Refund of Deposit to Travel Agency?

ROY1935

Hi everyone
I booked two air tickets to India in Feb, for travel in August. I put down a £300 (non-refundable) deposit with the Travel Agency.
They have now come back to me saying that I need to pay the rest of the money (c. £400) or else I will lose the deposit. I have Travel Insurance which I took out in Jan, so I'm covered for this, but only if travel restrictions are still in place at the time of travel. Currently the Foreign Office advises against all non-essential travel. And flights to India right now are only for emergency purposes, and probably for several weeks in future.
I have a couple of options:
1) Don't pay the remaining amount, which means that I'll lose my deposit. (I could try to recover it from my insurance company, if restrictions are still in place in August)
2) Pay the remaining amount, and see what happens with flights and restrictions at the time of travel. If the airline cancels the flight, then they may pay me back the full amount, in cash or vouchers. Which is quite a big risk and I feel I may be throwing good money after bad.
What do you all suggest?
Thanks
Roy

Alan_Bowen

Foreign Office advice is changing later today, if there is no longer advice against travel to India, your options will change so do nothing yet.