Holiday cut short and repatriation flight took is to an alternative airport due to Covid-19

Sooler

Is it not a lot less bother to accept the voucher and get a holiday for next year booked?

Sky_Dragon

I was in the same situation - Arrived in Punta Cana on 14th March (The day before the Dominican Republic stopped flights from Europe. Was due to depart on 24th but an early return was arranged on the 18th instead (so we had 4 of the 10 nights) - flights were BAs but part of the package.

I contacted TUI via their site on 22nd March, and on 17th April I did receive and email (standard format, but from their MD) saying I would get a Refund Credit (although it did refer to "your cancelled holiday" whereas this was obviously not cancelled but curtailed - though it had the correct booking ref) which would be emailed to me by 1st May. On 1st May I had another email apologising for the delay and saying I would have it by 15th May.
Haven't heard anything since.

Reading the T&Cs they state "If any part of your holiday is not provided as described, we will pay you compensation, if appropriate, unless this is due to reasons beyond our control (see the ‘Important Note – Events Beyond Our Control’)."
and Events Beyond Our Control says "Events beyond our control include but are not limited to: ... epidemics, health risks and pandemics, ....."

So, from the T&Cs I would presume no compensation was payable by TUI, and therefore I need to make a curtailment claim via my insurance instead (Which should cover it as I took it out when I booked back in January) BUT they insurers do need to see that TUI have rejected my claim first.

So, at the moment I'm trying to see if TUI are really going to provide a refund credit as stated in their email to me, or whether they will offer something else, or reject my claim. Whatever way they plan to go I just need something concrete from them. Haven't managed to get through to their refund guys on the phone, though their general customer services did say their system said I would be getting a Refund Credit.

Life__Goes__On

You won't get any compensation from them, and that's not what you after.  Say you had the 10 nights and everything was closed, in normal times you could claim compensation  for loss of enjoyment.

You are after a price reduction  as you paid for a 10 day holiday, but only had 4 day,   So I feel you are looking at roughly 50% refund on the price paid.

Sky_Dragon

Life__Goes__On said:

You won't get any compensation from them, and that's not what you after.  Say you had the 10 nights and everything was closed, in normal times you could claim compensation  for loss of enjoyment.

You are after a price reduction  as you paid for a 10 day holiday, but only had 4 day,   So I feel you are looking at roughly 50% refund on the price paid.

Understood. Hopefully, if its done via a refund credit like they're doing for cancellations, I can then ask for a refund back to my credit card. I'll just have to keep chasing them as best I can to get some clarity. 

Thrugelmir

Sid2302 said:

also the repatriation flight took us back to Gatwick Airport Via Barbados and not to our original Airport Manchester, and then we were bussed back up with no social distancing, and in all took us 26 hours to get home!

We some 300,000 people overseas to repatriate home. The priority was to arrange transportation as speedily as possible. Not provide a holiday service. You would have preferred a long day I suspect. To being stuck somewhere for days or weeks without support. With no knowing when a flight would be arranged. 

Sky_Dragon

FYI Got through to someone on 020 3451 2688 after about 10 redials and about 90 mins in the queue (Started call at 11:48 today) and they said, because my flights were with BA I had to speak to their 3rd Party Flights team on 0800 107 1534.

Tried that and went straight into a queue and waited about 50 minutes (started call at 13:25 today).

Chap there told me that they haven't met the 15th May deadline (obviously) but now expected to complete sending out refund credits by 31st May.

I may just be being fobbed off of course, but I'll be patient for another couple of weeks and see what happens.

So, top tip, if your TUI holiday flight was not with TUI airlines, maybe try the 0800 107 1534 number.

Sid2302

Sooler said:

Is it not a lot less bother to accept the voucher and get a holiday for next year booked?

We have already said to them "if a voucher would cover us to be able to rebook that holiday then we would accept that", but the  letter they sent started "As a goodwill gesture, we'll be arranging for you to receive a pro-rata voucher refund for the number of nights of your holiday that you missed" and they have not even said how much that will be! so all we can assume is that it will be nowhere near the amount to rebook this holiday even for less days then we originally went for.

Sid2302

Sky_Dragon said:

I was in the same situation - Arrived in Punta Cana on 14th March (The day before the Dominican Republic stopped flights from Europe. Was due to depart on 24th but an early return was arranged on the 18th instead (so we had 4 of the 10 nights) - flights were BAs but part of the package.

I contacted TUI via their site on 22nd March, and on 17th April I did receive and email (standard format, but from their MD) saying I would get a Refund Credit (although it did refer to "your cancelled holiday" whereas this was obviously not cancelled but curtailed - though it had the correct booking ref) which would be emailed to me by 1st May. On 1st May I had another email apologising for the delay and saying I would have it by 15th May.
Haven't heard anything since.

Reading the T&Cs they state "If any part of your holiday is not provided as described, we will pay you compensation, if appropriate, unless this is due to reasons beyond our control (see the ‘Important Note – Events Beyond Our Control’)."
and Events Beyond Our Control says "Events beyond our control include but are not limited to: ... epidemics, health risks and pandemics, ....."

So, from the T&Cs I would presume no compensation was payable by TUI, and therefore I need to make a curtailment claim via my insurance instead (Which should cover it as I took it out when I booked back in January) BUT they insurers do need to see that TUI have rejected my claim first.

So, at the moment I'm trying to see if TUI are really going to provide a refund credit as stated in their email to me, or whether they will offer something else, or reject my claim. Whatever way they plan to go I just need something concrete from them. Haven't managed to get through to their refund guys on the phone, though their general customer services did say their system said I would be getting a Refund Credit.

Thank you for your response:) ,  at least you have had a better response then we have had so far with an offer "Refund Credit".
Please let me know if you manage to get this resolved satisfactorily I have my fingers crossed for you.

Sid2302

Thrugelmir said:

Sid2302 said:

also the repatriation flight took us back to Gatwick Airport Via Barbados and not to our original Airport Manchester, and then we were bussed back up with no social distancing, and in all took us 26 hours to get home!

We some 300,000 people overseas to repatriate home. The priority was to arrange transportation as speedily as possible. Not provide a holiday service. You would have preferred a long day I suspect. To being stuck somewhere for days or weeks without support. With no knowing when a flight would be arranged. 

So the issue with this is we weren't expecting a holiday service but we were expecting a lot better origination from such a reputable company, as I said originally the kicker was that there were two fights that day, one to Manchester where we needed to be and one to Gatwick, we know for sure there were holiday makers on the Manchester flight that needed to go to Gatwick, and like us many on the Gatwick flight that need to go to Manchester.
 I am no expert but even I can go through a list and send people back to there original airport, I would have totally understood if the Manchester flight had been full of people needing to go to Manchester and then we just had to fil any spare seat, but this was not the case!  

Sky_Dragon

Sid2302 said:

Sky_Dragon said:

I was in the same situation - Arrived in Punta Cana on 14th March (The day before the Dominican Republic ...

Thank you for your response:) ,  at least you have had a better response then we have had so far with an offer "Refund Credit".
Please let me know if you manage to get this resolved satisfactorily I have my fingers crossed for you.

As expected, nothing back from TUI yet, but I noted that their form for claiming cash refunds says "If you've received a refund credit voucher for a holiday that was cut short, unfortunately these cannot be exchanged for cash and therefore the form will not be able to be processed." so I assume I'll eventually be offered a non-encashable credit note of some form as a "price reduction".

Does anyone know if I could reasonably refuse this, and, if they won't refund some cash, use my insurance instead?

My insurer has said they will at least consider the claim if I provide "Confirmation showing your booking cannot be refunded/credited by First Choice/TUI." so I'm unclear whether I need to haggle with TUI until I get something close to what I want (e.g maybe a reasonable cash refund) or, if I fail and they stick with the credit note offer, I can take that to the insurer and say I'm not getting back what I paid.

The insurance policy wording says they will pay me money "...for your share of any unused accommodation, car hire and excursions that are directly related to your trip which you have paid for and cannot get back from anyone else".