How can you say booking a package holiday is risk-free?
Q You say booking a package holiday is risk-free. But for most places, you need a PCR test just before travel to enter. What if you or someone in your group tests positive? You can’t travel. Then I guess you lose your holiday and your money?
Name supplied
A Fortunately among reputable holiday companies this is not the case. Tui, Britain’s biggest holiday company, tells me: “If a customer is not able to travel due to contracting Covid-19 at the time of their departure, they will be able to change their holiday without charge. The free amend can be extended to all of those on the same booking.”
Jet2, the second-largest travel firm, says: “If a customer can no longer travel [if] one of their party members has coronavirus at the time of the trip, they can amend their booking to a later date without having to pay an admin fee.”
Note that this applies regardless of whether the positive test has come about in response to the requirement at the destination, or simply as a result of an NHS test.
British Airways allows flight-only passengers to cancel their planned trip for a voucher at any time up to the close of check-in.
Agreed, the ability to postpone a trip free of charge (though possibly with an additional cost if the new holiday is more expensive) is not as gold-plated as a full cash refund. But I think the travel firms are behaving fairly and going beyond their legal obligation: in normal times, illness just before departure would probably trigger cancellation with either zero or minuscule refund and be a matter for travel insurance.
One further option, though, which I regret holiday companies often fail to mention: under the Package Travel Regulations a holidaymaker who cannot travel has the right to transfer the trip to someone who can use it for a nominal fee – usually £50 or so. So if the other participants have not been in contact with the newly discovered carrier, then the spare place can be filled at short notice by a friend or family member, allowing the trip to continue for the others.