A new CHOICE investigation into COVID-19 travel disruption has exposed the chaotic and unfair treatment being faced by many travellers. Of those surveyed, 53% waited three months or longer for a resolution, with many waiting more than six.
With travel uncertainty and border closures likely to continue, we need rules that make changing plans fairer for everyone. The good news is, there are already steps our government can take like establishing a travel industry ombudsman and setting minimum standards for travel credits.
So hereās the plan: In a few weeks Iāll be delivering a petition to consumer affairs ministers calling on them to fix Australiaās travel chaos. If we can show that thousands of people across the country support fairer travel rights, theyāll know they have to take this issue seriously. If you like, you can sign to support fairer travel rights here.
Being in the industry, we strongly believe that consumers shouldnāt be penalised because they couldnāt travel through no fault of their own actionsā¦but because of government imposed measures outside their control.
We have taken the following approachā¦
any cancellation fees are waved if a cancellation occurs through a government imposed measure outside the control of our guests:
we ask if the cancelled booking can be rescheduled, but appreciate in the current environment of ever shifting goalposts by state governments, this is near impossible. If rescheduling isnāt possible, we ask for guests to consider booking with us, if and when they decide travel again.
payments are made on arrivalā¦our general policy is we donāt take prepayments unless specifically requested. This reduces the need to process refunds. We process refunds (only 3 thus far) as soon as notification of the cancellation is received. It takes about 5 business days for our guests to see monies in their account (we use Square and refund time frames are outside our control). We do not offer credits etc and only refund all monies paid:
some booking websites recommend prepayment for bookings, even though it is not our standard approach. In cases where guests prepay through a booking website, we assist guests to get a full refund for any prepaid bookings through the third party booking website. To date, we have been successful in getting guests refunds for their booking. We donāt know how long it takes for booking websites to refund any payments though.
One thing we have noticed and is a bugbear, is third party booking websites only allow one cancellation policy setting. Most businesses need at least 2ā¦a general cancellation policy and a special Covid cancellation policy. This means every time we get a cancellation we manually need to check the reason why the cancellation occurs, if it meets our covid cancellation policy, communicate this policy to the booking website and guests, manually adjust fees and payments in the booking platform and manually assist guests in recovering any monies paid/refunds. A laborious task which takes some time which could be made easier by booking platforms. I suspect that some operators may charge cancellation fees as they are charged booking commissions unless the payments associated with a booking are manually adjusted ā¦which may not be a simple exercise for large operators with large number of monthly booking cancellations.
This is long overdue. I have been battling Qantas for almost three months just to have a flight credit validated. I have spent two sessions on the phone with consultantsā¦one for FOUR hours and the second for an hour ā¦ trying to resolve what has gone wrong with our travel credits for cancelled flights last year. I posted a comment on Qantasās Facebook page and that elicited at least a responseā¦but the process has been ongoing for a month now with still no result. Each time the consultant insisted that she/he had sorted it out but no tickets arrived and the credit vouchers either would not work or ā as happened last time ā showed that we had almost nothing left in credit despite having never been able to access it. I estimate this has cost Qantas five daysā work so far (assuming that someone is trying to resolve it) and as for my timeā¦well! Perhaps fortunately, there are not too many places to visit at present so I live in hope.
I received a return airfare and hotel accommodation for 6 nights in Hobart as a gift from my ex-wife in January 2020 for travel in March 2020. Tasmania announced a lockdown for the period of travel and I have been trying to gain a refund ever since. That is a total of 16 months.
Many emails have passed backwards and forwards to no avail. They kept advising that the airline was behind in processing the refunds. this morning I got an email telling me there would be no refund but I could get a voucher or transfer the booking to a new flight. I will have to pay for any increase in airfare as well as the admin costs of the booking agent.
This is totally unacceptable and I continue to fight.
Hi MHM thank you for joining our Choice Forum and posting up your problem. Please feel free to join in with the discussion and offer you own point of view or experiences here, we have lots of members who may find it interesting. There are also many Members who can assist you and they have experience with a wide variety of issues.
We look forward to your future contributions, and hope we can help you out with this one.
Cheers Natalie
We prepaid 2 nights at Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney prior to a cruise leaving March 2020ā¦luckily we cancelled the cruise but Sofitel only offered a credit. They have had our money for 2 years. We booked in March 2019.The hotel is a prominent quarantine hotel. We have until August 2021 to use our credit. Trying to get a response is useless.
Hi Advice4me welcome to the Choice Forum Community and thank you for taking part. This is outrageous! You certainly should not have to wait that long for a response, and should be given another opportunity to use your pre-payment elsewhere or get a refund.
I know I certainly would not want to stay at a quarantine hotel and I can understand your hesitationā¦
Someone on the Forum should be able to advise you where to turn with regard to your prepayment, it is out of my league. Thank you for your contribution, and please feel free to join in and offer any ideas or suggestions, you are always welcome.
Cheers Natalie
This topic is about Choice staff collecting information rather than assistance. It is a bit of a balance whether certain posts are more appropriate here or being merged into the following.
Those seeking guidance/advice on their particular problem should see the [long] topic.
Perusing it will reveal travellers who have had similar problems getting refunds from the range of travel providers, links to the ACCC and Choice advice on rights, how one might seek refunds or extensions, and how other members have tried, sometimes prevailed, and sometimes were stonewalled.
One thing that Choice and also Maurice Blackburn in their class action overlook is certain facts about agents like Flight Centre on their obligations regarding clients funds and refunds. Flight Centre like most others, are members of IATA; the International Air Transport Association, which also represents major carriers, and operates the banking process Bank Settlement Plan (BSP) similar to our major banks with BSB and agent coding. Most carriers do take a long time, average up to 6 weeks to issue a refund, and it could be reasonably expected this has blown out due to COVID to something like 8-10 weeks. When the funds are refunded, they are sent directly back to the agentās trust account, (which is in trust for clients,) and the funds are cleared. If you have a copy of the ticket, the long number will be prefaced with the airlineās numeric code (BSB) like 081 for Qantas, and 125 for British Airways for example. Elsewhere you will find the agentās numeric code beginning with 02-3- (02-3- is the country code for Australia, another BSB type code,) followed by a 5 digit number.
By a large submission by either Choice or Maurice Blackburn on behalf of customers, a complaint against mishandling or misrepresenting client funds including refunds made in full to IATA, could be cause to suspend or cancel the agentās accreditation with IATA. Obviously, this would be damaging for the agent, as they would no longer be authorised to issue airline tickets and would have to pay an intermediary to do this for them. Majors like Flight Centre would also no longer be entitled to overrides it may receive from its āpreferredā carriers like Emirates which can be as much as 18% paid direct to head office, on top of what the consultants sales commission would be in the 5-9% range. It would therefore be in the agentās interest to co-operate with a class action complaint made to IATA.
Travel at the moment is a nightmare for everyone involved, the public, travel agents and the providers. If you want to travel at the moment I believe the individual is responsible for the risk. You canāt buy travel insurance for COVID related matters so why expect the travel agents and/or providers to cover you. I work in the industry as an accommodation provider so my opinion is biased but if you want to go on holidays in the current conditions read the cancellation policies first! They are there, they are not hard to find and if you donāt understand it, ask. If you canāt easily find the cancellation policy, back away and go elsewhere or book through a different method. For accommodation at least, the best way is usually to contact the property direct, ask for a copy of their cancellation policy and book with them, you should also be able to get it cheaper as they wonāt be paying commissions to travel agents. In my experience, most of the problems occur with the Online Travel Agencies (OTA) who have their own agenda. Book Direct!
Perhaps the government needs to work with the insurance industry to offer a government back travel insurance scheme.
You may be correct in those who want to travel now or in the future, but, many issues which have arisen relate to those who booked pre-Covid and were unable to subsequently travel because of Covid controls implemented by governments here and around the world.
Many businesses didnāt have terms and conditions which specifically covered pandemics, but had business as usual terms and conditions which covered rescheduling, cancellations and refunds. As travel couldnāt be made, though no fault of the consumer/traveller, these standard T&Cs were used even though the cancellation was not triggered by the consumer/traveller. In many cases it was the provider (tour group, airline, accommodation etc) that cancelled the travel.
This is where many of the current issues lay, not necessarily travel booked more recently.
Your advice about confirming cancellation policies, both by the traveller or through travel which canāt be made as a result of government impose travel restrictions, is extremely important. Many providers now have Covid/pandemic related policies/T&Cs, some which are more favourable to the traveller and some more favourable to the provider. I personally would avoid those which donāt waiver cancellation fees where travel couldnāt be completed through matters outside the travellerās control, such as government travel restrictions/bans which prevent travel and booking being fulfilled.
This is also good advice, as outlined elsewhere, many booking sites/platforms only allow one cancellation policy. Many business now have two, one for Covid and a standard policy. It is important to know if the provider as a Covid cancellation you are happy with. It is unlikely you will get this through a booking website.
That is true for smaller independent providers. Some of the larger ones are however less flexible.
I am wondering if you could look as caravan park cancellation policies. My wife and I are travelling in a caravan and have found that the cancellation policies for many caravan parks or chains are good, but others can be quite draconian. One chain has a cancellation policy that will result in the loss of one nightās tariff, but many of our bookings are very short, only a few days, and can be for only one night, in which case it is a 100% fee, and this applies even when the cancellation is more than 14-days before arrival! The only alternative to this āfeeā is to take a 12-month credit, but again this come with the condition that the credit must be used within 12-months or it is gone! I accept that caravan parks must get a reasonable compensation when bookings are cancelled but they should reflect their actual cost, not and arbitrary āpenaltyā.
Even in peak times these cancellation fees are imposed, despite the fact that there are people waiting to grab sites, so there is minimal loss to the caravan park. Even āadministration costsā are a nonsense as many bookings are on-line, so there is no people involved. I would suggest that if sites are rebooked there should be no argument 100% refund!
When we are booking we actually avoid the caravan parks and chains with severe cancellation conditions. We have not changed our booking very often, but it does happen occasionally!
A caravan park is like any accommodation/travel provider, and the advice is linked elsewhere on the Community under the various travel and COVID-19 cancellation topics.
A provider can make their own T&C and charge whatever fees they wish to impose, fair or otherwise, and the traveller is free to āaccept it or go elsewhereā. Now that we are a year down the track from the initial COVID cancellations from shut-downs and travel restrictions, that holds for both future COVID-19 cancellations as well as the travellerās cancellations (change of mind).
I doubt anyone would argue with your reasonable expectations, yet there seems no legislation that requires any particular provider to do much of anything beyond operate within council and licensing requirements. As with many things brought to the ACCCās attention that seems reasonable, they routinely reply with āshop around for the best dealā as if nobody has yet discovered that secret.
Considering Choice is neither a caravan site nor travel agent and has published advice/positions regarding cancellations and policies, what had you intended by ālook atā?
Again, information applicable to COVID-19 situations is equally applicable to every day travels, and vice versa.
If everyone did as yourself, eg only booking with locations having reasonable T&C, one would hope the providers with draconian and unfair policies would adjust accordingly or go out of business, but it seems some locations always have a queue of willing travellers who donāt think it (a payment penalty) could happen to them. Until it does.
Last minute cancelations can be difficult to fill for a number of reasons.One canāt assume that
This is a valid argument, but how would one know if the side had been rebooked. One would have to rely on the operators being honest.
This is important to ensure one reads the cancellation T&Cs, especially relating to COVID related cancellations because travel canāt be made and the booking fulfilled.
There isnāt a standardised approach to Covid related cancellations and as you have found out they vary between operators/sites.
As I have indicated elsewhere, I personally would avoid any operators which have T&Cs one canāt live with and/or not favourable to the guest. There are any operators which have taken the opportunity to make money at their guests expense, when the ability to fulfil a booking is outside the guestās control (usually result of government imposed travel bans). If Australianās support business with unfavourable/draconian T&Cs, they wonāt change them, If they all didnāt have bookings because of them, then they might change.
Unfortunately unfavourable T&Cs canāt be legislated against as every business currently has the right to have their own T&Cs which suit their own businesses. Legislating T&Cs may not be interest of all business or consumers and may cause unintended consequences (higher prices or businesses to close).
Thanks for highlighting caravan parks are potentially no different to the rest of the accommodation industry, and one should check and be comfortable with them before making a booking.
I see that Choice got a mention in a ABC new article about some short term retail providers refusing refunds due to COVID-19 imposed restriction preventing the booking being fulfilled:
A couple of comments to the information in the article (and from our own experiences):
Cancellation policies are set by the host/accommodation using the framework provided by the booking platform. As outlined above, booking platforms only allow the setting of one cancellation policy, which in COVID times, poses challenges to businesses. With controls varying between states and within states, having one fit all policy does not work for businesses as they either have to present a standard (pre-COVID type) policy or a more flexible COVID type policy for all bookings. Having one or the other does not necessarily suit the environment businesses are currently operating. We have tried to get around this by setting our standard policies using the rigid platform policies, and then messaging the booker with our flexible COVID-19 (which is in the full favour of guests impacted by COVID measures outside their control). It takes a lot of unnecessary effort manage (usually by having to contact, including to and froing, with a booking platform directly to waiver any fees which would have otherwise existed through our standard policy), but we accept this additional effort to ensure that our guests arenāt impacted by things outside their control.
Hosts/accommodation providers have discretion outside the standard cancellation policies within a booking platform to waiver any fees and/or provide refunds. We have had guests who need to cancel, have been told by other accommodation providers that they are locked into what is on the booking platform. This is false and incorrect. At any time a accommodation provider can use their discretion in relation to the terms and conditions, should this discretion be in the favour of the booking party. This includes wavering any fees which would have resulted from cancellation under standard policies.
As indicated above, it is strongly suggested that contact be made with the accommodation provider before booking/the standard booking fee waiver period expires, to determine what the cancellation fees are in relation to COVID. Get the policy in writing and use this to assess your risks in relation to fulfilling the booking and fees which may result.
The last point is avoid prepaying for accommodation where ever you can. Many of the booking platforms are offering discounts etc to encourage bookers to prepay for their accommodation. This may make obtaining a refund more challenging if one contacts the booking platform as the standard booking terms and conditions will be pointed to, rather than alternative policies or accommodation provider discretion. Our own standard business policy is where ever possible, to accept payment at check-in. Unfortunately there is a push by booking platforms to have prepayments, I suspect so that it maximises their chance to retain their booking commissions (knowing it is time consuming for businesses to agree to waiver and for the booking platform to issue a refund - it is easier not to do so).
