Dubai with Emirates Holidays Late June 26

Grumpy_chap

The OP was in breach of contract so I suspect chargeback will fail. So would legal action, unless Emirates pay as cheaper to pay than defend.

FCDO for June has not and will not be published until June. The current advice could change between now and then.

markd3019

I agree the right under Regulation 12(7) is assessed at or near the time of travel, not months in advance. But that's precisely why I asked Emirates to defer the balance until closer to the departure date so we could see whether the circumstances still applied. In addition I also offered to let them hold my deposit until I could book for the following year (they were only offering bookings until April 2027) - they refused. In both cases I escalated in writing specifically requesting review away from 1st line support which also made clear I did not want to lose the value of the deposit and was prepared to book a further holiday if that was the only option available to me. They only replied to than when cancelling the booking even going as far to say citing that I had requested it! I wasn't trying to exercise a termination right early, I was trying to keep the booking alive until the right time to assess it. Emirates have prevented that. Anyway lets leave it and see what happens and Ill update accordingly.

eskbanker

Now that you seem to accept that you didn't have termination rights (without loss of deposit) in April for a holiday in late June, your argument appears to be that you felt that Emirates should have agreed to change the contract terms in your favour? That's pretty flimsy to take to court…

BurkieDaddyo

I’m in a similar situation but my booking is for very early June, (already paid in full) I’ve spoken to emirates a few times and they refuse to give any flexibility at all on cancelation even though my booking is a matter of hours outside of the current 31st may cancellation policy.

im genuinely disappointed in the service I’ve had from them, im expected to wait up to another month for them to decide if they extend this policy, then wait up to a further 4 weeks to get my money back. Leaving me pretty much no time to rebook a holiday for these dates.

it’s the first and last time I’ll book with emirates, I genuinely thought I was booking with a premium brand and expected much better service. They can’t even tell me when they are considering updating their current policy “check again tomorrow” isn’t good enough.

eskbanker

While it's understandable that those with holidays booked to or through the Middle East are a bit jumpy, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for Emirates Holidays to have an end date for their flexible cancellation policy, without committing to when this may be reviewed and extended if necessary - the situation is unpredictable and nobody knows what next month, next week or even tomorrow might bring.

Re "wait up to a further 4 weeks to get my money back", the Package Travel Regulations require that refunds "must be made to the traveller without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days after the package travel contract is terminated":

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/634/regulation/14

BurkieDaddyo

Regarding refunds timeline- On their own site it now says up to 21 days for a refund to be processed then 5 working days for the transfer of funds.

My point is I booked directly with emirates holidays (not on the beach or package pirates trying save a few £££). I paid the premium price and assumed a premium brand would come with premium service, I agree their policy is not unreasonable but the zero flexibility around a few hours outside of that policy (I feel) is unreasonable.

What I honestly expected is an open invitation to cancel any booking to places like Dubai, this would allow people to make their own choice and also give Emirates a much clearer view of what the upcoming year holds for this route.

These are the situations where a customer goes away happy, with plans to use the brand/recommend the brand again, or turn to online forums bleating and crying about how poorly they feel they’ve been treated by a brand 😏

la531983

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81974458#Comment_81974458

But if they then start dealing with everyone up to 6am 1st June, they may as well do up to noon 1st June. And then 6pm 1st June. And so on. Everything in life needs a cutoff.

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81974458#Comment_81974458

On refunds, I was just pointing out what their legal obligations are, which can't be overridden by contractual Ts & Cs, so they can and should be challenged if they claim the right to take longer.

I take your point about premium expectations, but realistically they have to draw the line somewhere - if they offered discretionary flexibility to someone on 1 June, someone not offered it on 2 June could object, and so on, so (from the perspective of someone with no skin in the game) it seems a legitimate approach to stick to a published date.

An "open invitation to cancel any booking to places like Dubai" would naturally be welcomed by customers but would be ruinously expensive for the holiday company and it's still plausible that there's no actual need for such generosity, if the war ends sooner rather than later (not saying this is likely though…).

BurkieDaddyo

Yes, I agree completely, and that’s why I assumed they would have an open cancelation policy for any “pre booked ” holidays.
I can’t believe this would be a massive overhead/cost to them when you balance how many they ultimately end up cancelling themselves.

Like I say I’ve walked away from the brand, I’m just left randomly searching forums on the off chance I’ll find some information that will clarify when I will be able to cancel my booking. Even if they said “we’re going to update our policy for June no later than tomorrow/next week/next month”. But to simply say “we don’t know”. Leaves people like me hitting refresh on their page several times a day.

It’s not like people are reacting to a few bad TripAdvisor reviews.

Also one final point on the service I’ve received, on one call a very helpful lady suggested I raise and official complaint to maybe help speed up the process. I followed the link she provided and filled in the feedback/complaint form, I very quickly received an automated response saying they would try to reply in 28 days (not great)

sheramber

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81974488#Comment_81974488

You are speaking to frontline telephone staff who do not make decisions about flying schedules.
They will only know what has been already advised.