HOLIDAY LET REFUND ISSUES

LKD_2

I booked a villa in Tenerife paying £2100 deposit.  This was a non-refundable deposit as when I booked and paid in Sept 2019 we had every intention of making the trip.  I have moved the flights with TUI to 2021.  The couple who I rented the villa from will not allow me to simply move the rental forward to 2021 without keeping back £1050 for their inconvenience.  I have asked them to be more reasonable and accept £525 as compensation, however they have declined.  I found the property on Lettings.com where I was sent away from the site to "contact the owner for pricing and availability".  I then paid £2100 by bank transfer.  Appreciate that this was a mistake on my behalf.  I have an annual travel insurance which renews in April and I did keep it with the same company in the home it might give me some protection.  Any advise would be very much appreciated as thus far the insurance company are saying I don't have a claim.  Thank you 

silvercar

Too late to suggest having the holiday and isolating afterwards?

eskbanker

What prompted you to move the flights?  If they were cancelled then many insurers (but not all) would cover unrecoverable consequential losses associated with accommodation, but if your insurer isn't prepared to accept a claim or you chose to defer the flights then there doesn't seem to be anything further to pursue with them, unless there's something in the policy terms you can identify.

Assuming insurance isn't relevant, then you're bound by the terms of the villa booking, so whether a cancellation/rebooking charge is 25% or 50% should be spelt out there?  There has been some discussion on other threads about challenging unjustifiably disproportionate cancellation fees through the courts but realistically that is likely to be a long shot, even if the contract is under UK law....