Dubai Cancellation due to floods - Urgent help required

Coreyt16

Hi all,

I travelled to  Dubai on the 12th of April and was due to return on April the 17th. Unfortunately on the morning of our return flight home Dubai was hit with flooding. We had already checked in online and managed to make it to the airport. As we were about to drop our bags off a member of staff said we couldn't as there were no flights taking off from DBX on that day.

Emirates Holidays who the package was booked through have since said they would pay for the first 3 days hotels and advised us to use our travel insurance to reclaim any costs. Upon arrival back to our hotel i contacted my insurer twice to double and triple check i was 100% covered for hotels and any reasonable expenditure. the agent on the phone confirmed i was.

We made every effort to get on a return flight sooner but ultimately had to settle for 7 days later on the 24th (although on sky scanner there were additional flights available earlier which they refused to put us on)

Now we have finally got home naturally we have sent all our documentation to our insurer Allianz and they have now said that it is not their responsibility and that we should be contacting emirates? We now are in a situation where we have thousands of credit card debt that interest will start to be incurred on and have a holiday package provide (emirates holiday) & our travel insurance (Allianz) blaming each other. Is anyone able to provide any help on what i can do? who is at fault? Emirates will probably say its an act of god but there were flights taking off and landing in DBX they simply did not have the staff at the airport to deal with the backlog of customers.

Thank you

Mark_d

You need something in writing from emirates stating the reason you could not return home sooner and that the extended stay was necessary.  With this information your insurer would be able to pay you for Travel Disruption.  If they on't pay then go to Financial Ombudsman

eskbanker

Coreyt16 said:

We made every effort to get on a return flight sooner but ultimately had to settle for 7 days later on the 24th (although on sky scanner there were additional flights available earlier which they refused to put us on)

Now we have finally got home naturally we have sent all our documentation to our insurer Allianz and they have now said that it is not their responsibility and that we should be contacting emirates? We now are in a situation where we have thousands of credit card debt that interest will start to be incurred on and have a holiday package provide (emirates holiday) & our travel insurance (Allianz) blaming each other. Is anyone able to provide any help on what i can do? who is at fault? Emirates will probably say its an act of god but there were flights taking off and landing in DBX they simply did not have the staff at the airport to deal with the backlog of customers.

On what grounds are Allianz contending that it's the package provider who's responsible?  In general, travel insurers will decline to pay out costs that are recoverable from other parties, but the package provider is only on the hook for the first three additional nights under 15.14(a):

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/634/regulation/15

Hoenir

There was no alternative viable route to return home for the entire 7 days ?  

Coreyt16

Hoenir said:

There was no alternative viable route to return home for the entire 7 days ?  

None that would have been within the package. there were indirect flights available but emirates said it would come at our cost. on the 21st we found emirates flights on skyscanner and asked could we have seats on these and they declined and said we had to stay until the 24th.

Hoenir

Coreyt16 said:

Hoenir said:

There was no alternative viable route to return home for the entire 7 days ?  

None that would have been within the package. there were indirect flights available but emirates said it would come at our cost. .

You would have not incurred the considerable additional costs of remaining in Dubai though that your insurers aren't to accept. Onus is also on the policyholder to be proactive and mitigate expenses.  

No_nonsense

Yes totally agree that a travel insurance policy holder should apply a sensible approach to costs. But. In the 1st instance you would have to pay for everything yourself. I was delayed by a week by the floods and Emirates eventually rebooked me after my visit to their office in Deira.( I was surprised that the closing time was 5.30pm and they stopped issuing counter place tickets at 4.30pm. ) No information was provided for compensation from Emirates or received. However my travel insurance Rias/Axa reassured me on 5 occasions my food and out of expenses would be covered. I was fortunate to stay with family friends for most of the delayed days. I bought daily supermarket food e.g sandwiches and juice etc. I also ran out of medication which I bought for £4.53. I bought some flat shoes for £8.50 as mine became water logged. When I made the claim Rias/Axa underwriters said I was not covered …but only for my one night hotel stay and travel expenses.So regardless of speaking to 4 advisors who advised incorrectly their complaint team said no they will still not pay and are sorry! I wish I had booked a hotel for longer with a complimentary breakfast and not been out of pocket for £120. Rias /Axa would’ve had to pay over £1000. So being considerate isn’t always the best option. Terms and conditions of policies clearly ate mot even understood by the people employed by the travel insurance company unfortunately.