Coronavirus Update #12 - Refunds during the Pandemic

On Sunday, my wife and I were supposed to go on the trip of our dreams.

We had planned to walk the Camino, visit Spain and Portugal, fly to Hungary, take a river cruise on the Danube, and finish off with visits of Berlin and Prague.

That all changed thanks to Coronavirus.

Two things have made us all right with everything.  First, it will all be there next year (and who would want to visit anywhere now?). Second, companies have been pretty good with refunds.

We do have travel cancellation insurance with our Mastercard but I've never actually made a claim and am uncertain how that would go.

Here's how it all panned out.

We made a lot of bookings on Booking.com - way more than any other way. This turned out to be, for the most part, a very wise decision. Almost all of the places we booked had free cancellation up until a week or two before our stay. A couple of places waived any charges that we did incur. Only one place won't give us a refund but we can rebook with them next year.

A few bookings were made directly or with another company. No problems cancelling there, either.

AirBnB was a bit of a different story. All but one gave us a refund of their accommodation but not the service charge. The service charge (charged by AirBnB, not by the hosts) varied from $32 to $64 per stay so it added up over 5 different places. And one place wouldn't give us a refund, even after I complained. Happily, after a bit of back and forth with the AirBnB support - and after 'proving' that we were not allowed to travel to other countries due to the Coronavirus (thank you, internet) we were able to get full refunds for everything. Yay!

Our flights were with Air Transat and Vueling Airways. Both of these gave us a credit rather than a refund. That's OK, I guess, but not optimal.  If we book for next year and it costs more, we are on the hook. Of course, if it costs less, maybe we will have to check out a trip to Cuba...

We had two train trips booked. We received a voucher from Portugal - which I think we have to refund at a train station in Portugal. Not very effective, but we will try to apply our refund when we book next year. Our train trip in Germany is still not refundable but we will watch that one closely over the next month.

Finally, our Danube river cruise on Emerald Waterways. I am not a cruiser (so to speak) but this is a once in a life trip with friends - and it certainly costs muchos dineros. We were able to all rebook for a year from now - and we are all on the same boat still! The only thing that irks me is that there is an additional £130 per couple because the cost of their cruises are increasing in 2021. I don't think that's very fair.

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with how the different companies have been handling things. The places that have given us refunds are top companies, in my estimation. A credit, on the other hand, is still a good thing, just not as good as a refund. And the German train system will hopefully get on board with the other companies and give us a refund or credit. Schnell!