Cancelling wedding venue, flights and accomodation

[Smasher]

Hi all,

Myself and my fiance were due to get married in Spain August, alas those plans are all in the bin now.

We are just getting over this god-awful virus now. Not tested of course, but we had fever, cough, breathing trouble, lower backache, bones, muscle & headaches complete loss of smell (she lost sense of taste aswell, but hey she agreed to marry me, so no surprise), extreme dizziness and fatigue, but no cold symptoms. If that wasn't coronavirus, then there's some other hiddeous wierd virus out there.
Despite all that, we are still very much two of the very lucky ones!

I paid for everything on credit cards, just to have some protection, should something unforseeable happen, so hopefully that might help us.

We managed to cancel most of the accomodation (we paid for ours and for those of mine and her parents), we have 3 things left to resolve.
We paid £1000 deposit to the venue in late August (non-refundable), £394 deposit (non-refundable option) on booking.com for one of the accomodation and £1100 for a return flight from Peru to Madrid with Air Europa for her brother.

Since this is all booked for August, I'm not expecting any of them to offer a refund, at least not until there is still a travel ban by then. However, we have no chance of making the wedding happen now, whatever happens. I haven't contacted any of these yet, I expect the flight from Peru will be refunded automatically if it's cancelled and the airline is solvent enough to refund.
I have no idea what is happening with the venue, since the last contact we had from them was an email to cancel the meeting last month and now they are closed.
Booking.com say if I cancel before 26th July, I forefeit the £394 deposit and after that I will owe the full amount, they just respond with a generic blurb.

I'm guessing my best hope is via the credit card providers? At least I hope so anyway, since the accommodation host and the wedding venue are likely suffering enormously as it is.

[Celestine]

Really sorry to hear this Smasher. I hope you are able to rebook everything successfully when this is all over.
Fortunately by paying for everything on credit card, any item over £100 purchased is covered fully by s.75 protection.*
It might be worth a chat with your card provider to discuss a charge back for the flights and accommodation given that neither can possibly go ahead now. They may advise you wait a bit longer to see if you get a direct refund but otherwise you should get a better idea of where you stand by contacting your card provider.

[EXC]

Hey how's it hangin' Smasher?

I'd echo what Celestine said about talking to your card provider and ask them in particular if sec 75 covers purchases through booking.com.

I think they might be an 'aggregator' which, if so, fall outside the sec 75 net. See here at the bottom http://www.theukcardsassociation.org...-purchases.asp

[Smasher]

Thanks guys!

All fine here thanks, same as everyone else I guess. Making the most of all the things I couldn't do before because life got in the way and at the same time on the same emotional rollercoaster as everyone else I guess.

Well, if we lose the booking.com deposit, then that's not s bad, I was expecting to lose a lot more than that. We have also the flights for all of my family & friends going out to Spain, but they were all really cheap, so that's not such a big deal. My missus is Peruvian/Spanish and most of her family live in Spain anyway, so thankfully no losses for them.

If we manage to get back the venue deposit and the flight from Peru, I think we'll consider ourselves very lucky. After all that the world is going through right now, if we end up getting married in the back garden, we'll be just as grateful and happy.

Hope everyone is keeping safe and well

[Bane]

Hi*

I was supposed to get married on the day you posted!

So, can you rearrange your venue? If not, you can 100% get your money back even though it's stated 'non-refundable', if you're in the UK check the CMA, they have released guidelines for wedding cancellations.*

As to flights, my friends in travel agency for 20 years and friends around Saudi/Middle East has said airports are preparing for social distancing and so are the hotels and airlines like Emirates (they have confirmed my booking Thailand, in August of this year), will be in the sky. If you do not wish to go ahead, you can ask them for a cash refund. If you want a voucher, okay, but if the company goes bust, you'll be without money. Cash refunds are taking longer, for obvious reasons.*

[Smasher]

Aww sorry to hear it happened to you too Bane, same day aswell!* :/

We emailed the venue and they said if we can let them know another date, they'll use the deposit for that. However, with everybody's circumstances now so radically changed and now that we're uncertain even what kind of world & economy we're looking toward, we can't even think about naming a date just yet. I am completely out of work right now.

For the flight, I guess we'll just have to wait & see. It's no good to us now, so even if planes are allowed to fly by then, there's no wedding to go to. I appreciate that's not the airline or the agency's fault, so hoping I can claim that thru my credit card, or we'll just have to accept the loss.

Again with the hotel, we've paid just under £381, which is half. We have until 26th July to cancel and we just lose the £381, but if we wait until after that, we'll have to pay the other half. If they are still forced to remain closed, I'm sure we'll be entitled to a refund, but we'd literally be gambling on that, if we don't cancel by 26th July. We booked with booking.com and they're just sending out a generic response to any query about these future bookings.

Hope you manage to get to Thailand and be able to have your wedding soon!

Thanks

*

[EXC]

Ok! Are you all set to make your Self Employment Income Support Scheme application? It starts on Weednesday I believe.

[Smasher]

Ok! Are you all set to make your Self Employment Income Support Scheme application? It starts on Weednesday I believe.

Yes, it's on wednesday. I checked already, I am eligable.

[Smasher]

Just a quick update. I got my SEISS.
BBL was rejected by HSBC, I'm giving up on that now. They've trashed my credit file with the credit card payment holiday (marking missed payments) and now declining the feeder account.

I have some work trickling in now.

The wedding venue said we can use the deposit for another date in the future, provisionally 28th Audust 2021, although that's only because we had to give them a date so that they can cancel this year and suspend the deposit. To be honest, that's just looking like a pipe dream right now.

Air Europa have actually cancelled my brother-in-law's outbound flight from Lima to Madrid, although they have offered a flight next day, and there is a link to claim vouchers for a future flight, if that's not suitable. That would actually have left him stranded in Madrid if we'd gone ahead, since everyone had train tickets to Valencia, so he would have missed that (they were already cancelled & refunded by the train company).

The thing is, the missus booked the flight, but I paid with my card. She's gonna contact Air Europa today and ask for a refund and if that gets refused, I'll contact Tesco bank.

WRT the accomodation, I have contacted the host through booking.com to see if we can postpone or cancel the booking, but they have not responded yet. That too was paid with my tesco card.

[Smasher]

Air Europa confirmed they will refund the flight, we have an email now confirming that. However, they said it'll be a 2 & half month wait for the money. I understand Covid has put them under pressure, but the law says 7 days right?

For the hotel booking, we contacted the host thru booking.com a couple of weeks ago, but they haven't responded. At this point, I just hope they're ok! Booking.com have just put it on their automated cancellation request, it's just hanging waiting for a response from the host. Not sure what happens if they don't respond, but if we lose our deposit for that, I think we can consider ourselves lucky enough to have clawed back what we have so far, assuming Air Europa will keep their word. Unfortunaltely, a quick google finds plenty of examples where they haven't..
*

[EXC]

Dunno about the 7 days - ain't my thang but you'd have thought that an email saying you're due the refund has got to be worth something. Like you say at least the event wasn't a total right off. Are you all set to claim another SEISS in August?



Â*

[Smasher]

Thatnks mate, yes all being well should get another one in August. I am actually working again now tho, although only doing about half as much, but I can't complain about that.
It was actually on the news last night about airlines openly breaking the law in witholding refunds and removing the refund options from their websites. It is indeed 7 days, altho I'm not really sure what we can do about it, if so many thousands of others are in the same boat and getting nowhere. Some have been waiting over 4 months.

The hotel finally got back to us after I contacted booking.com and they contacted the host. Well, actually its an agent for the host. So we booked thru booking.com, who booked thru an agency, who booked on behalf of the host. I asked them if we can postpone until same time next year, they're gonna contact the host and get back to me.

Hope y'all keeping well!