Coronavirus - Travel impacts II

[Souschef]

We are still awaiting our refund from Princess. They said it would be 60-90 days. I will wait, as they are processing over 300,000 refunds.

 

[dixter]

the ships aren't allowed to just sit in dock or they get charged dock fees.. so I get to watch them go out in the morning... they go out for a couple hours, eat lunch and come back to port... met one of the guys at the grocery store he was shopping for 12 people that are on the boat running it out and back each day... sad to watch... when they go out its still dark... they lit up the balcony lights so it spells out " we will be back " in super large letters... can't wait for this all to be over and we get back to normal...

 

[Scrapr]

I should be in Paris tonight. Of course I'm home. I was to fly Virgin Atlantic. I took a credit 2 days before I was due to fly. Now Virgin Australia is entering "Administration". Sir Richard Branson says this is not the end but a new beginning. Credits supposed to carry over. Hard to say if it's a play to have England bail out Virgin Atlantic. Sir Richard has put up his island as collateral. (or says he will) I think Delta owns 49% of Virgin Atlantic. So we'll see how this shakes out. My plan was to go in 2021 at the same time.

 

[dixter]

sounds like Sir Richard is a $5 billionaire... he only has a single $5 in his pants pocket and the rest of the billion is in planes and such....his credit line dried up quickly

 

[Sunset]

We are still awaiting our refund from Princess. They said it would be 60-90 days. I will wait, as they are processing over 300,000 refunds.

We are still waiting as well, but we were told it would be 7-10 business days, but that was 35 days ago

 

[simple girl]

We had a companion pass with Southwest good through the end of 2020 (allows me to fly free with DH). Obviously we have not been able to use it since the COVID outbreak.

Yesterday we received an email that they are extending when we can use it to through June 2021. Not sure when we will feel comfortable flying again, but that was a very nice guesture on SW's part.

 

[Chuckanut]

Here's an interesting article on Rick Steves and his plans for 2020. He is going to keep his staff on the payroll despite the high probability he will run no tours in 2020. His guide book sales are down 90%. But, he did figure out how to turn on his oven for the first time in 10 years.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/apr/24/rick-steves-finds-unexpected-joy-amid-travel-stand/

“Every time I try to get ahead of the curve, I wake up the next morning and I’m behind the curve,” Steves said. “Things just change. And I don’t think even, quote, experts know how long this is going to go.”
One thing he is sure of is that things won’t get back to a semblance of normal quickly.
“It’s wishful thinking to think we can just raise the curtain and we can rekindle all the tourism,” Steves said. “I think it’s going to be an incremental thing and it’ll take months for normal tourism to get up and running. It’s complex.”

 

[Chuckanut]

Like many I have cancelled many travel plans and have had plans cancelled for me. My main issues were reservations made many months ago at National Parks. Places like Yellowstone and Yosemite book up early.

FWIW, I am finding that all the concessionaires so far are honoring their refund policies overall. One changed the time to issue a refund from seven business days to seven to ten business days. And I believe they are fully using up every one of those days before they release the money. But, I am getting full refunds (I rarely book non refundable reservations for hotels, cars, etc. unless the deal is exceptional).

The bank that issued the CC takes about a week to post the refund to my account. I find it it interesting that charges appear as pending within an hour, but refunds are lost in the outer-darkness for a week. I am shocked. Shocked!

 

[gattara]

Here's an interesting article on Rick Steves and his plans for 2020. He is going to keep his staff on the payroll despite the high probability he will run no tours in 2020. His guide book sales are down 90%. But, he did figure out how to turn on his oven for the first time in 10 years.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/apr/24/rick-steves-finds-unexpected-joy-amid-travel-stand/

Thanks for this article, I've been thinking about him lately. I have gone on 3 of his trips and was scheduled for his tour of Sicily earlier this month. For now, I am happily living on memories of the previous tours.

 

[sengsational]

The small tour operator I booked with for an early April event that they cancelled finally is offering a refund. Up until now, it was just the ability to apply a credit to a future trip.

They asked me to cancel the dispute on the credit card transaction (I placed the dispute after a refund was explicitly denied).

Although I don't expect that they are being deceitful, I wonder if I lose my right to re-dispute if they don't (or can't) follow through with the refund. I need to get on the CC site and see what they say about this situation. It would be more "fair" for them to issue a refund because the strong dollar means they would pay actually more of their currency to give me back the same number of dollars I paid. I'd not want them out any money. In fact, if they offered a 85% refund vs a 100% credit, I'd have taken the money and be happy. If I get the dispute resolved in my favor, I'll pay them an amount equal to the currency mismatch between when I booked and when I got the refund.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

British Airways is STILL running one of the two flights a day on the route our tickets are for in July, and still only says you can get a voucher for flights between now and May 31. However, if I click on cancel, it now brings me to a voucher form.

Do the rest of you have any musings or opinions about the odds of them cancelling all flights, vs. the chances that they may STOP offering vouchers at some point before mid-July?

The good news is that as of May 1, BA switches from canceling the first of the day to canceling the second of the day, which is the one we're booked on, so if I play refund chicken there's a chance my flight will be canceled, although there's also a chance they won't be offering vouchers by then.

Argh.

 

[Nemo2]

Jimmy was very prescient some 44 years ago:

"It's these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same
With all of our running and all of our cunning
If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane

Reading departure signs in some big airport
Reminds me of the places I've been
Visions of good times that brought so much pleasure
Makes me want to go back again

If it suddenly ended tomorrow
I could somehow adjust to the fall"

 

[harllee]

If I ever start traveling again I am going to remember which airlines, travel companies, etc treated their customers decently and which did not. For example Air BnB is been pretty good about given full refunds, VRBO has not. I will vote with my pocketbook.

 

[Chuckanut]

If I ever start traveling again I am going to remember which airlines, travel companies, etc treated their customers decently and which did not. For example Air BnB is been pretty good about given full refunds, VRBO has not. I will vote with my pocketbook.

+1 You, me and a lot of other people.

How a person or organization responds with things go bad is the real test. I'll remember the organizations that gave me a refund. And, while I have not personally suffered from a refusal to refund I will remember the experiences of friends who have been cheated.

 

[explanade]

If I ever start traveling again I am going to remember which airlines, travel companies, etc treated their customers decently and which did not. For example Air BnB is been pretty good about given full refunds, VRBO has not. I will vote with my pocketbook.

I thought cancellation policies were up to the individual hosts, not Airbnb or VRBO.

Main recourse is just to give them bad reviews to those hosts who are inflexible?

 

[Sunset]

I thought cancellation policies were up to the individual hosts, not Airbnb or VRBO.

Main recourse is just to give them bad reviews to those hosts who are inflexible?

Generally each AirBnb host sets one of the available policies, so I would have lost 1/2 my cost.
But I got the entire amount back.

AirBnb overruled all the host refund policies, giving full refunds to guests AND gave the hosts 25% of whatever their refund policy would have denied the guests.

AirBnb hosts that rent out a room, or spare vacation home to make extra money still make $$$. The hosts like the one that rented out about 50 homes to sublet are in pain and won't be making over $1,000,000 this year.

 

[audreyh1]

I honestly think it’s going to be 2 years before I’m flying international again.

 

[MichaelB]

I honestly think it’s going to be 2 years before I’m flying international again.

Yeah, that’s my thinking as well. Road trips might be safer sooner, but that might just be wishful thinking.

 

[davebarnes]

I thought cancellation policies were up to the individual hosts, not Airbnb.

Main recourse is just to give them bad reviews to those hosts who are inflexible?

Our experience (while in Italia in March and cancelling forward one apartment in Italia and two in France) was that AirBnB refunded us 95% of our money. One host in Nice, France was a jerk and AirBnB just stomped on her. The other two were: "I understand, hope to see in the future".

You cannot give a good/bad review to a host/location without two things occurring:
1. You stay there.
2. Both you and the host write a review.

 

[harllee]

I thought cancellation policies were up to the individual hosts, not Airbnb or VRBO.

Main recourse is just to give them bad reviews to those hosts who are inflexible?

Ai BnB gave most everyone their full refund back--did not leave it up the owners. On the other hand VRBO left it up to the owners so many people got no refund from VRBO. I don't think you can give a review when you cancel--you have to actually stay there-- so you cannot give a review saying you did not get a refund. My take away on all this--use AirBnb in the future, never use VRBO.

 

[audreyh1]

Yeah, that’s my thinking as well. Road trips might be safer sooner, but that might just be wishful thinking.

Yeah, I just decided to think about how long some things might take, just to kind of get my bearings, have some reasonable expectations, and think about interim plans.

If things change, I’ll change my plans/expectations of course.

P.S. my plans were already somewhat on hold anyway due to DF’s situation. Now everyone else’s life is on hold too! Strange how that happened.

 

[Trooper]

That was nearly 3 weeks ago, and I just looked it up on "https://prefunds.aa.com/refunds" and it still says "pending review".

At the time I was thinking "too easy". We are dealing with American Airlines, after all. I'm probably just being impatient, but I can't help thinking they've got another trick up their sleeve.

The dispute on the credit card is still open.

Exactly the same situation for our trip to Florida 3 weeks ago. And I thought the same thing - "too easy". We didn't go the credit card dispute route; perhaps we should have. Still "Pending Review" on AA's site.

 

[sengsational]

Exactly the same situation for our trip to Florida 3 weeks ago. And I thought the same thing - "too easy". We didn't go the credit card dispute route; perhaps we should have. Still "Pending Review" on AA's site.

The American Airlines refund page has changed for me. Now it's saying "We have previously received a refund request for this ticket and it is in our queue to be reviewed. Thank you for your patience".

This might be because I opened a dispute with my credit card. AA doesn't want to refund anybody twice, hehe!

On my credit card site, they say this:

Your case is in the works—we’ve contacted the merchant on 03/30We've contacted the merchant on your behalf and are actively working to resolve your dispute. Please note, the merchant has until 05/24/2020 to respond. Remember to hold on to all supporting documentation for 90 days.

So I expect (hope) that in a month, the charge will go from a conditional refund to a permanent refund.

 

[braumeister]

We had a big chunk of our planned spending for this year marked for travel. Since we likely won't have much of it happen (all the really expensive stuff has already been cancelled), that means it will get rolled over to next year (if we're lucky).

Seems like this should be a fairly common thing among this community, so all the travel-related parts of the economy are likely to have a very good year when people start going places again. Assuming they can get through this (and not all will be able to), I'm thinking much of the industry is likely to get back to normal within two or three years.

 

[harllee]

I had 2 travel events that got cancelled due to the virus (one concert and one rental) and the owners only wanted to give me a credit to be used in the future not the refund I requested so I disputed the charges with my credit card company and got refunds on both in a few weeks.