Have you had to change/cancel travel due to COVID-19 (involuntarily or voluntarily)?

[robtemt]

I thought I would start a thread as a resource for AFFers who have changed or cancelled travel plans directly or indirectly due to 2019 n-CoV.

• Did the airline/cruise company cancelling or change your flight/cruise? Or, did you proactively or reactively cancel or change it on your own (and why?).
• Did they notify you directly, or did you discover it on your own?
• What was your original plan, and what was the revised plan?
• What was your experience like?
• Did you go through any travel insurance claim process, and how was that part of it?

For the record, part of my role at work is to monitor medical related issues, filter out mis/disinformation, and brief other staff using only verified facts from trusted sources, so I am not one to buy into sensationalism or hysteria. BUT, I am also an advocate of forward planning and monitoring situations that could affect travel plans.

Post automatically merged: Feb 10, 2020

To start it off…. We have begun voluntarily changing (or making back up plans for) our upcoming holiday SYD-(+/- SIN)-LAX-SJO-LAX-HNL-LNY-HNL-SYD

We are booked to the USA via SIN on SQ in a few weeks (F Saver Reward Booking). A few things caused us to start making contingency plans on getting to the USA including:

• Reading posts from Buttermilk Chicken regarding her RTW flight being disrupted between HKK and CEB
• Member Pushka raising a good point if Singapore will be next.
• Monitoring the World Health Organisations surveillance on n-CoV (as part of my responsibilities at work). Singapore confirmed infections were 28 on 5 Feb, 40 on 8 Feb, and 43 on 9 Feb. Several of these cases were human-to-human contact, with no recent travel to China.
• Bloomberg’s article this morning HERE, which discussed the spread of the virus from a conference attendee in Singapore, via a resort in France, to people in France, Spain, and the UK.

We contacted SQ, to discuss the options of alternative carriers, to which there were no available flights. The agent was very friendly, and said she understood the desire to rebook and avoid an Asia transit, but she said until official bans are in place, there were no options, but “we will offer options if Singapore becomes affected by travel bans”.

We began searching other options. We contacted VFF, who found one seat on DL SYD-LAX in W, and one seat on VA in J SYD-BNE-LAX. No other business or premium reward seats (except any seat) were available +/- 1 day of our desired travel (with pre-booked hotels, cars, and other flights to South America, and Hawaii). We will keep looking for another J seat on same day, and hopefully two on the same flight to free up closer to the date.

We have left our SQ bookings as is for now, and will cancel either that booking of the DL/VA booking closer to the date as thing develop.

Overall Experience:

• Wait times on the phone are obviously a bit longer, but I’ve not been on hold longer than 15 minutes with either VA or SQ.
• Staff at both SQ and VA call centres have been friendly, empathetic, and helpful in searching, but have no/limited availability and flexibility in voluntary changes so far.

 

[Pushka]

Looks like policies are starting to change..... Hotels.com for example.

For customers who booked a non-refundable rate prior to March 19, 2020 for stays between March 20, 2020, and April 30, 2020, we will email you in the coming days to ask if you wish to keep or cancel your existing booking. If you decide to cancel, you will be eligible for a full refund or, in some cases, a voucher allowing you to rebook the original property at later dates. There is no need to call us, however you must cancel your booking at least 24-hours before check-in in order to be eligible for this offer.

For customers who booked a non-refundable rate for stays after April 30, 2020, with the situation continuing to evolve, we will continue to work with travel partners as necessary to implement flexible policies.

https://uk.hotels.com/page/coronavirus-booking-information/

As if April 30 is going to be the end. Oh well, it's a start. Might just ping booking.com another message.

 

[Flashback]

I'm waiting to see what BA will do, too. Lots of my shorthaul trips over the next 2 months were booked using Avios, so that's £35 per trip to cancel. Those all add up, when you include the hotels that at the moment can't be cancelled, so wondering how TI would deal with that i.e. if I cancel, do I then use the TI excess (which is less once you add things up) to cover the out of pocket cancellation costs etc.? I just need to do a bit more digging I think.

 

[drron]

- My family and I were the only guests in the EY first lounge at AUH for the three hours we were there. I found the experience underwhelming.

- EY still flew at least an A380 to SYD yesterday (as well as 2 x B789 to MEL and 1 x B789 to BNE). We were on the A380 and most whY pax had a row of seats to themselves. They must be scaling back in the very near future???

They certainly are reducing services but not by as much as you would think they should.

Etihad Airways Grounds A380 Fleet

Etihad Airways is grounding their fleet of 10 Airbus A380s through at least the end of June 2020. Here are the details of these cuts.

onemileatatime.com

 

[m_diggity]

How have people found LuxuryEscapes regarding refunds?
I have sent them an email asking for a refund, but (understandably) have not heard back yet.

 

[Flashback]

As if April 30 is going to be the end. Oh well, it's a start. Might just ping booking.com another message.

As it currently stands, they won't be receiving any of my business going forward if they don't fall in line with other hotel booking sites.

 

[m_diggity]

As if April 30 is going to be the end. Oh well, it's a start. Might just ping booking.com another message.

I should have waited. I cancelled a booking via booking.com phone agent for X2 Riverside resort in Chiang Mai. They stung me with a 50% cancellation fee - the booking was a non-refundable, so I was happy to get something back.

edit: Oh forgot to mention, the booking.com phone agent was great, and even gave me a $50 credit on my account.

Lesson learnt. Always book refundable accomodation!

 

[m_diggity]

Massive cuts from EK - as expected. Only SYD and PER maintained for AU, no NZ flying at all.

Travel updates | Help | Emirates Australia

Find out about the latest travel updates and any flight changes or cancellations. We update this page regularly with the most recent travel updates.

www.emirates.com

Wow! Thats a huge list of cancelled flights. As you said, to be expected though.

I've tried to change my upcoming MEL-DXD-MEL through Qantas manage booking, however, every time I select new dates (later this year) I get a generic error message, saying "flights can't be changed".

 

[straitman]

As it currently stands, they won't be receiving any of my business going forward if they don't fall in line with other hotel booking sites.

I refuse to have dealings with them after an episode with them last October. They tried to help but had too many uninformed fingers in the pie. Phone calls from all over the world at all sorts of times and with mixed messages. Just hopeless!

 

[Flashback]

I should have waited. I cancelled a booking via booking.com phone agent for X2 Riverside resort in Chiang Mai. They stung me with a 50% cancellation fee - the booking was a non-refundable, so I was happy to get something back.

edit: Oh forgot to mention, the booking.com phone agent was great, and even gave me a $50 credit on my account.

Lesson learnt. Always book refundable accomodation!

Is the $50 credit on top of the 50% you got back? If so, then sounds like you didn't lose out by much i.e. less than 50% in the end.

Post automatically merged: Mar 22, 2020

Here's all the bookings I'm working through options for at the moment, this is just for April/May.

From	To
LGW	AMS
AMS	LHR
LHR	MUC
MUC	LHR
LHR	OSL
OSL	BKK
OSL	LHR
LGW	TRN
TRN	LGW
LGW	SZG
SZG	LGW
LGW	NCE
NCE	LGW

 

[Pushka]

How have people found LuxuryEscapes regarding refunds?
I have sent them an email asking for a refund, but (understandably) have not heard back yet.

They won't refund. Period. They will rebook to a different date and this will appear in your booking if eligible. The dates they gave us were stupid. April through July this year. Then a couple of weeks in late November. So we contacted the accommodation directly and they gave us many more dates. I have read online that contacting the hotels directly may give you a refund but then you have to extract that from LE and I'm betting that isn't going to happen.

 

[m_diggity]

Is the $50 credit on top of the 50% you got back? If so, then sounds like you didn't lose out by much i.e. less than 50% in the end.

Post automatically merged: Mar 22, 2020

Here's all the bookings I'm working through options for at the moment, this is just for April/May.

From	To
LGW	AMS
AMS	LHR
LHR	MUC
MUC	LHR
LHR	OSL
OSL	BKK
OSL	LHR
LGW	TRN
TRN	LGW
LGW	SZG
SZG	LGW
LGW	NCE
NCE	LGW

Yes, it could have been worse!

You have a lot of work ahead of you with all those bookings you need to change/cancel!

 

[m_diggity]

They won't refund. Period. They will rebook to a different date and this will appear in your booking if eligible. The dates they gave us were stupid. April through July this year. Then a couple of weeks in late November. So we contacted the accommodation directly and they gave us many more dates. I have read online that contacting the hotels directly may give you a refund but then you have to extract that from LE and I'm betting that isn't going to happen.

Thats annoying! We reached out to one of the providers in Singapore, and they have agreed to a full refund, but we must organise this through LE.
I haven't bothered ringing LE, but have sent emails.

 

[Flashback]

Yes, it could have been worse!

You have a lot of work ahead of you with all those bookings you need to change/cancel!

Sure do, it's a spiders web of trips! That's just for the next 2 months too, if it drags on then more trips get pulled in.

It's all in a spreadsheet now split up into Airlines, Cars and Hotels. Having just looked at the amount that's non-refundable makes me cry! As I said though, in essence it should just limited to the cost of the excess for each trip. Fingers crossed.

 

[ksthommo]

We had a wedding to attend at Echuca/Moama in a few weeks time, obviously now cancelled.
Booked/paid for a houseboat for 5 couples through Echuca Luxury Houseboats, total cost for five nights $5100.
They wont budge, no refund, no change dates, should have taken out travel insurance is their reply.

 

[Scarlett]

They certainly are reducing services but not by as much as you would think they should.

Etihad Airways Grounds A380 Fleet

Etihad Airways is grounding their fleet of 10 Airbus A380s through at least the end of June 2020. Here are the details of these cuts.

onemileatatime.com

Very interesting that SYD is reverting to a B777. I wonder if it will be daily?

When we drove into AUH late on Friday there were 6 A380s parked together in a far corner, so I guess the other 4 will join them soon.


An the EK cuts- WOW. Imagine the staffing fallout from that reduction!

 

[Pushka]

We had a wedding to attend at Echuca/Moama in a few weeks time, obviously now cancelled.
Booked/paid for a houseboat for 5 couples through Echuca Luxury Houseboats, total cost for five nights $5100.
They wont budge, no refund, no change dates, should have taken out travel insurance is their reply.

Unless of course border controls come in to play and they are unable to provide the service.

 

[OATEK]

I'm waiting to see what BA will do, too. Lots of my shorthaul trips over the next 2 months were booked using Avios, so that's £35 per trip to cancel. Those all add up, when you include the hotels that at the moment can't be cancelled, so wondering how TI would deal with that i.e. if I cancel, do I then use the TI excess (which is less once you add things up) to cover the out of pocket cancellation costs etc.? I just need to do a bit more digging I think.

I am waiting for a refund from BA - the fare conditions were refund of fare less $250pp, so over $8k all up. Don't feel confident.

 

[Flashback]

I am waiting for a refund from BA - the fare conditions were refund of fare less $250pp, so over $8k all up. Don't feel confident.

It may be worth following this thread on FT then: How long for refunds to be processed - FlyerTalk Forums

 

[blackcat20]

My mat leave replacement booked non refundable accommodation through booking.com which I’m trying to unravel. Visitor was coming from NZ. Hotel happy to refund in full but can’t get onto booking.com as yet.

 

[Craig O'Brien]

Here is my 2 cents.

1. Booked a return business rewards flight with Qantas to Tokyo in July 2019. 450K points plus about $1000 in fees
Cancelled on Friday on the web site. Still shows the booking on Qantas page, but when I click it errors. WIll wait as it is probably going to take a while.
2. Booked 8 nights at mercure ginza in Tokyo, it was through the accor website. Emailed then and they said they will refund, but because I booked in Oct 2019, then can't do it in there system, need to contact credit card. However the issue is that I have cancelled this CC as I just got it for the points. Not sure if I should email them to say that the CC does not exist, and to use this one. Will wait a couple of days.
3. Booked a non-refundable through hotels.com, Couldn't see a way to contact them, so I cancelled and started a CC charge-back

Will see what I get. all up about 4K I have spend. Very disappointed as this was a trip I had for planned for almost a year. So who knows when I will get back there.