Holidays

I had a trip booked through a third party to the Harry Potter studios. The studios are closed, but the company said that it was their policy not to offer refunds. Luckily I had paid through Paypal and they refunded the money back on to my card. I don't know whether Paypal managed to retrieve the money from the company. Perhaps your bank would do a chargeback in the same way.

Ring the Citizens Advice Consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133 Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm. Calls are free. They will tell you what rights you have.

As Polarbear said, get legal advice .....it would be worth paying for a letter to be sent to them as you may then get your money back ! Also, get on to ABTA or any other organisation they belong to, as this is illegal under current government guidelines. Your local MP could update them on current legislation ....good luck !

We had a difficult job getting our money back on a Riviera River cruise last year. We decided not to rebook for 2021 in case we were unable to go. For weeks no resolution was made. Eventually we found we could get the money Back from our credit card issuer. They were not at all happy about this and put pressure on Riviera. The money was then refunded and we had a letter of apology from the managing director.

I've not had a 'proper' holiday in eleven years so I'm not up to date on tourist companies. Does your do any holidays in the UK, could you swap it for a Staycation?

Thank you everyone

We had to buy an extra flight back from Australia last year when HK stopped allowing people to transit there.
We were refunded about 3 weeks ago so it took almost a year with many on line chats plus sending two lots of paper proof and then having to upload everything as well. I kept a note of every chat and sent all paper copies by registered post.
This is the second time we have had to return from Australia in unexpected circumstances.
Gone are the days when I would book anything ad hoc. I do my homework and then go to Trailfinders. I will be taking out my insurance with them too next time.

I hope you get sorted out, I had just about given up but it is a really difficult time for holiday companies at the moment and they seem to take forever. Good luck.

We had long-haul flights booked for September 2020, but it was cancelled due to Covid. The airline said, if we wanted a refund, we would have to wait 12 months for it to be credited to our credit card (no explanation why, other than that it wasn't THEIR fault the flight had been cancelled!), or we could change the dates, but we had no idea when it would be possible to travel again. Also, our flights had been booked on a special promotional fare for business class tickets, at around the same price as economy, but if we rebooked we would have to pay the difference in price, as their promotion offer was no longer available, and the cost would be almost double! So, we opted to have our money held in a 'travel account' by the airline, for us to use when we were ready to re-book. However, they said that we would have to re-book something within 12 months, but here we are are, still with Covid, and travel restrictions! I've tried to contact the airline to find out if I can now get my money refuned, or if they will allow me longer to rebook something, but so far to no avail! So annoying!

Personally, I'd advise contacting your MP. I contacted mine when our insurance company were being difficult about paying out about something to do with Covid - I won't go into detail as it's irrelevant to your situation, but he was extremely helpful, wrote a stiff letter to the company, and they paid up. The fact is that to leave the country on holiday at present will cost you a £5,000 fine, as you would be breaking the law, so how they can expect you to travel, is beyond me. Good luck and do come back and let us know what happens.