Holiday firms that have helped take the stress out of the pandemic

Would you like a story where everything worked for a change? In January, we booked a family get-together at Center Parcs in July. When Coronavirus arrived, we reluctantly decided not to go, mainly because of the risk of infection on the train or planes that some of us would need to use. Although the holiday park was open for business, it offered us a rebooking or a refund. We chose a refund which arrived days later.

RG, Somerton, Somerset

Given that many companies have refused to refund holidays even when they’ve been cancelled by government decree, this is heartening news, although reviews on Trustpilot suggest that some have not been so fortunate. The travel industry is confronting an abyss so any company that puts its customers’ interests first deserves public applause.

PW of Lutterworth, Leicestershire also got cold feet after booking an expensive rail holiday to Scotland in September. Although firms are not obliged to accommodate customers who no longer wish to travel, his Exmouth agent, Travel World, was empathetic. “A new date next year was arranged, they negotiated the same existing discounts and even a price freeze,” he says. “They took away all the stress.”

SH of Keswick, Cumbria was gratified when the Oxfordshire-based tour specialist Audley Travel refunded the cost of his cancelled package to Japan the day he had been due to depart.

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