Holiday to Japan August 2020

Cam91

Hi all, would like some help/advice please.
me and my partner have a holiday booked to Japan on the 10th of August 2020.. but with everything that’s going on still with coronavirus, I’m not sure where we stand.

Our holiday is booked with lastminute.com. We’ve paid the deposit and the full amount is due on the 11th July 2020. As you can imagine we’re very reluctant to want to pay the full amount when we don’t even know if we’re able to go.

There are a few issues here-
as of the time of me writing this post Japan isn’t allowing anyone from the UK to enter the country. 

Also if it goes ahead .. we’re not sure whether we would need to isolate when we return to the UK (We can’t do this due to work commitments) 

Another problem is, are we entitled to a refund even the flight goes ahead, but we can’t enter the country?

lastminute I feel have been very poor with the handling of this in terms of customer service. They’ve said if there is any flight cancellations we’re entitled to a refund. OR if a flight time is changed by 4+ hours.

another odd point is out of the four flights, there is one flight..Zurich to Birmingham we can’t find anywhere on the internet, even on the airlines website, this was meant to be our return flight on the 24th August. Could this mean it’s cancelled?

I have asked about cancelling and they did send me a cancellation quote which would cost us £600 in total.. which would make a total loss of £1500 including the deposit. 

if anyone can help and give us advice with this situation I’d be extremely grateful.

thank you.

[Deleted User]

No consolation Cam, but you are definitely not alone (people don't even know what is happening to holidays due in next two weeks!)  All travel agents are assuring everyone they will get to them but when is the problem and most people are too anxious to sit and wait until a few days before due date to know!   

Is this a package holiday, hotels included?.     From listening, watching, reading, I think that UNLESS you definitely, on no account, no matter what, would consider going to Japan in August, rather than pay the remainder you may have to consider losing the £1,500?   If you pay the remainder of the money, there is a chance, looking slim at this stage I agree, but it may just all go ahead.  In which case you would probably not get your money back, but you may be able to rebook?   Also remember no holidays will be going ahead against FCO advice and you will not have to get on a flight if you can't disembark and also if package and any of the flights are cancelled you would be entitled to a refund of the holiday.

 So it is either another nail biting wait and see after paying a lot of money or cutting your losses now and saving all the worry.     

Hope it all works out for you.

Edited to add - or check your insurance policy to see if you are covered for cancellation due to FCO advice up to 31 days before travel.   This might be an option?

silvercar

Your zurich Birmingham flight could be what saves you. If it is cancelled and the whole holiday was booked as a package and there is no other way that lastminute can get you back to Birmingham or nearby within a few hours of your original arrival time, that should mean you can have a total refund.
You may want to say which airline and which month that flight is. Or try the flyertalk forums for that airline.
General rule is that you have to pay the balance if you don't want to cancel, though lastminute may allow some flexibility on the date payment is due if you ask. If you don't pay the balance when due, then it would be considered that you have cancelled.

Cam91

Tedber said:

No consolation Cam, but you are definitely not alone (people don't even know what is happening to holidays due in next two weeks!)  All travel agents are assuring everyone they will get to them but when is the problem and most people are too anxious to sit and wait until a few days before due date to know!   

Is this a package holiday, hotels included?.     From listening, watching, reading, I think that UNLESS you definitely, on no account, no matter what, would consider going to Japan in August, rather than pay the remainder you may have to consider losing the £1,500?   If you pay the remainder of the money, there is a chance, looking slim at this stage I agree, but it may just all go ahead.  In which case you would probably not get your money back, but you may be able to rebook?   Also remember no holidays will be going ahead against FCO advice and you will not have to get on a flight if you can't disembark and also if package and any of the flights are cancelled you would be entitled to a refund of the holiday.

 So it is either another nail biting wait and see after paying a lot of money or cutting your losses now and saving all the worry.     

Hope it all works out for you.

Edited to add - or check your insurance policy to see if you are covered for cancellation due to FCO advice up to 31 days before travel.   This might be an option?

Hi mate, it is a package holiday but they’ve said the hotel can be cancelled as I’m sure it’s one a scheme where you pay it later. 

We’ve not asked the question yet about rebooking - if we could rebook for next year and lastminute agree to this that would be amazing, but I haven’t heard of anybody else being able to rebook and change the dates for their lastminute holiday.

Cam91

silvercar said:

Your zurich Birmingham flight could be what saves you. If it is cancelled and the whole holiday was booked as a package and there is no other way that lastminute can get you back to Birmingham or nearby within a few hours of your original arrival time, that should mean you can have a total refund.
You may want to say which airline and which month that flight is. Or try the flyertalk forums for that airline.
General rule is that you have to pay the balance if you don't want to cancel, though lastminute may allow some flexibility on the date payment is due if you ask. If you don't pay the balance when due, then it would be considered that you have cancelled.

Hi mate, the details for the flight are 

17:10 Zurich 
18:00 Birmingham
24th August 2020
Swiss LX424
i just can’t seem to find this flight anywhere on the internet (including the Swiss airlines website) which leads me to believe it has been cancelled. It you guys can find it then fair play lol. I have mentioned this to lastminute.com and they’ve said they’re contacting the airline for an update. 

We are yet to ask for an extension on the payment date. I think that will be the next thing I ask. I just wish there was more clarification and that we’re not being held to ransom.. which is what it feels like at the moment. 

shapala

Hi Cam

I actually had something similar with multi city flights from Edi to Tokyo, Nagasaki back to Edi via Tokyo and Munich. Our flight from Nagasaki to Tokyo was cancelled and so was Tokyo to Munich about two weeks before we were due to depart (only had a very basic email mentioning a change to our itinerary and we only found out when logging in to our Luft account). Lufthansa could do nothing but offer a full refund (despite having non-refundable flights). We were due to fly in March (cherry blossom time) so we were saved by said cancellations. On a side note, we were both in the 'vulnerable' category and had to self isolate at the time up to the time we were due to depart so wouldn't have flown anyway. Ok, it's not a package hol we booked (just flights and fortunately all our hotels were refundable) but I'd like to hope you'll be in the same situation if one of the legs has been cancelled.

The other issue you'll have, afaik, lastminute will have to wait until they're refunded by the airline before then forwarding said refund on to you, which could take a good bit of time. We booked direct with Luft and it still took 3 months before we were refunded just last week.

Wish you best of luck ;-) 

Cam91

Thank you Shapala


on the lastminute.com website there is a section under the Covid 19 part of the site that’s says -

“You can cancel your booking at anytime from your account” - however, if there are no travel restrictions affecting your trip/destination at the time of cancellation, your cancellation request will be subject to the standard terms and conditions for cancelling, we will notify you of these fee’s before proceeding”

I mean... I can’t enter Japan as I’ve been in the UK and the UK are on their banned list so how am I not entitled to a refund?!