Hotel refund dispute - help needed! 10 January 2022 at 12:45PM edited 10 January 2022 at 12:51PM in Coronavirus travel help & info 3 replies 141 views

moliver_93

Good morning, 

I was hoping for some help/advice regarding a deposit I'm disputing with a hotel in Mykonos.

This started back in 2020, myself and two friends decided (stupidly!) to get away in August, so booked a trip to mykonos. A few weeks before the trip, although we didn't need to pay it until we arrived, I decided (again, stupidly!) to pay the deposit of 1875EUR (around £520 per person).

Covid cases got worse around this time and there were talks of travel restrictions coming back into place, so we decided to postpone until 2021. The hotel advised they would keep our deposit for a future reservation, not specifying a date it needed to be used by. 

We decided to provisionally book again for August 2021, but then COVID again picked up and I was furloughed working in the travel industry myself. We decided to again email the hotel and check our options. They refused to give us a refund but said we could use the credit voucher.

Due to the ongoing uncertainty with COVID, I spoke to my credit card provider to see if they could help obtain a refund, but unfortunately they were unable to help as the hotel had offered the credit voucher. 

Fast forward to today, I have emailed the hotel to check how long the vouchers is valid for and they have come back to advise it expired at the end of 2021 (which they didn't make clear but included on the small print in an email attachment!) 

Does anyone have any advice on how I can resolve this? The hotel have been poor with communication, I understand and am grateful they offered a credit voucher but now feel at a total loss and don't want to see over £1500 go down the drain! 

Thanks, 
Max

soolin

Have you tried your travel insurance as I suspect that is your only (but unlikely)  hope. The disinclination to travel in August 2021 might be a stumbling block even to that though. 

mattyprice4004

It sounds like you didn't read the email properly - if the email mentioned the expiry I can't see you have a leg to stand on; businesses can't just have liabilities hanging around forever. 

onashoestring

It seems the Hotel has been very fair , in 2020 offering a change of date , which you accepted and later when you were disinclined to travel in August21 , a credit voucher .

It’s not their fault your were furloughed and were disinclined to travel or that you didn’t read the T&Cs of the credit voucher that they sent.

Your travel insurance has correctly advised you that as you accepted a voucher there was no claim.

Unfortunately because you didn’t use the vouchers in the specified time, there is no way  to reclaim the money.