Pandemic Trip Cancellation
Hello Friends,
Fancy seeing you here again! But HONESTLY.. before this pandemic I really was giving this blog a real lack of attention (example: not signing in for a year.. oops) BUT the wedding is only 50 days away and I have a feeling you will be seeing me around a little bit more with some family sessions, travel guides, home decor and life updates!
But FIRST, lets chat about a little bit about the process of canceling our mostly non-refundable international honeymoon (boo..) and how I was able to get 100% cash back.
I sure hope none of you are in this situation but if you are I hope this may give you an idea of our experience and how we managed the process!
THE TRIP AND HOW WE BOOKED IT
Our trip was set for May 2020 with us hitting Italy (Positano, Capri, Venice) and France (Paris & surrounding areas) At first we played around with the idea of re-routing around the hard hit Venice area but as the pandemic spread and the unknown increased we decided to call it and begin the cancelation process!
I am a Chase Sapphire card holder and COULD NOT recommend this card more! We used the card for the majority of our bookings because Chase Sapphire offers travel insurance. We never thought we would cancel so we booked JUST ABOUT BOOKED EVERYTHING NON- REFUNDABLE and if someone got sick or we were to have a family emergency we planned to just make a claim with the Chase Sapphire travel insurance. Well obviously the first thing I did when the pandemic hit was contact them, spoiler alert pandemics aren’t covered soooo… there we were.
Now to begin the al la cart cancelation!
THE CANCELATION
I’m not gonna lie and say this was an easy breezy process. This cancelation TOOK SOME MAJOR WORK with long hold times, unanswered emails, the waiting game, multiple dropped calls and speaking to multiple reps. We started the cancelation process in February and here in May just finished completing it.
FLIGHTS: We booked our flights with one being directly with Delta, one other with Delta through Chase Sapphire online and two with Air France through Chase Sapphire. Here with Delta we played the waiting game as the pandemic spread in hopes Delta would cancel on us versus us canceling on them because if they cancel we would have more power. In the end Delta canceled on us when all non-essential flights to Italy were banned, we were offered vouchers. Yes, we plan to take the trip at a later date but no I DIDN’T WANT A VOUCHER, I wanted my money back! With Delta I reached out directly through calling their call center, which consisted of a lot of dropped calls and long wait times, eventually I spoke to a csr who quickly and kindly agreed to refund us our money. He provided a cash refund for the flight directly booked with Delta, for the one with Chase he refunded it back to them which then went to us. We saw the funds from Delta in a few days and the Chase refund took about a month to get the points and money back. With AirFrance they also cancelled on us, when they cancelled they automatically sent the refund of our points and money to chase. They said it would be TWO MONTHS for me too see this come through and we are STILL waiting!
AIR BNB: After all this I look at Airbnb with heart eyes and a new sense of dedication. Cancelation was easy breezy. The Venice Airbnb offered a one click cancelation and I saw our money back the next day. (Obviously different Airbnb’s have different policies set by the owners)
The Hotels: The cancelation with the hotels greatly varied. We had selected to stay at Hotel Brunella in Capri, Hotel Posideon in Positano and The Madison Hotel in Paris. We began the process with Hotel Brunella, they had a pay two weeks out from your stay policy and cancelled our reservation with one simple email. Hotel Posideon was very kind, positive and first spoke about rescheduling but after asking kindly refunded us our non-refundable booking, it took about 3 weeks to see this hit our account. Ohhhh, Hotel Madison, how fun were they! We had to ask the 4 times for a refund rather than a voucher that only lasted for so long (little shout out to Cassie my little sister who now took this under her wing) upon our 4th request and Paris shutting down they graciously refunded the money and we received it in a few short days.
THE REST
Thankfully that is all we had booked and did not book any excusrions as I sure do hate a sticker and following a flag. We also had not yet purchased any of the train tickets or ferry rides so we did not have to worry about that, yaaaaya
WHATS NEXT
After the energy and process this cancelation took I am kinda spooked to book international travel for 2020 with Covid-19 on the loose and not being sure of where a relapse could happen. With that we are going to do a more local minimoon and wait till the pandemic subsides to book our international honeymoon which will most likely be May 2021 for us. We will most definitely still go to Italy but may change France up with Greece or Croatia. As for 2020 travel everything I will be booking will be through a refundable Airbnb or just refundable in general!
For more national travel my first place to go is ALWAYS California. But their restrictions have stayed heavy so we will likely keep it SUPER SIMPLE and stick with Rosemary Beach or Charleston. *Looks at Napa, Lake Tahoe, Palm Springs & San Diego longingly*
THE END
I really love travel and have wanted to focus on places it would be more difficult to take children but this year will look a little different for us!
And there you have it my friends! I am by far NO expert and I’m sure as things progress and restrictions change and so will the booking / refund process. Either way I hope this blog will help anyone going through the cancelation process we did or that may be playing around with scheduling a trip during a pandemic.