Even the best-laid holiday plans can go awry. Illness, bereavements, break-ups, money problems, redundancy, pregnancy, jury duty, floods – all of these can throw a getaway into disarray.
But while you may miss out on a break in the sun or relaxing city break, you do not necessarily have to lose all of your money as a result of problems at home that force you to cancel your trip. You can now sell on your holiday in much the same way you sell on a concert ticket, although that is not the only way to get some money back.
This will depend on how close you are to going away and what sort of booking you made. It is unlikely that you will get all of your money back when you cancel a package holiday as most are sold as not fully refundable.
The closer you cancel to the departure date, the more it is likely to cost you. Tui, one of the biggest tour operators in the UK, will keep the deposit paid on a holiday if it is cancelled 70 days or more before departure and then a growing percentage of the overall price as you get closer to take-off.
For example, if you cancel 65 days before, you will have to pay 30% of the booking price, while if there are two weeks or less to go you will pay the whole cost. Jet2Holidays has similar charges.
If you put the holiday together yourself, then often the flight part will not be refundable if you decide not to travel.
Ryanair’s terms and conditions say if you do not travel, you are not entitled to money back.
EasyJet allows cancellations within 24 hours of booking but charges a £49 fee online (£55 if you do it through customer services). Some other airlines offer refundable tickets. These typically cost more than standard tickets when you buy them – so check which type you have.
Hotels’ terms and conditions vary and some allow free cancellation up to a day before the booking, although there could be a fee, while some are partially refundable. However, many will be non-refundable.
First, contact your tour operator, airline, ferry company or hotel as soon as you know that you will not be travelling to see what money you can get back.
Some travel operators may be lenient when it comes to cancellation caused by unforeseen illness and let you move the holiday to another date out of goodwill.
Matt Gatenby, a partner at the law firm Travlaw, says that if you contact a company to explain you have been taken ill, it may suggest you can go at a later date. Airlines, however, are typically not as lenient or sympathetic, he adds.
Even if a booking is non-refundable it is worth contacting the company and explaining what has gone wrong. If, for example, you are cancelling because you have been diagnosed with a serious illness, some will waive the usual rules and offer a refund if you can provide a doctor’s letter as evidence.
Many travel insurance policies have cancellation cover which will pay out if you have to cancel for reasons set out in the T&Cs. For example, one policy from Admiral (£36 for a family of four for a year) pays out in case of death or serious injury of you or a close relative; a Covid diagnosis; quarantine; court cases; unemployment; damage to your home from fire or unemployment.
Make sure that you have enough cancellation cover for the trip. The one above will pay out up to £1,500 a person but with an excess of £150. What it will not pay out on is if you cancel because you had a pre-existing condition or if you simply do not want to travel.
It is possible to sell on a holiday you can no longer use, but it is not straightforward and you are unlikely to recoup all of the money you have spent.
A number of websites and groups on social media have emerged in recent years whereby people who have non-refundable holidays, flights or hotels can pass them on to someone else once the names on the bookings have been changed and fees paid.
This week, on a Facebook group called “Holidays for sale booked and paid but can’t go or cancel”, one woman was selling a week-long family holiday to Turkey – which starts on Sunday – for £800 after paying more than £1,600. She said it was because she would not have a passport on time. Another person was selling a double room in Amsterdam for three nights for the end of June for £350. She said it had cost her £481.
Two websites, SpareFare and Transfer Travel, operate eBay-style marketplaces in which people can sell on their holiday, flight and hotel bookings.
On SpareFare, a US-based site, there is a two-person holiday to Faro in Portugal, with flights from Gatwick, for 10 nights this week for £1,001 – half the price it would currently cost from the provider, according to the site. A week-long holiday in Mallorca from 21 May, with flights from Manchester for three, is £1,005, almost half of the market price.
Transfer Travel, meanwhile, has return flights for two to Jamaica in September for £950, down from £1,950. Two weeks in Corfu with flights from Luton and accommodation at the Aqualand resort is £1,040 for two.
You can check whether a package holiday can be transferred by contacting the provider. With package holidays, flights and hotels in most cases it simply involves changing the names and details of the booking once you have found a buyer and agreed a price.
Erik Ritland,the owner of SpareFare, says swapping the name on a holiday is an easier process than it was in the past and requires the name, date of birth and address of the buyer. Changing the name usually involves a fee. For Tui, this is £25. On Jet2holidays it is £50 unless it is within two weeks of travel and then it goes up to £150, while changing the date of birth is £10.
Ryanair name changes are £115 a person for each flight, meaning it can often not be worthwhile selling on your booking.
On SpareFare, the seller pays the name-change fee because they are the only person able to alter the details, says Ritland.
The fee is included in the amount they charge for the holiday. The site charges the seller 12% commission on the final selling price. Transfer Travel charges 15% commission and the seller pays for the name change.
On both SpareFare and Transfer Travel, a buyer can barter or bid for a different price to that being advertised. Each site says that they ensure the holidays and flights are legitimate before sale through a verification process.
You claimed on insurance
If you have claimed on an insurance policy, for example if they have a serious illness, you cannot then go on and sell the holiday to someone else. “That would be fraudulent as they would effectively have a double refund,” Gatenby says.
Insurance companies usually require a cancellation invoice from a travel business before they process a claim to prevent such a thing happening.