Should my travel company be cancelling our package holiday now that Maldives is on the red list?

lisyloo

Gaz_Williams said:

If only you'd booked this one with TUI as well !!
Which Airline have they booked you on ?

Tell me about it!! I've had cancelled holidays from Thomas Cook, British Airways, TUI and not one issue, even the ATOL scheme worked well.

They've booked flights with Emirates...

My feeling is it's just too early even if that is just down to travel agent resourcing. 
Presumably the flight is via Dubai?
Whilst Maldives might come off the red list, UK gov are very negative wrt the large international travel hubs for obvious reasons (UAE is on the red list)
August 2020 our flights LHR->DBX->CEBU (philippines) were cancelled with 2 months notice.
In Dec 2020 the DBX->CEBU route was altered from 7->2 days a week and hasn't been put back due to lack of demand.
So I would say Emirates are being risk averse with their flights until demand is back.
If you want some more re-assurance you could check whether the flights are scheduled (I use skyscanner.net).
It's not definittve, but if there are no flights scheduled then it's a strong indicator the holiday won't be going ahead, but IME some of the major airlines have been working 2 months ahead wrt scheduling/cancellations.

Gaz_Williams

eskbanker said:

Yes, although the point I was making earlier on is that there's a difference between countries with adverse FCO advice and countries which are on the red list (which is managed by the Department of Transport) - there will undoubtedly be overlap but they're not directly equivalent, and it's the former that counts when it comes to cancellation rights, travel insurance, etc.

Thank you - you have been so much help, I'll be keeping an eye on things as the the weeks go passed, but I definitely feel a little bit more protected now and know what data, sites, and government updates to look out for.  I've got time so fingers crossed!

Gaz_Williams

silvercar said:

I would wait and see. Maldives have been doing well on their vaccine programme, so their rates may fall rapidly in the next few weeks. 

It really is a question of waiting to see whether the sinopharm vaccine can beat the Indian variant.
I really hope so, as the Maldives rely on tourism and have suffered because of it due to Covid.

Yep I've been keeping an eye on the UNWTO site, their population is 55% vaccinated but looks like they've had a large outbreak, which makes a big difference with a small population. 

Thrugelmir

The Maldives only banned tourists from India today.  

niktheguru

I do hope you either get your cancellation or you get a green light to go.

What i am a bit surprised about is during a 15 month pandemic you've booked 3 different holidays and also booked a 10k holiday knowing full well we arent completely out of the woods yet and the travel insurance companies are tightening their grip on policy exclusions due to covid (on the basis that people now know about covid, so couldn't have booked before the pandemic) so there is always that possibility you may get screwed by your travel company. (obviously if you booked all these holidays before the pandemic, thats different)

What I would say is like a previous poster has said, the vaccination programme is very good in the maldives, and given your whole family has been vaccinated, bar an outbreak of a mutant strain which is proven to be resistant to the vaccine in the maldives. (the indian strain though more contagious, has still not proven to be more deadly to vaccinated indiviuduals) it is probably worth your while to continue with travel, and perhaps take the monetary hit for the hotel quaratine afterwards. (even if your school children need hotel quarantine, its only 10 days)

You say that luxtripper are offering moving your package if you change before 39 days of departure, obviously (just like with booking flights) if you change the date, you may have to pay more if the new date is at a more costly time of year.

Obviously if your travel operator offers you a refund or credit voucher thats great, but i suspect some will say that even on the red list you are able to travel, but have to quarantine.

Gaz_Williams

lisyloo said:

So I would say Emirates are being risk averse with their flights until demand is back.
If you want some more re-assurance you could check whether the flights are scheduled (I use skyscanner.net).
It's not definittve, but if there are no flights scheduled then it's a strong indicator the holiday won't be going ahead, but IME some of the major airlines have been working 2 months ahead wrt scheduling/cancellations.

I've had a look on Skyscanner, not flights coming into Manchester this week from Dubai, but it is showing flights available to book direct later this week. It will be interesting to see if they actually fly. Also you can't seem to book a government hotel in Manchester so not even sure you can fly there from a red list country...

Gaz_Williams

niktheguru said:

I do hope you either get your cancellation or you get a green light to go.

What i am a bit surprised about is during a 15 month pandemic you've booked 3 different holidays and also booked a 10k holiday knowing full well we arent completely out of the woods yet and the travel insurance companies are tightening their grip on policy exclusions due to covid (on the basis that people now know about covid, so couldn't have booked before the pandemic) so there is always that possibility you may get screwed by your travel company. (obviously if you booked all these holidays before the pandemic, thats different)

What I would say is like a previous poster has said, the vaccination programme is very good in the maldives, and given your whole family has been vaccinated, bar an outbreak of a mutant strain which is proven to be resistant to the vaccine in the maldives. (the indian strain though more contagious, has still not proven to be more deadly to vaccinated indiviuduals) it is probably worth your while to continue with travel, and perhaps take the monetary hit for the hotel quaratine afterwards. (even if your school children need hotel quarantine, its only 10 days)

You say that luxtripper are offering moving your package if you change before 39 days of departure, obviously (just like with booking flights) if you change the date, you may have to pay more if the new date is at a more costly time of year.

Obviously if your travel operator offers you a refund or credit voucher thats great, but i suspect some will say that even on the red list you are able to travel, but have to quarantine.

Thanks, yeah I didn't really explain our holiday nightmare very well. In 2019 we booked a holiday in Mexico for 2 weeks in Easter holidays 2020, through Thomas Cook, who went bust and then we had to get our money back and rebooked the same holiday through British Airways. This was obviously cancelled due to lockdown 1 and we got our money back. We then rebooked through TUI for Mexico for Easter 2021 assuming that we'd have vaccines and all would be back to normal. That again was wrong and we had our money back. This was at a time at Christmas where the vaccine programme had started, my Mrs had both her jabs by 1st week in January so we felt confident booking with maximum flexibility for Aug would be a safe bet.

But we didn't anticipate that the agent we booked through would be insisting that we travel regardless to a red list country so I am feeling a little exposed by the whole situation. Spending 10 nights in a Holiday Inn for an additional 3-4k is not an appealing prospect. I'm going to ride it out and see what happens until the end of June and make a decision then. I've told the family the holiday will be cancelled as I don't want to keep their hopes up. As you can imagine they've been waiting for this holiday since 2019 so that's why I tried to find something that would work this year optamistically, but we still have a long way to go it would seem. 

sheramber

Gaz_Williams said:

lisyloo said:

So I would say Emirates are being risk averse with their flights until demand is back.
If you want some more re-assurance you could check whether the flights are scheduled (I use skyscanner.net).
It's not definittve, but if there are no flights scheduled then it's a strong indicator the holiday won't be going ahead, but IME some of the major airlines have been working 2 months ahead wrt scheduling/cancellations.

I've had a look on Skyscanner, not flights coming into Manchester this week from Dubai, but it is showing flights available to book direct later this week. It will be interesting to see if they actually fly. Also you can't seem to book a government hotel in Manchester so not even sure you can fly there from a red list country...

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/booking-and-staying-in-a-quarantine-hotel-when-you-arrive-in-england

If you’re required to quarantine in a managed quarantine hotel you can only arrive in England at certain ports of entry. Currently these are:

• Heathrow Airport
• Gatwick Airport
• London City Airport
• Birmingham Airport
• Bristol Airport
• Farnborough Airport

niktheguru

Gaz_Williams said:

Thanks, yeah I didn't really explain our holiday nightmare very well. In 2019 we booked a holiday in Mexico for 2 weeks in Easter holidays 2020, through Thomas Cook, who went bust and then we had to get our money back and rebooked the same holiday through British Airways. This was obviously cancelled due to lockdown 1 and we got our money back. We then rebooked through TUI for Mexico for Easter 2021 assuming that we'd have vaccines and all would be back to normal. That again was wrong and we had our money back. This was at a time at Christmas where the vaccine programme had started, my Mrs had both her jabs by 1st week in January so we felt confident booking with maximum flexibility for Aug would be a safe bet.

But we didn't anticipate that the agent we booked through would be insisting that we travel regardless to a red list country so I am feeling a little exposed by the whole situation. Spending 10 nights in a Holiday Inn for an additional 3-4k is not an appealing prospect. I'm going to ride it out and see what happens until the end of June and make a decision then. I've told the family the holiday will be cancelled as I don't want to keep their hopes up. As you can imagine they've been waiting for this holiday since 2019 so that's why I tried to find something that would work this year optamistically, but we still have a long way to go it would seem. 

Makes sense. Keep the faith, a lot can change between now and June (for the good and for the bad!) Don't think we're completely out of the water yet, but we are getting close.