Travel Insurance - Do I have a Claim?

thecableguy22

I booked a weekend break to Germany a couple of weeks before Christmas for the family to see the Christmas markets. We hadn't used the Eurostar before so thought we'd try that. I used my work perks to get a few percent off the cost of the tickets (I pay a set amount, and get that plus 3% in vouchers). 

Nearer the time we are told that our return part of the trip has been cancelled and needs to be rebooked. We rebooked on a later train. Then a couple of days before we are due to travel we were told that that train had been cancelled and there were no other trains for that section of the return trip. We panicked and organised flights back to London for the return trip. 

On the day of travel, the first train stopped for about 30 minutes between France and Belgium due to some engineering issue. When it did start up again we seemed to be travelling slowly until we got to our destination. We were due to have just over an hour to wait between this train and the next one, but due to these issues we had just under 10 minutes to get off one train and find and get to the platform for the next train. 

The second train to Cologne took ages. We found out that two trains had collided on a section of track a few weeks before, so the train was making a large detour around this section of track. Depending on what information you go by, we arrived either 40 mins late (the revised arrival time on the day), or 2 hours late (the arrival time on or original tickets bought months ago). 

We eventually got to our destination and enjoyed the couple of days. We organised a taxi to the airport and another back in the UK to get us back to our car (an Uber worked out a few pounds cheaper than getting a trains back to the train station for the 5 of us). 

We enjoyed our weekend but had the thoughts in the back of our heads about claiming for delays, cancellations and alternative travel. I thought it would be fine as Eurostar would refund the cancelled leg of the trip so we could make up for the hundreds paid for flights at the last minute. It then dawned on me that they would only refund in vouchers as I had used the work scheme to buy Eurostar vouchers in the first place. They are usable up to 12 months, but we are still left with a hole in our pocket especially so close to Christmas. 

My question is, can I claim for any of this on my travel insurance? There's multiple elements (delays, cancellations, taxis, flights at high last minute prices) so don't know the best route for this. 

Voyager2002

Explain to Eurostar that you were stranded by the cancellation of your journey home, and so needed to fly. Ask them to meet the cost of the flight rather than giving a refund.

DullGreyGuy

Voyager2002 said:

Explain to Eurostar that you were stranded by the cancellation of your journey home, and so needed to fly. Ask them to meet the cost of the flight rather than giving a refund.

The insurer will deduct the refund due from the Eurotunnel... the OP will have to have paid for some form of transport home, the insurer will just insure that its capped at the original price + the pp excess.