Hotel cannot process refund

tonygsafc

Hi All,
sorry if this has already been covered and I did check a few threads but none matched our issue.

Our holiday stay (due to stay 25/05/2020) was cancelled at the beginning of the month. I requested a refund straight away as we couldn’t risk trying for this later in the year and goodness knows what next year has in store.
The hotel however said they cannot process our refund due to the covid 19 restrictions on hospitality “

At the moment we are not in a position to refund your deposit, as we have arranged for our reservations team to answer emails from home, due to security they do not have access to credit card details. As soon as we are advised by the government that it is safe for them to return we will begin the process of returning deposits”

i emailed them again when restrictions were lifted slightly and was told the same thing, surely one person going to the office to deal with admin/refunds won’t break Covid 19 restrictions. 

I don’t want to name the hotel as it’s a nice hotel and I don’t want it to suffer further but the amount to refund is not inconsequential.

I tried calling Lloyd’s to ask about chargeback to my debit card but they are very busy and only dealing with emergency requests.

Any thoughts / ideas about this please  ?

unforeseen

I understand their problem. If the reservation staff have taken all their IT kit home, the same as my company did then it is not a simple matter of popping back in to process a refund, especially if they are using desktops rather than laptops. 

Life__Goes__On

I wonder what is an "emergency requests"?
I think it's just a waiting game atm. would be more of an issue if they refuse to refund you.

rosiesposies

I work for a very well known company - and protecting my staff from risk is my priority, not 'sending one person in' to process refunds for luxury goods. all at home with not access to IT equipment to process. this is not normal times. 

tonygsafc

rosiesposies said:

I work for a very well known company - and protecting my staff from risk is my priority, not 'sending one person in' to process refunds for luxury goods. all at home with not access to IT equipment to process. this is not normal times. 

True but im living in a key worker household (nhs) wondering if my wage is at risk and minimising financial risk to my family is my priority.
200 quid is a lot of money to us which I would much rather have in the bank for emergencies.

tonygsafc

All sorted now, hotel is returning to the office soon so I’m going to hang fire