Well, I booked my first solo holiday back on 14th February.
I’ve paid for my flights, and a deposit on my accommodation. I haven’t booked anything else – I’d planned on booking the ferry trip to Capri, a walking food tour of Naples, a trip out to Pompeii. All the stuff.
Well anyway – you’ll be able to work out what the problem is.
And it’s not that long (just over a week) since I wrote this – when I started to write it, there were three small areas in northern Italy that were locked down. By the time I published it just 24 hours later, there were 10 areas. It was only a couple of days later that the whole of the north of Italy was affected.
I’ve been checking the FCO website for a while now and I’m signed up to email notifications from them. I’d seen something on the BBC about the cancellation of ‘all but essential travel’ to the whole of Italy, and not long after that I received the email confirming that yes indeed the whole of Italy was affected.
For me, that solved one problem but created another.
My insurance will cover me if the area I’m travelling to is in the ‘essential travel only’ category – so while this just applied to the north of the country I had a problem. My insurance wouldn’t cover me if I simply chose not to go – but all the ‘museums and cultural venues’ (ie all the tourist places) were closed, so there was really no point in going. Now that the whole of Italy is in the ‘essential travel only’ area, my insurance covers me. In fact my carrier, Jet2, will refund me anyway.
AirBnB is slightly more complicated. At the moment they will refund stays that were booked before 29th February, and that are due to happen before 3rd April. My trip is planned for June.
So – I can get a refund for my flight, but not for my accommodation, at the moment. I’ve only paid a deposit, not the whole amount, but the total is less than the excess on my insurance policy anyway, so no point in claiming.
Jeez it’s complicated.
I could of course hang in there in the hope that things will improve and that by June everything will be back to normal. Or I can cut my losses, get my money back, and try again later.
At the end of the day it’s just a holiday. I’ll get my money back. No hard feelings. It’s not like I’ve actually caught the corona virus or anything.
But it was going to be my first proper holiday on my own and I was looking forward to it.
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