Recover costs from credit card company for cancelled trip to Middle East

aroominyork

Nationwide says "If you are unable to get a refund or reschedule your trip, you may be able to make a claim for cancellation costs. You may also be able to recover costs from your credit card company if this is how you paid for your trip." That surprises me. Would I really get a credit card company rather than travel insurance to cover a cancelled trip to the Middle East? Obviously the credit card company is preferable if there is no excess.

MattMattMattUK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6658306/recover-costs-from-credit-card-company-for-cancelled-trip-to-middle-east

The refund from the card provider would only be in very specific circumstances, will only cover certain costs not all and insurance should be your first point of call.

Woodstok2000

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6658306/recover-costs-from-credit-card-company-for-cancelled-trip-to-middle-east

Most travel insurance doesn't cover war/terrorism, so other avenues are going to be helpful for a lot of people.

heatherw_01

Make sure to check out this MSE article about the disruption to that part of the world

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2026/03/middle-east-conflict-travel-rights/

bagand96

"You may also be able to recover costs from your credit card company if this is how you paid for your trip."

The may is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Credit card protection (Section 75) holds the credit provider jointly liable with the retailer if a product or service fails to be delivered.

With the current travel to/via the Middle East situation there's many scenarios and Section 75 won't cover them all.

If a flight is cancelled then the airline will refund, it's very unlikely they wouldn't. However any hotels, cars, trips etc booked separately you'd be at the mercy of the T&Cs of that booking. For example a non-refundable hotel room - if the hotel won't help it's unlikely Section 75 would succeed - the hotel room is there and available to use.

FCDO advise not to Travel won't trigger automatic refund rights. Package Holidays would normally be cancelled and refunded in that situation. But if you've a flight only and the flight still departs it's unlikely S75 would help as the airline wouldn't be in breach, the product was there to use.

Normally these would be covered by Travel Insurance, I expect we're about to see a test of how robust War exclusions are in policies.

Much of this is similar to the Covid travel restrictions.

Westin

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6658306/recover-costs-from-credit-card-company-for-cancelled-trip-to-middle-east

This quote was extracted from the Nationwide Flex Plus account page. Flex Plus being the packaged £18 per month banking account that includes travel insurance. https://www.nationwide.co.uk/help/travel/information-middle-east/

eskbanker

Another factor that disqualifies many section 75 claims is the use of intermediaries such as travel agents, which breaks the three-party debtor-creditor-supplier chain needed to sustain a claim, so anyone booking flights or accommodation (separately) via third party agents, rather than directly, is unlikely to be able to use s75 in the event of breach of contract by the actual supplier.