Claiming back APD

kushty9

Hi All, I hope someone can help me, I can't seem to find a definitive answer online. Back in early May my wife and I booked a holiday with Virgin Holidays, which consisted of return flights, accommodation for the last 8 days of the Holiday and a cruise from Port Canaveral for the first 7 days. The day before the trip, we went and stayed at an airport hotel at Manchester. The next day I woke feeling really poorly and felt unable to fly so we cancelled both parts of the holiday. On arriving back home and checking the insurance policy, it turns out that we only had basic cancellation cover at £750 each. I looked back over all the previous insurance policies we had with this company, and we always chose the premium cover which was £2500 each. I am a stickler for things like that.  I never noticed this when taking out the new policy it had gone up because we had added cruise cover to it, but the base price was about the same as the previous year, so never queried it. In the end we were only able to get back £1500 of a holiday that cost £6500. So now I will always check and double check. 

Now to the main reason for posting here, As we never flew with Virgin, they would not have to pay APD for us would they? Then is it possible to reclaim that from them. I read that you should be able to but it is not clear also I spoke to someone a Virgin Atlantic, (the airline) and they said to try Virgin Holidays who we booked with. The thing is, am I wasting my time? There could be a couple of hundred pounds in it and every bit back helps. 

Thanks in advance
Steve

eskbanker

kushty9 said:

As we never flew with Virgin, they would not have to pay APD for us would they? Then is it possible to reclaim that from them. I read that you should be able to but it is not clear also I spoke to someone a Virgin Atlantic, (the airline) and they said to try Virgin Holidays who we booked with. The thing is, am I wasting my time? There could be a couple of hundred pounds in it and every bit back helps. 

https://help.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/policies/conditions-of-carriage/article-10.html covers the airline's position on refunding taxes - if the flights were booked by Virgin Holidays then you may indeed need to claim via them.

Westin

APD is £87 per person (Virgin Holidays may or may not charge an administration fee to refund it which may wipe out much of the recovery).  Your travel insurer may also deduct the APD from your claim on the assumption that you will claim this back from the airline.

chapea

As above its £87 for usa. Just claimed back for one of my daughters with tui as she did not fly last month to Orlando with me. Tui didn’t charge an admin fee tho virgin may it also took me 4 people before someone got what I was asking 

one person even told me to go to the airport in Orlando to get it back even though I’d told him we were back home. Another told me you couldn’t claim any of the taxes back but I knew I could and eventually got there 

kushty9

Thanks for your help and advice guys. Will give Virgin Hols a go.