The HfP chat thread – Wednesday 7th July

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Alex M says:

7 Jul7 July 15:30

Ryanair moved my flight (2:15 hrs long) by 2:20 hrs (making it earlier departure), which is very inconvenient for me so I don’t want to fly anymore and want a refund. The only option they offer is to change flight to different date for free. Are they reasonable? They don’t answer phone calls (too busy…).
Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!
- Sam G says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 15:38
  
  Ryanair will only refund if it is +/- 5hrs
  
  Is the flight number the same? If so then your only option is a date change
  - Nick says:
    
    7 Jul7 July 15:42
    
    If it’s a different flight then by default it’s a cancellation and you can have a refund.
    
    If it’s the same flight then it depends what’s in their conditions of carriage. But yes, for most airlines, 2.5 hours change is reasonable. BA (for example) now only allows a refund for a 4+ change. So I think you’ll just have to accept it.
- Anna says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 15:59
  
  Be careful with “free” changes – there is no fee to do this (though only till the end of this year), and you will be charged a fare difference, which doesn’t seem to be related to the price that a new booking would be! That said, I moved our flights from AGP to TFS for only £38 more and kept our extra leg room seats plus baggage so it can work well in limited situations.
Gary says:

7 Jul7 July 16:01

Any reason one should not book a family holiday w 3 y/o to Dubrovnik for end of July in case government abolish Quarantine for Vaccinated adults fr Amber? FCO advised Croatia allowing vaccinated tourists (children exempt I think). Just want to check I haven’t missed anything!!
- meta says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:10
  
  Children are exempt if both parents are vaccinated. If you only have a British passport, then you’ll also need a certificate from the place of accommodation confirming you paid everything in advance. Most places will do this for you even if you don’t pay in advance, but some won’t unless you pay, so you’ll need to check.
- Chris Heyes says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:58
  
  Gary Regards Dubrovnik going next year Sun Gardens just outside if you can stretch the expense, BA Holidays do it there’s a kids club if that helps.
  We are doing Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik on Hilton Points and then Sun Gardens,
  Emir can do it I think, it’s Lux world hotels as well, i believe tui do it ?
  - Chris Heyes says:
    
    7 Jul7 July 19:04
    
    ADD Leaders Club Sun Gardens (not lux world) 20% off if you did the free join
- mr_jetlag says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 17:44
  
  we’re doing Split and Hvar in august, July I’m not so sure about
ashraj says:

7 Jul7 July 16:02

I’m looking for flights to Malaga for August anticipating the announcement of no quarantine for amber list countries. To add a suitcase its around £60 per person per way! I have checked other destinations like Barcelona and no way near that much. Any idea why this is?
- Anna says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:09
  
  Maybe because Malaga is one of the busiest destinations for family holidays and families generally take quite a bit of luggage? You’re probably better booking with avios or a BA holiday package, luggage is included on both of these.
ashraj says:

7 Jul7 July 16:03

Looking at flights to Malaga on BA in August. To add a suitcase it £60 pp per way! Other destinations are the normal price. Any reason for such a price hike?
- ashraj says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:05
  
  Apologies did not see my first comment post!
- Toby says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 18:17
  
  Have you tried doing the economy+ option (or whatever it’s called) rather than adding bags? They include free bags and added flexibility and sometimes is quite a lot cheaper than bags.
  - Ash Raj says:
    
    7 Jul7 July 21:50
    
    Yes that’s what I was doing. @anna you are right I think
Paul says:

7 Jul7 July 16:06

Amex Platinum Insurance Question –
My experience of Amex Platinum Card Insurance has been excellent but have hit a wall today.
Early May booked trip for last weekend of July to Italy. At the time Italy on Amber and advice not to travel. I was happy to isolate on return.
Early June and Italy changes entry to require quarantine of UK nationals. BA cancel flights. To my knowledge the UK travel advice did not change.
Tickets purchased for an event now useless as earliest BA can get me there is 2 hours after event. Which was always outside the date range the Italians had imposed for quarantine (30th July) but only just
Flights, hotels all cancelled at no costs so no claim. Tickets can’t be refunded so claimed (over £600) but claim denied on grounds I booked when the trave advice was not to travel.
My advice is that claim has nothing to do with UK advice or instruction it was the imposition of quarantine by the Italians authorities over a month after booking was made which led to cancellation.
To be fair, I knew that travel to Italy would not be covered for Covid-19 related illness, but as I am doubled jabbed, did not see the problem with this and simply did not see the closure of the Italian border coming. I did ask the question should we be booking anything and was told no, very nicely, but even if green there is no Covid-19 cover from Amex!
Considering a formal complaint and approach to Ombudsman.
Thoughts
- Anna says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:13
  
  This is a get out clause for pretty much every insurer, it’s never a good idea to book a trip against FCDO advice unless you have a cast iron guarantee that you’ll be covered. It doesn’t matter why you cancelled, it was the conditions in place at the time of booking which matter.
  - Zoe says:
    
    7 Jul7 July 16:24
    
    I’m probably being really blonde this is the current advice for mainland Spain – The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to Spain. So would booking flights today for September be against advice for insurance purposes? Thanks in advance as always
    - Anna says:
      
      7 Jul7 July 16:33
      
      It depends on your policy, you need to be absolutely clear on the Ts and Cs are. I imagine most insurers won’t cover people under these circumstances because they’ve booked e in the full knowledge that there are issues travelling to a particular, which is different from FCDO advice changing to an unforeseen event.
      - Anna says:
        
        7 Jul7 July 16:35
        
        This is why I’ve opted for the Canaries instead of mainland Spain – in the event that we have to cancel (e.g. due to illness) there was no FCDO advice not to travel in place at the time we booked, so the insurer couldn’t wriggle out of a claim by citing this.
      - Anna says:
        
        7 Jul7 July 16:36
        
        And why cancellable/refundable arrangements are still the best option!
      - Zoe says:
        
        7 Jul7 July 16:50
        
        Thanks Anna, so we might be stuffed for the trip we booked to Boston in September when Virgin had their great points offer earlier in the year. To be fair it isn’t looking very likely. We have Nationwide cover from our current account, I’ll have a look at the recent leaflet they sent about insurance.
      - Anna says:
        
        7 Jul7 July 16:54
        
        It does need clarifying as presumably an awful lot of people are currently booking trips for next year to places which are currently under FCDO advice not to travel! I’ve also got BOS booked for next March, not going to book our hotel with Emyr sadly as the IC is asking for one night’s non-refundable deposit …
    - JDB says:
      
      7 Jul7 July 17:02
      
      It depends on your policy; you need to check the wording. Many won’t cover you if the FCDO advice was against travel at the time of booking which is when the policy would usually come into force for that trip if you have an annual policy.
      - Zoe says:
        
        7 Jul7 July 17:06
        
        Thanks JDB it seems Nationwide aren’t too bad, it only counts against you if the advice is against ‘all travel’. Now I just need to check when I booked Boston and what the advice was then. It seems trips booked in 2020 have more cover than those booked more recently.
    - JDB says:
      
      7 Jul7 July 17:15
      
      @Zoe – If you are with Nationwide I think you are fine (at least with Nationwide Flex Plus). There is some exclusions around covid cancellation and quarantine, but otherwise pretty good. That is my understanding as a policyholder anyway!
      - Zoe says:
        
        7 Jul7 July 17:26
        
        Thanks again JDB from what I can see the advise for USA has been ‘all but essential travel’ since March 2020 so good news.
- JDB says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:57
  
  Most policies don’t cover that sort of consequential loss (ie an event that wasn’t part of the travel arrangements) and I don’t see how you could argue that what happened was unforeseeable as the FCDO advice was the against travel at the time of booking and travel. Most policies also exclude cover for the imposition of quarantine. In the event that you had a non-refundable hotel, I don’t think that would have been covered either.
- Lady London says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 18:06
  
  Anna surely this is an EU261 claim as BA cancelled the flights according to Paul? or does Paul not want to travel now.
  
  As BA cancelled his flight(s) it’s Paul that gets to choose if he wants BA to provide travel on same day on another airline if necessary, or choose a later date to be rerouted to (=rebooked free of any charge), or to get a refund.
  
  Have I misunderstood? BA should be sorting this (or required to by mcol ), not Amex.
  - Anna says:
    
    7 Jul7 July 18:19
    
    I saw that, but in that case why is Paul trying to claim on travel insurance?! I was pointing out the pitfalls of insurance v FCDO advice, as it’s not clear how a BA cancellation came into it – presumably the insurer would have directed the claimant back to the travel provider in that case?
    - Anna says:
      
      7 Jul7 July 18:37
      
      I assume Paul doesn’t want to travel at all so tried to claim on his insurance rather than getting re-routed.
      - Sean says:
        
        7 Jul7 July 18:43
        
        It is nothing to do with air-travel is trying to claim for non-refundable event tickets that he cant use.
    - Lady London says:
      
      7 Jul7 July 18:48
      
      For the event tickets if Paul still wanted to attend then could have insisted on reroute. Taking refund removes this right.
      
      I’d have stuck out for reroute on any airline- or if BA were illegally refusing…sigh! sourced my own and then claimed off BA then mcol if needed.
      
      If the issue was quarantine I would have used the reroute option on BA flight to arrive x number of days before. EU261 strictly speaking refers to reroute on a later date but I suspect BA would have been ok to book earlier date if asked after BA cancelled their original flight.
      
      That would of course need 5/6 nights extra accommodation in Italy before the event. But unlikely to essentially need to cost anything like as much as losing the tickets? unless the event was on the isle of Capri or similar?
      
      Have we misunderstood Paul?
- Chris Heyes says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 19:13
  
  Most Insurance company’s exclude if against FCDO
  The main problem is your insurance “could” be invalid
  If you take insurance out against FCDO and advice changes you could still “NOT” be covered, because insurance company’s go off when you take insurance out not when you travel
BuildBackBetter says:

7 Jul7 July 16:26

Anyone recently applied for Amex cards? How long do they take to be delivered from the day of approval?
- Mark says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:56
  
  Platinum was 4 days from application 2 weeks ago.
  - BuildBackBetter says:
    
    7 Jul7 July 17:43
    
    Thanks!
@mkcol says:

7 Jul7 July 16:35

@Jody You earlier mentioned the BLC discount for the short cruises.

I’ve been looking at the same on Cruise118 where there were decent prices – did you just go direct to each cruise line which offers the BLC discount, or was there an agent?
- Jody says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:42
  
  I’ve gone direct with each cruise line when using my blue light card. However, it might be worth asking agents. I know I joined a FB cruise for my MSC cruise and the guys running it are also agents, and they were apparently able to get the health care workers discounts and also apply a blue light card discount (blue light card don’t even have MSC on their page, but apparently do give a discount).
  
  Also worth looking round, as I said previously the travel zoo deal (which I believe was through Iglu cruises) was only £5 more each than what I ended up paying with my discount, so great for people who don’t have a blc. Our MSC cruise we booked through Cruise 1st, they had by far the cheapest price for our date and no-one came close to it.
  - @mkcol says:
    
    7 Jul7 July 19:55
    
    Excellent thanks for all that 🙂
    - Roger W says:
      
      7 Jul7 July 23:51
      
      I always get 10% on the price ex. taxes with Celebrity and Royal Carib with Blue Light or Military Discount. Agents have not been able to improve the offer when asked.
TM says:

7 Jul7 July 16:44

Government says that you can’t use NHS lateral flow tests for travelling – does anyone know if this is actually enforced?
- Rob says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:45
  
  How do you intend to show the results to BA in a form which disguises the fact it was an NHS test?
- Aaron says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 16:51
  
  There was no issue when I did this (with an NHS PCR) result in January to the Caribbean. However, more people seem to be travelling now so they may have tightened up.
- Will says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 17:06
  
  Don’t you just stick the result for an NHS lateral flow tests into the app?
  
  If they let you fly with that then there’s literally no point in even asking for the result.
  
  I think all in person fit to fly tests require passport ID.
  
  No idea on how the postal ones work.
  
  Insane how spare gov PCR test capacity isn’t seeking to try and sell it. You have to wonder what they promised the private test companies who are doing fit to fly tests.
  - ChrisC says:
    
    7 Jul7 July 18:23
    
    You enter the lateral flow results into a separate website which of course doesn’t talk to the NHS or the Covid apps and the codes on the tests aren’t the right format to put into the Covid app.
- Reeferman says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 21:28
  
  It was enforced yesterday against someone my partner knows – on a BA flight to Malaga. She was refused boarding.
- TM says:
  
  7 Jul7 July 23:32
  
  Thanks for the perspectives – really useful. I wasn’t really planning on disguising anything, my thought process was essentially “here is my negative lateral flow test, yes it’s an NHS one, who cares – it shows I don’t have COVID” Clearly, some airports/airlines do care so I guess I will have to play it safe and pay up.