciated!

I believe that condition is really aimed at third party flying such as schedule flights (example: BA, Emirates, Vietnam Airways) where those schedule carriers will have their own ticketing and fare conditions which need to be taken into account, rather than a third party charter airline that TUI use (example:  Alba Star Airlines, Freebird Airlines, Pegasus etc).   Which airline/s are being used for your holiday and to where?  If TUI Airways > Charter then I wouldn't see that such a large amendment charge is correct, although this might necessitate a call to TUI to have checked and possibly manually corrected.

If the holiday gets cancelled bu TUI due to the current situation you would be entitled to a refund/credit note on the whole costs of the package. 

Hello, thanks for your quick response. 
So TUI changed the airline to Freebird Airlines, going to Turkey.. so we're really not sure what to do! We're aware about the cancellation policy but we also really don't want to have to wait until they provide that information to have to rebook and potentially end up forking out another £5k

Westin

That's Charter to Charter so I don't think those amendment costs can be right.

Are you following the online process correctly to make the amendment?    I think either something adrift or they have a system bug.  You should not be getting £3000 amendment costs on a holiday to Turkey.   

TUI are cancelling holidays in date tranches.   Your holiday on 24th May will be cancelled.  You might be better to hold off for now and wait for the inevitable.   When the holiday is cancelled they will contact you again to explain what your options are (credit note or refund).  Certainly don't cancel yourself at 90% charge.

RalphWiggam

Westin said:

RalphWiggam said:

mmmm, will have to see, I have been waiting since 13 March.  I have had no contact from Tui at all since I got the email saying a refund would be in the bank in 3-5 days.   

Your holiday was in August I think.
How did you initiate the cancellation and was this is writing?
Have you received a cancellation invoice? 
Is the booking still showing as active when you login and check on line?

I cancelled online, through the Manage My Booking, I received an email straightaway with a breakdown of loss of deposit and a cash refund due , it said within 3-5 days.   When I log into Manage My Booking now there is no booking. 

Westin

RalphWiggam said:

Westin said:

RalphWiggam said:

mmmm, will have to see, I have been waiting since 13 March.  I have had no contact from Tui at all since I got the email saying a refund would be in the bank in 3-5 days.   

Your holiday was in August I think.
How did you initiate the cancellation and was this is writing?
Have you received a cancellation invoice? 
Is the booking still showing as active when you login and check on line?

I cancelled online, through the Manage My Booking, I received an email straightaway with a breakdown of loss of deposit and a cash refund due , it said within 3-5 days.   When I log into Manage My Booking now there is no booking. 

Looks like it has all been done correctly then. 

I can only imagine that your refund (which should be in the same way/format as paid) has been stuck and held up in a queue for action.  Whilst 3-5 days might have been the old expectation and some allowance made for the CV19 issues, I do think that at 29 working days you have been sufficiently patient.   I think unfortunately you may need to try and call them to prompt some action.