Please help

Leighanne85

Hi there,

I'm posting in here in utter desperation.

I'll start right from the start, I'm posting this on behalf of my grandparents who booked a family trip of a life time to disney florida to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary, they booked it in April 2019 for departure 14th March 2020.

On the 13th March 2020 we (My grandparents, myself, husband and two children and my brother) awoke to the news that disney florida was shut due to coronavirus, this was the main part of our package holiday,  after some further investigation florida was already in lock down with nothing open except supermarkets. As a family we got together that morning and decided because of Disney being shut a the threat of coronavirus especially on my grandfather who is 82 and diabetic and my husband who is asthmatic we decided to cancel our holiday. We contacted holiday genie that morning to be told they might be able to rearrange our flight's and extend the time on our disney tickets but the villa and car hire we would miss out on because virgin atlantic were still flying there. We argued our point we had booked a package holiday but they wouldn't process any refund. We then contacted our holiday insurance companies on the basis of medical claim who asked for a cancellation invoice,  we went back to holiday genie asking for this and we still haven't received one, we've emailed multiple times and tried to telephone where it says no messages on this line but we still haven't got any reply so our insurance company can't process our claim. 

We have since contacted the financial ombudsman who have said they can't help us.

Please help any advice will be great.

Kind regards

Leigh-Anne 

DCFC79

Might be useful

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/02/coronavirus-travel-help-and-your-rights/?_ga=2.24142905.2040444521.1604929312-501364498.1472296258

ToxicWomble

A few things -
did you get an ATOL certificate and what does it say ?
I suspect you didn’t actually have a package holiday
Also they may not provide you with a cancellation cert as it was you that cancelled.

What/whose insurance policy is it ? Were all travellers named on it ?

If the flights and villa were still available and running then unless it was the agents that cancelled, you might be SoL

Westin

I think this is a travel insurance claim.  

You mention a claim based on medical grounds but I think you are better using the justification for the claim that the US suspended ESTAs on 14 March from U.K. travellers and that this is the reason why you could not fly.  

A cancellation invoice to enable a travel insurance claim is normal. HolidayGenie should be able to provide this if you booked a package holiday. You however need to be clearer as to requesting this from them for a travel insurance claim.