Re-claiming money lost of renting holiday home

Norman1066

Hi. My wife and I booked a large family holiday in April for us and our grown up children and paid for everything. This was to be our treat, having the family all together. The holiday was cancelled as a result of Covid19, leading to our flights being cancelled. We had paid for 2 holiday homes separately to our flights, via 2 diffental rentals. All of our purchases were via a credit card. My wife and I had holiday insurance but our grown up children had not taken out their own insurance prior to the holiday being cancelled. We received all of the money back we had spent on flights (eventually), on the car hire and one of the holiday homes. The other holiday home owners only refunded 30% of the full price paid. This was in fact greater than their terms and conditions which we were fully aware of. We thought we would be able to reclaim the 70% of the payment lost on our insurance policy. When we contacted the insurance company they first told us to progress via our credit card company but they also told us that if the credit card company could not make good the loss they would only pay us 2/5ths of our loss as the property we had booked was for 5 adults and they maintained that they were only insuring my wife and I. Can they do this even though my wife and I were paying for everything and so we, the insured parties had incurred the loss ? Any advice or guidance appreciated.

eskbanker

A similar scenario was discussed in another recent thread - the bottom line is that insurance companies will only reimburse costs directly attributable to those they're insuring, regardless of who actually paid the bill....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6160149/insurance-company-asking-us-to-commit-fraud/p1

Norman1066

@eskbanker Thank you for your response. Can you refer me to any guidance why the insurance company would direct us to our credit card company initially ? We understand about invoking a disputed transaction with the CC company but we are not disputing that we were entitled to only a partial refund. What we were wondering is there some other insurance in place when making a purchase via a credit card company ?

eskbanker

Insurers will typically see themselves as being a last resort, only making good losses that couldn't be mitigated by other means, such as suppliers or card companies, which is explained at https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/02/coronavirus-travel-help-and-your-rights/

It's not insurance as such but it may be worth pursuing your card company for a refund either via chargeback or section 75 (also explained in the above article) - it's not clear from your post why you'd only receive a 30% refund if the property wasn't available to you, as it would usually be expected to be either 100% or no refund?

Norman1066

@eskbanker The rental provider did not cancel our booking, we were just unable to get their as our flights had been cancelled and the UK imposed travel restrictions. We informed the provider we would not be able to come and they advised that their normal refund for a late cancellation was only 10%. This was in the Terms and Conditions on their website. They said they would make this 30% on this occasion as a gesture of goodwill given the extreme situation. I will take on board the information contained in the link you provided. Thanks.

eskbanker

Norman1066 said:

@eskbanker The rental provider did not cancel our booking, we were just unable to get their as our flights had been cancelled and the UK imposed travel restrictions. We informed the provider we would not be able to come and they advised that their normal refund for a late cancellation was only 10%. This was in the Terms and Conditions on their website. They said they would make this 30% on this occasion as a gesture of goodwill given the extreme situation. I will take on board the information contained in the link you provided. Thanks.

Ah right - if the rental provider didn't cancel and you effectively did then you won't be able to claim anything from card companies and your only hope would be your travel insurance....