What Are My Options?

silvercar

I’m already worried about my upcoming trip to Mauritius and I’m flying direct.
I would see if trip.com would change your flights to direct ones.

Diver2

Sandtree said:

Diver2 said:

My travel insurance comes with my Nationwide Flexaccount Plus. It seem as comprehensive as any other when it comes dealing with situational changes due to Coronavirus, but it still requires me to try and get money/vouchers etc., before making a claim and so I need to understand my situation first. I will be calling them to talk it through as well. 

All insurance is intended to be "last resort", namely because they cannot step into your shoes to then claim back the money from the airline etc.

Think your plans are to go for 20 something days? The one thing to be potentially cautious of depending on your "plan B"s is that most annual policies like this have a 31 day limit. So our plan B if where we are goes back on a red list or the UK is in lockdown is to wait it out here, our flights are fully flexible as booked with airmiles, but you could become unstuck if your plan is similar and you go outside your cover limit.

Thanks Sandtree. That's exactly how I understand that insurance work. They are a fall back if all else fails and only within the limits of their cover. 

Yes - we were planning a 21 day trip to make the most of the time there (and to treat my wife who works for the NHS and has found the last 18 months something of a trial) and understand your point about the max lengh of stay overseas - thanks for the heads up and I'll check what cover we have. 

Diver2

silvercar said:

I’m already worried about my upcoming trip to Mauritius and I’m flying direct.
I would see if trip.com would change your flights to direct ones.

I'll look at that thanks, something to consider. Although overall I'm not sure that sinking more money into this feels like the best way fowards right now. I'll ask trip.com what the cost to change is though. 

I can understand your concern, all in the same region as the places that are currently on the red list. and why have the Saudi's chosen these places in addition...

Sandtree

Diver2 said:
Yes - we were planning a 21 day trip to make the most of the time there (and to treat my wife who works for the NHS and has found the last 18 months something of a trial) and understand your point about the max lengh of stay overseas - thanks for the heads up and I'll check what cover we have. 

Thankfully we can both WFH and realised that factoring in the lower cost of living could do a few months in latin america for the price of a normal holiday (or less)

Diver2 said:
why have the Saudi's chosen these places in addition...

Plenty of politics involved in all these decisions but to be less cynical it can also be due to most commonly used transit routes which can vary by country. A notable part of the arguement for keeping Turkey on the UK negative lists for so long is because they are a cheap transit route to south america of which most was on our red list at the time. 

When we came here it was on the UK red list but not on any of the US lists and so couldnt go UK to US but could go via here - and according to locals, lots of people were. Similarly couldnt go direct to the UK from here but could have gone via the US (which was our original plan B if the red list was still in force). Obviously talking about with having a stop in the intermediary country. If it was all based on science, wouldnt be possible.

Diver2

Morning All

Bit more investigating. Another call to Trip.com ascertained that if I cancel the booking I get nothing back bar a few hundred pounds. Bad news, but what I was expecting as a worse case scenario. 

In better news, the Saudia website has a section that says a transit visa is not required for our 4 hour transfer with them in Jeddah. So it would seem that we can transfer without "entering" Saudi. I will call them to clarify anyway though and equire further about the suspension of flights that has now been picked up by several other news outlets, including Gulf news.

Diver2

Just coming back to update this thread for reference for others. 

Prior to travelling, I went into the Saudia London office. Even they were confused about whether I would be allowed to travel or not, but informed me in the circumstances I could cancel using their "involuntary refund" process, which would result in a full refund. They even sent me an e-mail with all the information needed to do this. 

Asked Trip.com to do this, and sent them the mail from Saudia on how to do it. Trip.com didn't read it and still came back with a massive cancellation fee (which was not in their own T&C's). I decided to leave it and see what happened closer to the time. 

Prior to travelling, I booked some other direct refundable flights with Air Mauritius, as a personal insurance. 

Sure enough, about a week prior to our travel home, I recieved an e-mail from Trip.com tell me that Saudia had cancelled our flights, but with no further information on what to do or next steps. Sent a e-mail asking them to to confirm a refund but also started a section 75 claim the same day. No sense in messing around arguing with such an unresponsive and unhelpful travel agent. They can argue with the credit company against the refund request if they wish. 

Flew home using the direct flights and very glad I had them. Lesson learnt is to try booking direct with airlines or a reputable UK based travel agent and check conditions of tickets very carefully on the currenct circumstances! And also to use a credit card for the additional protection it gives.

Hope that helps!
D2

Westin

Appreciate you returning to update your thread with the outcome.  Glad everything worked out for you.

"Lesson learnt is to try booking direct with airlines or a reputable UK based travel agent and check conditions of tickets very carefully on the current circumstances! And also to use a credit card for the additional protection it gives."

Wise words.

eskbanker

Diver2 said:

Sure enough, about a week prior to our travel home, I recieved an e-mail from Trip.com tell me that Saudia had cancelled our flights, but with no further information on what to do or next steps. Sent a e-mail asking them to to confirm a refund but also started a section 75 claim the same day. No sense in messing around arguing with such an unresponsive and unhelpful travel agent. They can argue with the credit company against the refund request if they wish.

Chances are a s75 claim will be rejected, as card companies will usually highlight that purchases via agents break the debtor-creditor-supplier chain required under the legislation - a chargeback claim ought to work if the agent refuses to refund though.

Diver2

Thanks Westin. Worked out well as got back to the UK without issue. Will continue to update thread in relation to getting around £1K back for the cancelled flights. I hope that section 75 gets me to where I need to go, but prepared for this to be another slog if needed. 

I don't think that anyone could accuse me of not working the problem here though. Even at the Saudia office, I seemed better informed than the staff! 

Diver2

eskbanker said:

Diver2 said:

Sure enough, about a week prior to our travel home, I recieved an e-mail from Trip.com tell me that Saudia had cancelled our flights, but with no further information on what to do or next steps. Sent a e-mail asking them to to confirm a refund but also started a section 75 claim the same day. No sense in messing around arguing with such an unresponsive and unhelpful travel agent. They can argue with the credit company against the refund request if they wish.

Chances are a s75 claim will be rejected, as card companies will usually highlight that purchases via agents break the debtor-creditor-supplier chain required under the legislation - a chargeback claim ought to work if the agent refuses to refund though.

Thanks, I think that the actual wording in the standard Credit Card company response I recieved is that "Sometimes, we may decide to raise a chargeback claim rather than a Section 75 claim, unless you instruct us otherwise. This is because chargeback claims can take less time to resolve, meaning you’ll get your money back sooner."

So hopefully, the CC company will take the action that's appropriate.