Non refundable hotel booked Jan 2020, country will not allow people in from UK, how do I get refund

jedgy

I booked a hotel in Amsterdam through Agoda in Jan 2020 to stay over Easter 2020.  Due to COVID, we changed the dates to Sept 2020, which we couldn’t make due to the travel restrictions. The hotel won’t provide a refund, but advised that we can go to the hotel between now and 31 Dec 2021.
At the moment, the Netherlands will not allow travellers from the UK into their country, but even if they did, I don’t have enough holiday leave to go this year - my booking was for 4 nights.
Has anyone else been in the same situation and did they get a refund - this is approx £750, so a lot of money to write off.
Agoda have been no help at all.

ItsComingRome

jedgy said:

I booked a hotel in Amsterdam through Agoda in Jan 2020 to stay over Easter 2020.  Due to COVID, we changed the dates to Sept 2020, which we couldn’t make due to the travel restrictions. The hotel won’t provide a refund, but advised that we can go to the hotel between now and 31 Dec 2021.
At the moment, the Netherlands will not allow travellers from the UK into their country, but even if they did, I don’t have enough holiday leave to go this year - my booking was for 4 nights.
Has anyone else been in the same situation and did they get a refund - this is approx £750, so a lot of money to write off.
Agoda have been no help at all.

If the hotel is open then unfortunately you don't have any refund rights.

sheramber

Presumably you don't have travel insurance to cover you for government restrictions.

elsien

If you are vaccinated I believe you can currently travel there.


“If you are a resident of a country that is not on the list of safe countries and fully vaccinated, you can be exempted from the EU entry ban unless you are travelling from a country that has been designated as a very high-risk area due to the presence of a variant of concern. Under this exemption you can enter the Netherlands if you have proof of vaccination showing that you have been fully vaccinated with a vaccine approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or the World Health Organization (WHO).”

The UK is high risk but is not on the “variant of concern “ list. 

Full information here. 

https://www.government.nl/topics/coronavirus-covid-19/visiting-the-netherlands-from-abroad/exemptions-to-the-entry-ban/eu-entry-ban-exemption-categories

Your annual leave situation isn’t the hotel's problem, but have you tried asking them for a further delay? 

Thrugelmir

jedgy said:

At the moment, the Netherlands will not allow travellers from the UK into their country, but even if they did, I don’t have enough holiday leave to go this year - my booking was for 4 nights.

Why didn't you keep some annual leave in hand when you knew you had the booking?  Self inflicted problems aren't anybody elses to deal with. 

Sandtree

jedgy said:
I don’t have enough holiday leave to go this year - my booking was for 4 nights.

Has anyone else been in the same situation and did they get a refund - this is approx £750, so a lot of money to write off.

I doubt many people have been in the situation of booking a non-refundable hotel and then subsequently taking too much time off work as not to have sufficient holiday to travel.

Presumably you work 5 days a week and so go over your 2 days off so you take 2-3 days unpaid leave (assuming this plus flights is less than £750 net impact) 

This is an issue of your own creation and no hotel is going to take sympathy on someone mismanaging their work holiday entitlement.