We are holidaymakers stranded in Mauritius by the conflict in the Gulf. Our return flight, booked as part of a Virgin Holidays package, was routed via Dubai and was cancelled.
We were advised by Virgin’s local representative that we should arrange and pay for accommodation ourselves until flights resumed, and reclaim it on our travel insurance. Only after we challenged this position did Virgin agree to cover hotel costs.
However, other Virgin guests were continuing to fund their rooms themselves, and some were downgrading to keep the costs down.
We were also told that we would have to wait until the airline Virgin had originally booked us on resumed operations, and that if we wanted to find an earlier flight with a different carrier we would have to claim the cost from our insurer.
I don’t want to minimise the suffering of those directly affected by this war. Our concern is not about inconvenience, but about how consumer protections are applied in times of global crisis.
LF, Lincolnshire
You were fortunately familiar with the package travel and linked travel arrangements regulations, which require tour operators to pay for food and accommodation if a holiday is disrupted and to book you on to a flight home with a different airline if the original carrier can’t fly you within a reasonable time.
However, many travellers will be unaware of their rights and you say that since one Virgin rep covered 29 hotels on the island, others were being given the same incorrect advice and thus face huge bills.
Contrary to what you were told, standard travel insurance policies do not cover costs caused by war. Equally concerning is the suggestion that Virgin made no effort to book customers on to the earliest available flights, regardless of the airline. Instead it wanted you to wait nine days for its chosen carrier. Your husband’s essential medication was due to run out before then and it was only by dint of hassling Virgin’s call centre that a flight was booked for you via Johannesburg.
You arrived home seven days later than scheduled. Travel firms have been plunged into a logistical nightmare by the conflict, but that is no excuse for not keeping their customers properly informed of their rights.
Virgin said it always abides by the package travel regulations, adding: “On this occasion, customers in some destinations were advised to arrange immediate short-term accommodation extensions directly with their hotel to ensure they had somewhere to stay without delay, with expenses to be reimbursed by submitting a claim to us. We apologise for any miscommunication regarding our policy.”
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