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Holiday cancellation


EmilyA
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We are permanent residents in France with CV and mutuelle. We had rented an apartment from a private owner for a holiday this week; it is a French registered business with a Swiss owner. The day before leaving I fell down the stairs and broke my leg. We have obviously cancelled the booking, but wondered if anyone has any idea about any avenue by which we might reclaim some of the cost of the apartment. We paid by virement from our French bank account.

We had European travel insurance, but I did not renew it this year because the company could only deal with EU / EEA citizens and obviously that might not work after next March. (?)

One of my neighbours suggested protection civile, but I don't see that ours will work, she thought maybe theirs?

We realise we have probably lost the money and tant pis for us, but just thought it was worth asking.
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Check your house insurance with your insurance agent. You may find there is something there. I went to my agent to ask about travel insurance as the premium for my travel insurance renewal had gone up a lot. He pointed out there was cover for many incidents within the house/contents insurance. You should also check with your mutuelle to see whether there is any help available.
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Thanks all. I have tried the bank and our debit card is just an ordinary one and only covers accidents when away. We have one agent who has our health, car and household policies so will try them. I think we have asked about travel insurance in the past and they looked a bit blank so I went with the European insurance at that stage.

I would have renewed it apart from (expletive deleted) Brexit. Grrrr....

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Tried the insurance agent and nothing in our policies covers us and they don't do travel insurance either. It was only the accommodation cost we lost so could have been worse.

I have a lovely wheelchair, walking frame and crutches from the pharmacie though. ?

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Our french car insurance had some sort of assurance with it, EuropAssistance, if memory serves. And I have no idea as to whether that covered for holiday insurance or not. I sort of thought that it did, but never thought to look exactly what it did and we never needed it either.

Does yours???

What I do remember about french insurance was that they used to, at least needing advising of a problem within a very short time of the incident/accident.

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Thanks Norman, we didn't have any choice about payment, it was cheque or virement. I have however asked for the return of the cleaning fee.

I was a bit surprised by how quickly the agent said, "no none of your policies (health, house, car) cover that", but OH has checked the small print and I think it is the case.

Just bad luck really and thanks all for the good wishes. I am (just about) adapting to life in a full leg cast.
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Quite right too, I can't see any excuse for not returning the cleaning fee. Seems a bit cheeky to charge it upfront, don't you usually pay that when you arrive or at the end of the holiday?

Rotten luck, I do hope you have chance to fit in a holiday or a treat later in the year to make up.
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  • 3 years later...

Only posting this here as we cannot start new topics.  We booked flights from Nantes to Gran Canaria early this year with Volotea.  Direct from Nantes and not expensive, only down side was late departures.  Our outward flight was cancelled after standing for 90 mins with in the queue with the plane visible in front of us, The usual mucking about and lack of info followed, eventually got out the next day. A week later, the 0030 return flight was also cancelled, again with the plane on the ground in front of us.   Equal chaos for the replacement flight, with the Garda coming twice to calm the situation.  There was nothing we could do but collect information, I was determined to claim compensation when we got back.  After numerous Emails and claims submissions to Volotea , I am happy to say we got the full 800€ each for the two flights - more than the holiday cost! And a half a night in a 4 star hotel with breakfast.  Well worth the effort.

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Sounds terrible, but I'm glad you got compensation.

With all the horrible travel stories that make the headlines every single day, we've decided where ever we go next, it will be somewhere we can easily drive to.  And, it won't be until school starts again.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Lori said:

Sounds terrible, but I'm glad you got compensation.

With all the horrible travel stories that make the headlines every single day, we've decided where ever we go next, it will be somewhere we can easily drive to.  And, it won't be until school starts again.

 

 

So sensible of you. Why oh why, do people rush on the first weekend of school holidays to head for the tunnel or Dover? OK this year was a little worse as the French border control were I think, playing games. What the French should realise is, that the holiday makers help pay their wages and help the French economy. Still it's madness to try to travel on these weekends.

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LIke Nick P, I too cannot understand why they must all set off on the same weekend eimmediately when the hoidays start.  They do get 6 weeks off school I presume, still.  Idiots. MInd you, my nephews has just set off too, but seemingly he flew with no problems to an unsual (for the Britis) place and arrived as planned. It can be done, just don't be lemmings.

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I don't want to throw petrol on the Brexit fire, but I cannot help but laugh at the situation at Dover.  The French did not vote for Brexit, the UK did and now are getting what they wanted.  We went to the UK on the motorbike in May/June.  Out of habit I treated the Border Control point as I do  a European one. The staff were busy chatting so I drove straight through!  Won't make that mistake again.

Coming back into France at Roscoff from Cork it took 45 mins to get off the ferry.  Everyone was checked, bikers with full face helmets had to take them off for the face check (French or not).

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The forum no longer allows for new topics? That doesn't bode well.

I tend to trust journalist John Lichfield and he has written a piece for The Local on the chaos at Dover. Frankly, even if all border check booths had been open earlier, I don't see last weekend being managed much better. Or this. It's the extra checks, innit? Which will increase once people have half-a-dozen arrival / departure stamps in their passports and officials decide to figure out total number of nights spent across all EU countries in the previous 180 (or whatever).

Lichfield article link:

https://www.thelocal.fr/20220725/opinion-uk-france-travel-crisis-will-only-be-solved-when-the-british-get-real-about-brexit/

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 A further thought - for a few years, when I was managing projects in Germany and the NL (commuting from the UK) I was in the countries most weeks. Post-Brexit, I suspect I wouldn't have had sufficient days left over for our holiday visits to France once my work trips had been totted up. 😬

Going through those passport stamps at Dover would have been a nightmare. There's no electronic registration system to deliver this info at border control, afaIaa?

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Catalpa, thank you so much for your link to the Lichfield article.  That has clarified for me the underlying problems that nobody else seems to be talking about.

Perhaps Lichfield or some other trusted person would write an article listing ALL the Brexit dividends that no UK politician has actually been able to describe?

Brexit DIVIDENDS?  Do they exist?  Can pigs fly?

 

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Salut, Mint. 😊

I think the problem with finding articles like that in the MSM, the Times / Telegraph / Mail (as egs) is factual reporting like the Lichfield article doesn't carry the political bias - generally uncritically pro-Tory, even pro-Boris, pro-rightwing. So unless you're looking at the Guardian (not without its bias or selectivity) or Byline Times (definitely worth a look) factual, accurate reporting isn't the news they care to print or comment on. I think it's a real problem. Starmer - and other parties generally - have the same problem in that if the majority of big name news distributors aren't reporting their announcements, views and activities, how do they make themselves heard over all the Tory party noise?

 

If you use Twitter, you can follow people like Lichfield, Annette Dittert, Byline Times, etc, and if you carefully select who / what you follow, I find Twitter a really useful tool for finding good quality reporting.

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Our new owners, France Media Group have now managed to get the licence for the Forum from Archant, the previous owners. They can now move forward with sorting out the posting problems we have been having so, folks, cross your fingers, the wait may soon be over. Inshallah.

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