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.

 

[get me outta here]

Thought I'd see if any bargains on the QF Hotels site. Here's a one night I didn't take up :

Deluxe Suite PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay, Singapore

Free cancellation

Earn 43,410 Qantas Points^Plus 11,576 Qantas Points for your business

Total price for 1 night (AUD)
$11,577

 

[OATEK]

Thought I'd see if any bargains on the QF Hotels site. Here's a one night I didn't take up :

Deluxe Suite PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay, Singapore

Free cancellation

Earn 43,410 Qantas Points^Plus 11,576 Qantas Points for your business

Total price for 1 night (AUD)
$11,577



View attachment 217977

Perhaps it comes with a complete medical support team

 

[get me outta here]

Well, you do get 56K QF points for that $11,500 price tag. $1000 an hour is a bit too much though.

Perhaps it comes with a complete medical support team

 

[OZDUCK]

Finnair have sent out their latest bulletin on cancellations, refunds etc. They will be updating the list of cancelled flights on a progressive basis. Our flights are in August and they will list those cancelled for that month by 7 June. Refund processing time is said to be 8 - 12 weeks. There no longer seems to be a 10% bonus offer if you take a Finnair 'gift card'.

Travel updates

www.finnair.com

 

[AIRwin]

Finnair have sent out their latest bulletin on cancellations, refunds etc. They will be updating the list of cancelled flights on a progressive basis. Our flights are in August and they will list those cancelled for that month by 7 June.

Thanks @OZDUCK , my sister is also booked on AY flights in August and her destination is not on the list of entirely cancelled routes. I just tried a dummy booking and it's available on the day before but not on the same date as her booking so it looks like her particular flight may have been cancelled. I've asked her to wait for AY to contact her by 7 June... Did you book through AY or an agent?

 

[OZDUCK]

Thanks @OZDUCK , my sister is also booked on AY flights in August and her destination is not on the list of entirely cancelled routes. I just tried a dummy booking and it's available on the day before but not on the same date as her booking so it looks like her particular flight may have been cancelled. I've asked her to wait for AY to contact her by 7 June... Did you book through AY or an agent?

For the first time in years I went through an agent - who has been perfectly fine and has kept me up to date. I was due to fly via Singapore, which is also not on the list of cancelled destinations and has just announced opening up Changi to transit passengers in early June. However, the first leg of my trip, on an AY ticket, is from Perth on Qantas - which is certainly not going to happen.

 

[RB]

Got an email today for an Italian train trip we had booked. Thought it was very clear and it translated very well to English

Dear Customer,
We inform you that, following the provisions issued by the competent authorities regarding the prevention and spread of Coronavirus, the commercial offer of Trenitalia has been reformulated.
The train you booked to travel on 29/05/2020 is canceled.
Regardless of the fare purchased, you can plan your trip on one of the available trains by contacting:
• toll free number 800 89 20 21;
• at 06 06, by typing option 3;
• by clicking on the following link, using the chat dedicated to our customers:

Assistenza e contatti - Trenitalia

www.trenitalia.com

If you decide to give up your trip, you can request a full refund of your ticket by filling in the online request on the following page:

.: CRM WebForm - Modulo richiesta Rimborso :.

If you have already submitted a refund request for travel cancellation, do not take this communication into account.

With best regards,



Customer Care Arrows and Intercity

 

[p--and--t]

Thought I'd see if any bargains on the QF Hotels site. Here's a one night I didn't take up :

Deluxe Suite PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay, Singapore

Free cancellation

Earn 43,410 Qantas Points^Plus 11,576 Qantas Points for your business

Total price for 1 night (AUD)
$11,577

View attachment 217977

Thats the covid-19 price for the entire hotel - not just one room

 

[sinophile888]

I had a booking for PER -> MEL -> PER for July 2020. 3 passengers in J class. As we in Perth are fortunate to still have interstate borders closed, I figured that the likelihood of travel to be very low. And as both my husband and I belong in 2 susceptible categories, I didn't think it was advisable to travel anyway.
After an incident in February 2019, Qantas temporarily banned me until I had all the appropriate tests to determine the flow rate for the oxygen which I require.

Yesterday, I rang my friends at Special Handling to cancel the oxygen cylinders which I had booked for both flights ($110 x 2). I was told that the cost is normally non refundable. But under the current circumstances, Claudia would forward the cancellation request. Last night, I received an email of the approval of the refund which will take up to 8 weeks. Claudia also forwarded my request for a refund of the cost of the fares, both money and upgrade points. This morning I had a call from Auckland which I am glad I answered as I have also received quite a few calls from Mauritania which I haven't answered. It was a lady from Qantas and she has approved my cancellation request for 2 of the 3 passengers but needs to speak to my daughter to cancel the third booking.

The money for the flights (~$250 x 6) will take about 8 weeks but the points (25000x4) were instantly credited to my account. Another 25000x2 points for my daughter's booking should be approved this afternoon.

That is what I call good service.

 

[AIRwin]

I was due to fly via Singapore, which is also not on the list of cancelled destinations and has just announced opening up Changi to transit passengers in early June. However, the first leg of my trip, on an AY ticket, is from Perth on Qantas - which is certainly not going to happen.

My sister just received an email from AY with her flight moved to a few days later but she prefers a refund instead so I've asked her to call them instead...

 

[aggie57]

For others info, I have cancelled two trips with American this year due to Covid-19, one LA to Prague (the conference was cancelled) and one Orange County/John Wayne to Frankfurt (travel restrictions + AA cancelled one leg).

In both cases AA fully refunded the fares, which were 2x business return in both cases. No questions asked, handled online in a couple of days. The Frankfurt booking was discounted, non-refundable tickets.

Great service, regardless of legal obligations.

 

[Townsend]

Finnair have sent out their latest bulletin on cancellations, refunds etc. They will be updating the list of cancelled flights on a progressive basis. Our flights are in August and they will list those cancelled for that month by 7 June. Refund processing time is said to be 8 - 12 weeks. There no longer seems to be a 10% bonus offer if you take a Finnair 'gift card'.

Travel updates

www.finnair.com

I love Finnair although I am a little disillusioned at present. We we’re on a rtw ticket and had made it to the UK when we had to cancel our flight. We were due to pick up out rtw ticket in Oslo fly home but Norway closed their borders on 15 March and so had to buy two more flights. We were initially told that we would receive some type of refund in 8 weeks. Last week it was 9 weeks so I checked where it was and was told it is now 20 weeks!

Oh well, hopefully they will survive so we can fly with them again.

 

[OZDUCK]

I love Finnair although I am a little disillusioned at present. We we’re on a rtw ticket and had made it to the UK when we had to cancel our flight. We were due to pick up out rtw ticket in Oslo fly home but Norway closed their borders on 15 March and so had to buy two more flights. We were initially told that we would receive some type of refund in 8 weeks. Last week it was 9 weeks so I checked where it was and was told it is now 20 weeks!

Oh well, hopefully they will survive so we can fly with them again.

I had a look at our booking and our ticket numbers are there but the flight details are shown as "Null". I still haven't received any notification of cancellation or otherwise from them or our agent so I guess that I will wait until June 7 before doing anything.

 

[jase05]

Bouquets to GA, 2x J seats MEL-DPS return for the end of June was cancelled about a fortnight ago and received full refund back to CC 6 days later. Very good to deal with.
Still worried about award flights with SQ in October booked with VA points, don’t reckon I’ll ever see anything come from that

 

[OZDUCK]

Well my refund process from Finnair is now under way. Yesterday we got an e-mail from them that one of the five flights on our itinerary, from Helsinki to Frankfurt, had been canceled and replaced with a different one about 8 hours earlier, with a different flight number and switched to Norra (their budget carrier). This means that I now don't have to wait until my QF flight, on the Finnair ticket, out of Perth is officially cancelled to get a full refund.

My agent will now start the ball rolling for a refund. Finnair claim it will take 8 - 12 weeks but I have seen people on FlyerTalk who have had it take even longer than that.

 

[graxx]

Qantas have been extremely difficult and uncooperative after they cancelled our flight, but at least we have vouchers for future travel.
Hawaiian, however, were a dream. They contacted us to advise us of the cancellation and just refunded the tickets. Will certainly prefer them next time.

 

[nic0]

I had a return flight to Europe booked for July with Qantas / Emirates Codeshare via Amex. Amex contacted me mid April and offered vouchers or a complete refund with the remark that it would take up to 3 months. I opted for the refund and received it last week minus the yearly 450$ travel voucher i used. I also had paid exit row seats on all 4 flights (710$) which i put a seperate request in with Emirates around the same time and received in full 2 weeks ago. Very happy that it worked out ok.

 

[RB]

Received an email from Singapore Airlines today. We have a KrisFlyer award in F for June 26th SIN-SYD. The email advises a change in seat allocation. The email also provides a link to select a new seat-the link brings up the message "At least one of the flights on your itinerary has been changed. Our reservations office will be in touch with you soon to make arrangements for your new flights. "
Different process to the flight that was to SIN but I assume the result will be the same

 

[OATEK]

I have been waiting for a refund for a cancelled cruise that was scheduled to depart 27/3/20. After following up in early May I received this:
We confirm that we shall be processing your refund request as soon as this is practically possible under the prevailing circumstances.

Then today comes the latest advice:

Given our company is both headquartered and operates within countries of the European jurisdiction that have enacted relevant laws supporting a voucher scheme, we will always ensure our compliance with the protection of our guests’ money that has already been entrusted to us.......Therefore, any refund requests received to date for the original amount/s paid to us, in lieu of redeeming the FCC, will be made upon the expiration of the voucher on 31 December 2021 in accordance with the provisions of the said law.

So I will have to wait 21 months after the cruise date before any refund will be processed.

 

[Flashback]

I have been waiting for a refund for a cancelled cruise that was scheduled to depart 27/3/20. After following up in early May I received this:
We confirm that we shall be processing your refund request as soon as this is practically possible under the prevailing circumstances.

Then today comes the latest advice:

Given our company is both headquartered and operates within countries of the European jurisdiction that have enacted relevant laws supporting a voucher scheme, we will always ensure our compliance with the protection of our guests’ money that has already been entrusted to us.......Therefore, any refund requests received to date for the original amount/s paid to us, in lieu of redeeming the FCC, will be made upon the expiration of the voucher on 31 December 2021 in accordance with the provisions of the said law.

So I will have to wait 21 months after the cruise date before any refund will be processed.

Can they quote the relevant legislation though? Seems like fake news to me. There was talk about relaxations around EU261/2004 for example but it was only a suggestion a voucher could be offered and they said the full legislation still applies and a refund must be offered within 7 days.