Cruise cancelled, help with flight refund

ladya1234

We had booked a cruise in Dubai Dec 26, which has now been cancelled by the cruise liner. Virgin flights were booked separately with a third party agent.

I've spoken to Virgin and they have said to speak to the agent. The problem is the agent is uncontactable: On hold for hours to be cut off, online form not helpful.

What is the best way to deal with this, the virgin flight has not been cancelled yet, all operations are currently suspended

Can w request refund via credit card? chargeback or consumer rights section? Or just try and claim back on our travel insurance. Or is there nothing we can do at the moment?

the cruise liner haven't specifically said they have cancelled/moved the cruise because of the conflict, they are moving their operations out of the middle east

eskbanker

Your rights (if any) to a refund for the flight tickets will be determined by the policies associated with the fare class within which you booked, but most are non-refundable. Your travel insurance might cover it, so worth checking the policy terms, but you wouldn't have any recourse via card providers, etc, as the airline has done nothing wrong here - if it's not until December though, things can obviously change between now and then…

born_again

Unless you have cancelation rights on the flights, you could might be stuck.

No chargeback rights, as the flight is still available, same with S75. Insurance might just say the same, given they are separate bookings.

Who is the agent?

Ayr_Rage

I assume you have had a full refund for the cruise.

The fact that the cruise has been cancelled is not relevant to your contract with the agent who has booked the Virgin flights.

Virgin are correct that you must get your agent to make any changes and any refund will be processed via that agent in the event the flights are ultimately cancelled by Virgin.

The best you can hope for is that Virgin cancel the flights, then you will be entitled to a full refund, but as they are in December that could be a long and nervous wait.

Second best would be Virgin, via your agent, agree a change in destination which may involve a fee, it is highly unlikely they'll allow a full refund at this time for December flights.

If you cancel on your own volition at this point you will only receive a refund according to the ticketing class that your agent has booked for you, that could be nothing at all.

As the flights have not been cancelled you do not have any consumer rights for non performance against anybody.

Travel insurance will not pay out for war and if Dubai is back on the safe list by December, it won't pay for disinclination to travel.

TELLIT01

I would suggest keep trying to contact the agent the flights were booked through, and keep a note of the date, time and duration of each attempt - including details like call being terminated after x time.

If you continue to be unable to contact the agent, I would contact Virgin again to see if they will do anything. No guarantee, but worth trying.

ladya1234

Thanks everyone