My Mom and I love to travel. Growing up, travel for us consisted of the 90s stereotype: road trips with 5 people stuffed into a sedan AKA my nightmare 🙂 . However, when I was in college, my Mom got a job at an airline and a whole new world opened up to us 🙂 .
Suddenly flights weren’t a serious luxury that maybe happened once a year during the stressful holidays. Instead, it was accessible and a common way to get around the country…and the world 🙂 . We were able to fly for free on her airline and in stand by on others (so we didn’t always make it, but usually we did!) and did some ridiculous things.
For example, one morning my Mom woke up and said “I want pizza.” I was like “Ok” to which she clarified “New York Pizza!” We flew from ATL to NYC for an afternoon to eat famous New York Pizza (though finding that pizza was a hilarious story in itself that I’ll tell at another time 😉 ).
I flew from Atlanta to New Orleans for a day to visit a friend. My Mom and her colleague/friend flew to Paris to visit me for a weekend while I was studying abroad in Italy. It was a wild time. If you love travel and are at all interested in the airline industry, their perks can be pretty sweet. For example, even the baggage handlers at Delta get international standby flight perks 🙂 .
So anyway, seeing the world suddenly didn’t seem so difficult. And luckily this feeling persisted even after my Mom left that job. We started going further and further and began taking international trips together. We flew to Tahiti during my college spring break.
That was actually an interesting turning point because after we sat in our economy seats, we were asked to follow a flight attendant out of our seats. I was worried something had gone wrong with our ticket, but it turns out, someone from my Mom’s airline job had been able to upgrade us to First Class.
Our first international First Class experience was on Air Tahiti Nui and we were forever changed 🙂 . After that, we started saving up to purchase international first class tickets and we would sometimes get more excited about the fancy flight than about the destination. This is what led to my pinnacle bougie experience of Spending $7,000 On A Plane Ticket And Not Regretting It.
However, once I started my financial independence journey and was looking through my YNAB budget, I realized that I needed to find another way to enjoy these fancy flights without spending a third of my annual budget 🙂 . Enter travel hacking! I did some research and was able to find ways to get first class flights for free or very cheap.
I showed this new scheme to my Mom and I also started suggesting that we switch up our international destinations to places where our dollar stretched further. So we swapped Fiji and the Maldives for Costa Rica and Thailand. She was originally resistant to the idea, but now seems to be more excited about our low cost of living destination possibilities than I am and she has definitely surpassed my travel hacking prowess.
So that’s the background for this saga. As a result of our love of travel and our new travel hacking lifestyle, we decided to celebrate my retirement by jet setting around the world. Originally, after quitting my job, my fall looked like this:
October: Australia (Sydney, Cairns, Ayers Rock, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island) & New Zealand (Auckland, Bay of Islands, Rotorua, Queenstown)
November: Argentina (Buenos Aires)
December/January: USA (GA, NY)
February: Thailand (Chiang Mai, Koh Samui)
We booked all of these flights and travel plans well in advance as we always do. Then, COVID hit and once the dust settled, and we realized that international borders would be closed (especially to the understandably cautious Australia and New Zealand) for the foreseeable future, and we had to cancel everything.
Because these trips were mostly travel hacked, it was particularly disappointing because it took us 3 years to gather all the points needed for this adventure and obviously we were looking forward to it for that same amount of time. However, there are obviously more pressing issues and I am just grateful that my loved ones are currently healthy and that the natural wonders of the world that I want to see (like the Great Barrier Reef) will most likely still be there when borders reopen again 🙂 .
So, let’s get into our experience cancelling all of these travel plans, what companies we used, and their responses. As a result of the varied responses from companies in the face of a global pandemic, we have agreed to change who we do business with in the future. Most companies actually surprised me with their flexible travel policies and understanding in this difficult time, but others were just straight up disappointments who will never see another dollar from us again 🙂 . Let’s see which is which:
Airlines
Qantas
Ticket Type: Points
Actions Taken: So this was a complicated situation because we booked flights on Qantas Airlines with miles from their partner, American Airlines. Originally we went online to try and get a refund through American’s website, but their website did not show all of the reservations we had booked. So then we called the American Airlines Miles desk (called AAdvantage) since the flights were booked with points. That was simple and they returned most of our points there. For the remainder, we had to call Qantas and they reinstated the points.
Outcome: We received all of our points back and have 18 months from the time of cancellation to use them before they expire in January 2022.
Verdict: I would definitely deal with them again given how easy it was to reinstate our points despite the complicated booking situation.
Virgin Australia
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: We heard through the grapevine that Virgin Australia was going bankrupt and that they were being bought by another company. So we waited for them to get their act together and then asked what the deal was. They said that there would be a credit issued by the new owner of the airline.
Outcome: They cancelled the flight, gave us a credit and said that the credit needs to be used by July 31, 2022 to book and 2023 to travel.
Verdict: Since they are now owned by a company I know basically nothing about I’m not sure I’ll be flying them again 🙂
Air New Zealand
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: We called and cancelled the flights we had booked with Air New Zealand.
Outcome: They gave us credits back that need to be used before June 29, 2021. However, since it looks like their country won’t even let in Americans before that date I’m planning to ask them to extend this deadline since using it would be impossible.
Verdict: I would currently use them again though I am curious to how they will react to me asking to extend the credit past the deadline.
Singapore Air
Ticket Type: Points
Actions Taken: We called them to cancel the reservation and reinstate the points.
Outcome: They returned our Krisflyer miles to our accounts and reimbursed the taxes. We have to now use the miles by an unknown date. We haven’t been able to find a solid answer on that, but from travel blogs it looks like it might be either 3 years from now or January 2022.
Verdict: I would work with Singapore Air again, but similar to the above, if they will not let us into their country before these points expire I will be asking for an extension.
Etihad
Ticket Type: Points
Actions Taken: Now this has been a saga. And I have been shocked by it to be honest. Etihad is known as one of the most advanced and customer focused airlines in the world, but you wouldn’t know it based on this experience. In September we called to cancel our flights and were told our almost half a million points would be deposited into our account…they were not. We called again in October and they said that they could cancel one flight, but not the other so we had to wait longer for some reason. Then in November we called again and they said it would take 45 days from that call to get our points back…more than 45 days passed and nada.
Outcome: We have called six times since September and it has been a struggle to get all of our money and points back after the airline promised they would be reinstated. First they only gave us the taxes back, then half the points and finally after basically stalking them, all the points hit our account 5 months after we started this discussion. I’m starting to feel like we might have dodged a bullet with this airline if we don’t get to fly it. Also, the only reason we were flying Etihad was to experience their First Class Apartments, which are only on their A380 aircraft and all of their A380s are now parked for the foreseeable future. So who knows what we’ll do with all these points.
Verdict: After way too much effort we got all our money and points back and I’m now suspicious of this company’s customer service.
American Airlines
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: For my flight to Argentina that was supposed to take place in November, I was emailed that my flight had changed, but when I did a little investigating, I discovered that it was actually cancelled and they had moved me to another flight, which was not non-stop. I tweeted American Airlines about it (Heads Up: Most airlines have much better Twitter customer service than any other).
They asked me to DM my record locator and they cancelled the flight via Twitter DM and gave me a link to get a refund. However, when I went to the refund page, it said I was eligible for $20 when the ticket cost was more like $1,000. I asked their Twitter team why the refund was only $20 via DM and they said basically that their website doesn’t always show the truth…Ok? So I included a note about that on my refund request that I submitted through the website link the Twitter team gave me.
Then, the saga continued, as I’ve mentioned in my Early Retirement Week 1 and Week 3 updates. It turns out that that refund site automatically refunds the amount to the credit card you used to book the ticket. However, that’s a problem for a travel hacker like me because I didn’t still have that credit card 🙂 .
The card was through CitiBank so I had to call them and they had some issues on their end, but were finally able to see that my card was in fact closed and they told me they would send me a check (like it’s the 1800s…) Luckily, the check did arrive at my tiny house and I deposited via my phone’s banking app. Phew!
Outcome: In the end, I received my money back.
Verdict: I would work with American Airlines again, but now know that their refund site does not necessarily state the amount you’ll receive, that their Twitter team is way more responsive than their phone bank and that I should pay attention to which cards I use to purchase which flights.
Alaska Airlines
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: I had a flight booked to LA for the fall of 2020. I waited until the last minute to see if they would change the flight or cancel it so I would have a case to get my money back instead of a credit. Unfortunately, they did not so I had to cancel it myself.
Outcome: I received a travel credit of about $70 that I have to use in 6 months – and that deadline is fast approaching 🙂 . At this point, I might just book a random flight that I might be able to take based on their cancellation rules because lord knows I’m not going anywhere right now with COVID raging. The other fly in the ointment is that Alaska doesn’t really fly from Atlanta, where I am now, so I would basically have to fly to Seattle and then elsewhere, which is hella inefficient. Sigh – I might have to just kiss that $70 goodbye.
Verdict: Cancelling online was seamless though I would have preferred to get my money back instead of a credit to an airline that doesn’t have a lot of reach.
Delta Airlines
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: We cancelled flights to Mexico, California and Seattle online and were told we needed to redeem the credits by September 30, 2022. However, we recently heard that despite Delta credits usually expiring one year after purchase, they are extending that through December 31, 2022, which is helping me breathe easier.
Outcome: We got all our money back and have until December 2022 to use them!
Verdict: I would definitely work with them again. Cancelling the flight was easy and the credit use extension is sweet!
Lodging
Airbnbs
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: We discovered something funny about Airbnbs – if you, the guest, cancel you don’t get all your money back (depending on what kind of cancellation policy the host has). However, if the host cancels, you get all your money back. Most of the time our Airbnb hosts cancelled and we got our money back. Though one Airbnb told us to cancel it and we refused so they did end up cancelling it.
Outcome: So we also got our full refund to credit cards for most and as credits for one stay that we can hopefully use soon *fingers crossed*.
Verdict: I would definitely use them again – cancelling was pretty straightforward – though I would have preferred to receive cash instead of credits.
VRBO
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: We reached out to a VRBO we had booked and said that we were not able to get into the country and asked how we should move forward. They basically said “Too bad.”
Outcome: VRBO did not offer any cancellations because of COVID or COVID travel restrictions or any credits. So we moved the reservation out a year so we wouldn’t lose our money even though it looks like we won’t be welcome in New Zealand at that time either.
Verdict: I am never using VRBO again. Not having a cancellation policy during a global pandemic is bonkers.
Hotels
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: We had a couple of hotels we were dealing with. Marriott and Crowne Plaza actually did not let you cancel because of COVID fear. However, they allowed you to cancel for fear of wildfires (which at the time were raging over the west coast where I was based). So we cited that as our reason for cancelling.
Another type of hotel interaction we had was pre-paying for boutique hotels. We pre-paid to get a cheaper rate, but they have a clause they says if you do that that you can’t get your money back – for any reason.
Outcome: We got our money back from Marriott and Crowne Plaza. However, if we had not had the (horrible) serendipity of the wildfires, we would not have received anything. As for the prepaid boutique hotels, we lost our money there and were not able to get it back based on their pre-paid clauses.
Verdict: I won’t be visiting a Marriott or Crowne Plaza hotel again based on their lack of COVID cancellation response. Also, as a result of this situation, we will not be pre-paying for hotels going forward.
Personal Rentals
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: We booked a rental through a small company and they would not offer a refund or credit (since it was one property), but did let us move our reservation. So I guess we’ll be visiting the Great Barrier Reef at some point in the next few years to get our money’s worth 😉 . A booking we made at a villa in Thailand went similarly. They just moved the reservation out.
Outcome: We moved our reservation out two years and will (hopefully) be able to use it. Just gotta get to Australia and Thailand!
Verdict: I would use small companies with one property again and just remind myself that since they are super small they don’t have as much leeway to give refunds.
Transportation/Car Services
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: We emailed the car service we were planning to use in New Zealand and explained why we had to cancel all of our travel.
Outcome: They gave us a full refund.
Verdict: This small company seemed awesome and I’m looking forward to using them when we finally make it Down Under.
Travel Insurance
Ticket Type: Cash
Actions Taken: My Mom and I buy travel insurance when we go on big trips like this because, well, we have horrible travel luck 🙂 . I should write a post about all the crazy shit that’s messed up our international travels in the past…Anyway, the Allianz travel insurance that we bought does not cover COVID or once in a lifetime pandemics UNLESS you purchase the expensive insurance from them that covers “ANYTHING,” which we did not do.
Outcome: We were able to change the date on the policy to 2022 so our money is not lost as long as we go on the trips we planned before then.
Verdict: I would continue to use Allianz. They’ve been great in the past and I do understand not covering once in a lifetime events in your affordable plan options.
Conclusion
And that is how we went about cancelling a boatload of travel in 2020. Hopefully we can use these credits in the near future when everyone is healthy and safe 🙂 .
Did you cancel any travel plans in 2020? How did it go?
We cancelled all our plans in 2020 in March, but since all of ours were road tripping domestic plans, it was mostly heartache and acceptance we battled with. (Comic Con, sob). Our one flight-required trip was cancelled long before we actually booked flights which was kind of a miracle since I normally book waaaay out in advance. Oh and PiC had gone and booked a flight in February with Southwest which is unfortunate because he could only get a travel credit when we cancelled that out of caution and I think we have until this year to use it. Obviously we are not flying anywhere this year either! I’ll have to call them and see if we can get an extension. Wish me luck!
Ugh I’m sorry to hear that. One day Comic Con! Good luck on asking for an extension – I’d be curious to hear how it goes 🙂 .
In case anyone is interested, I just checked and the travel funds are actually good through 2022 already, so that’s good.
Cool! Thank you 🙂 .
Actually you can make it out of America via Emeritas Airlines. From Dubai you can then travel to most anywhere. No need to wait if you can produce a negative PCR test. As for your covid 19 concerns, do the math: where is the probability of getting covid 19 greater: in the US or out of the US? Total domestic cases / Total domestic population and total foreign cases / total foreign population are your metrics for overall probability of successful covid 19 avoidance.
I’m not interested in leaving the US right now. Math isn’t everything.
I feel your pain at having to cancel such amazing plans! And so many of them too, that must have taken you so much time and effort!
I was due to take my mum & brother to New York at Christmas, for mum’s 60th birthday (it would have been their first NY trip, in fact their first trip to anywhere in America except Florida!). It was really sad to have to cancel, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed for next Christmas. (They live in the UK and it’s almost 2 years since I’ve seen them at this point, which is the worst thing!)
Luckily we’d only booked the flights, once COVID hit we held off booking anything else. We had a good experience with British Airways (luckily the flight was cancelled in October, so we just had to make one call and it was refunded). Annoying to lose the points I’d gained by booking on my Chase card though.
But like you say, in the grand scheme of things, if postponing travel is the worst of your problems, we’re pretty lucky! And it’ll all (hopefully) still be there when we can travel again.
Haha yeah it was quite a saga 🙂 . I’m sorry to hear about your NY trip and not having seen your parents in 2 years – that sucks. Fingers crossed indeed that this Christmas will be better! And yeah if these are all my problems I’m definitely lucky 🙂 .
I worked in the airline industry for over 8 years and loved the travel benefits. We got to the point that we would only go across an ocean if we could sit in business class. Of course some of the great stories are when we got stuck, like the time we got stuck in Hawaii when coming home from Micronesia. Or how we got stuck in Calgary because the gate agents didn’t give us our boarding passes, so we ended up flying to Vegas and then taking a red eye home and going straight to work in the same clothes! One of our last trips was a day trip to Vegas. We met some friends for brunch at the Bellagio and then flew home. I wish we had done more of those day trips. We did get to fly Air Tahiti Nui from LA to Auckland with a 3 hour stop in Tahiti. No upgrade to business but the flight was half full so plenty of room to stretch out in the back.
Until reading this, I don’t think I really appreciated the “downside” of flexible points when all the travel is cancelled. Yeah it’s great that you got the points back, but Etihad and Qantas points have a lot less value than getting the Chase or Amex points back.
We had to cancel our Europe trip last spring which we had used United miles to fly on Lufthansa. We got the refund pretty easily and have a ton of United points so we will still be able to use them in the future. There was also a cheap EasyJet flight that we got refunded once the flight was cancelled. Due to exchange rate differences, we got a net 21 cents back from that purchase! Big money.
We had Airbnbs cancelled in Seoul and Europe. The Seoul stay was for April and Airbnb was still fumbling around with the process of issuing cancellations. They initially had waivers for only a short time period. The host was kind enough to let us cancel, but Airbnb wouldn’t refund the service fee until they had extended their waivers. It was a bit annoying to have to wait. For our Europe trip, we were able to get credits and I was able to flip them pretty quickly for a road trip we did over the summer.
Good intel on VRBO. I think I noticed some language like that when I was looking at trips this summer, so glad I have avoided them.
We did lose $40 of Southwest Airlines credits. We had a trip last January that were were able to reprice for $20 lower per person. The credits expired in October and they weren’t eligible for any extension (since it was normal course of business price change, not related to the pandemic). I’d definitely still fly Southwest again.
That’s awesome!! And yeah I’m with you – basically business internationally or bust 😉 . And oh wow it sounds like you have some similar stuck stories to us. Fair point on the points – another downside 🙂 . A whole 21 cents?? Woohoo!! That’s interesting about Airbnb. Did you have any of the hosts straight up cancel? Even in April when we did that we got all our money back without having to deal with Airbnb or anyone.
Hello from a fellow travel hacker! A tip re: the credit card(s) you use to book int’l flights: do not cancel them, and bring them with you on the trips. In some countries they actually ask for the credit card you booked the reservation with when you check in with the airline, I believe to combat fraud (it happened to us a few times in Africa). I always use my CSR card, since I know I will always have that one on me.
Qatar airways has done this too though not always.
Good to know – thank you!
Thanks for that! Besides the CapitalOne mishap I usually do that. Some of the airlines have it as a requirement when you book. I discovered that in 2015 when I booked an international flight for my SIL and it said she would need my credit card.
We had one trip near the begining of all this canceled. I ate a 60 dollar booking fee but otherwise received a refund for a vrbo booking. That booking was subbed through vrbo from a agency so there were stronger policies at work. At the time all rentals were shutdown by the governor so it triggered the appropriate clause. The airline, jet blue, cancelled and refunded with a simple follow link and confirm way you want your money back. I’d use JetBlue again. For VRBO while waiting to find out whether money would come back I stumbled on the owners forum. Watching them basically react the opposite of your take on aribnb vs vrbo was very interesting. Not sure what I will do in the future.
That’s awesome – I didn’t know agencies working through VRBO would have stricter policies. And woohoo JetBlue – I like them 🙂 . Interesting on the owners forum!
We had just returned from a three-week trip to New Zealand in January of 2020. I joked to my husband that we should have just stayed there! Hindsight, of course. We road-tripped from Queenstown to Auckland; it was phenomenal and we can’t wait to go back someday. One tip for the glow worm cave tours if you’re doing the one in Waitomo – book the walking tour instead of or in addition to the boat tour, because they don’t let you take pictures of the glow worms on the boat tour, so I was a little disappointed not to be able to capture the moment there.
With regard to cancellations, we had to cancel a trip the Pacific NW that we’d scheduled for July/August. I used IHG points and cash to book the hotels, and via a web form was easily able to cancel and near immediately got all of my points and money back, so I highly recommend them. One of their hotels in Issaquah had actually been turned into a quarantine site for King County, so IHG had already cancelled that one for me and returned the points. For the flights, I’d used American Airlines points, and I cancelled the flights myself before realizing that I should let them do it. Initially, they said I could just reuse the points by December 2021, but they didn’t show up in our account. Before the end of the year, we were about to call them up about actually returning the points so they wouldn’t expire, and saw that they had just done it the day before, so that was easy! We did end up doing a ridiculously long road trip in July from the Mid-South up and around the Olympic Peninsula and back, stopping at several national parks along the way, so I was able to use all of my IHG points for that and got about two weeks’ worth of free nights on the road.
We had another few trips booked to Florida to visit friends and family and attend a musical festival, and I had booked those on Allegiant, and again had made the mistake of cancelling before they did and getting a credit to use before the end of 2020. I went back to their site, filled out the web form explaining that we likely wouldn’t be flying the rest of the year due to Covid, and to my surprise, they refunded both flights in full, no questions asked.
To add a to a previous poster’s note about not cancelling a credit card before taking a trip booked on one, I always rely the card insurance for any issues with the vendor, and I was so glad I did in one particular case. We also went to Iceland in 2019 and had booked our tickets on WOW Airlines, which had gone bankrupt before our trip and did not refund our tickets. I contacted Barclaycard and filled out their claim form, and they refunded us the full amount of the tickets. Fortunately, we were able to rebook with Icelandair at a reasonable price. In another instance, credit card insurance has reimbursed me for repairs to a rental car that had damage inflicted in a parking lot by an unknown party.
Hope that helps! Love following your journey and our countdown to freedom has 20 months remaining. Yay!
Thanks so much for the tips! We were planning to go to the Glow Worm Caves. And wow that sounds like a saga and quite a road trip. What was it like staying in hotels in July? Congratulations on 20 months and thank you 🙂 .
Thanks! 😊 Most of the IHG hotels we stayed in adhered to recommended COVID-19 cleaning protocols, and the staff were behind plexiglass barriers, with the majority donning masks. Some had face shields as well. Owner-operated IHG variants tended to be laxer, and fortunately those were limited to just a couple of one-nighters, but the Holiday Inn in Bozeman, in particular, had carpet so dirty we didn’t let our bare feet touch the floor once! Everything else was pretty worn and old, and judging by the thick dust and stains present, I wouldn’t be surprised if it hadn’t been cleaned in a decade. We did take isopropyl alcohol with us and thoroughly wiped down all surfaces when arriving at each new location, and also opened windows where we could. Several were fuller than I expected (as were the parks), but the business-district and more rural locations were like ghost towns, and that felt rather eerie. There was generally no nightly housekeeping, which was fine with us because we never request it anyway. Pools were mainly closed, aside from one. Same with room service, although a few restaurants were open (Bozeman!), which we did not venture into. We brought a cooler with our own food, a coffee maker, and made use of room kitchen facilities, also getting takeout on a few occasions. The trip was about enjoying nature by ourselves, and thus we did.
I’m surprised Alaska doesn’t fly out of ATL. They just started a couple direct flights to LAX and SEA from little ol’ RSW here in Southwest Florida!! I’m looking into their credit card now so I can book tickets to visit my PNW people!!!
It does fly out of ATL, but you have to fly through Seattle to go basically anywhere, which is not a detour I’m willing to take 🙂 . That’s awesome!
I would love to know how you enjoyed the travel to Tahiti! That has been my dad’s retirement fantasy dream vacation and I’ve been wanting to pay for that ticket so he can enjoy his retirement.
Personally, I haven’t heard of Tahiti until he mentioned it so I may need to do some research before sending him off on a trip.
Tahiti was cool – we talked to a travel agent who told us not to stay in the main city of Pape’ete, which was a great tip. We went to Moorea and it was gorgeous – and looked like all the postcards 🙂 . It’s pretty isolated out there though so not sure if I would recommend an island like that for someone’s older retirement.
Oh, not as a retirement, but as a trip to go to as a part of his retirement. It wouldn’t even come close to what he’s done for me over the years but I still would like to send him there for a vacation. Thanks for the recommendations, I’ll have to refer back to them when I decide to buy him a vacation package, ha.
Ahh got it! That’s lovely 🙂 .
My DH flew etihad when he went home for his father’s last weeks. He had to postpone his return trip and etihad was TERRIBLE with refunding the change/grief travel policy. They required us to send the death certificate which was not in english (or arabic!) and then didn’t want to accept it because they couldn’t read it…???? We got most of the money back but for the final like $300 that they were holding out on, they wanted me to send our bank account number so they could do direct deposit. Um, no. At that point we just said screw it because it wasn’t worth the stress to send those jacked up customer service reps our financial info. So I am here to say at one of the most difficult times of anyone’s life (anyone who is attached to a particular family member, anyway) they were TERRIBLE.
Oh my goodness – I’m so sorry for your loss and this horrible company interaction! That’s horrible! Ugh – thank you for sharing this.
Fortunately most of my plans were not yet booked (because I am a procrastinator), so I’ve been able to keep tacking on those points. I am a travel hacking newb but always interested in learning new tricks of the trade. Your first class experience is spot on–it elevates the flight to the destination to one of the best parts of the trip, instead of the undisputed worst.
Haha procrastination for the win in this case! And yeeeah it’s ridiculous how a few extra inches of foot space and amenities can change a whole experience. Good luck on your travel hacking journey!
And yet again I’m happy to be European 😀
EU law states that we have a right to a full refund if the airline cancels the flight – even due to COVID.
We had to cancel our honeymoon last year in April (two weeks Interrail through Ireland – I’d dreamed of that trip for TWO YEARS!) and it was not a problem. Luckily we did’nt book/buy any hotels or Interrail passes in advance.
I’m personally no longer a fan of AirBnB. They are driving up rental prices for natives of cities like Barcelona, Amsterdam, Berlin etc. so that people there can no longer afford to live in their flats. I had a few very nice stays in the past, often with lovely hosts who lived there as well (always booked only rooms – student here :D). But one booking in an – I’m pretty sure – illegal AirBnB-appartment in Barcelona turned me off for good.
The big plus for us now is that hotels or rather the hostels we stay at are professional operations so bookings, refunds, access etc. are well managed.
Haha yeah – if only 😉 . I’m sorry about your travel being cancelled. Interesting point about Airbnb – I’ll look into that. Happy to hear the hotels and hostels you use + being in Europe makes refunds etc easy 🙂 .
I can recommend two articles to start on AirBnB:
1) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-invasion-of-barcelona
2) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/05/airbnb-homelessness-renting-housing-accommodation-social-policy-cities-travel-leisure
It’s of course anyone’s very personal decision to use AirBnB or not!
We try to comfort ourselves with the fact that Ireland will probably still be there after the pandemic … 😀
Thank you!
This trip required some serious planning! As a fellow trip-planner, I’d be curious to know how you kept it all organized?
We canceled our Taiwan/South Korea trip this year and a few others and got 100% cash back – or points in the case of Chase. The only one we got a voucher for was JetBlue, which we’ll need to use by next month. 😅
Haha yes indeed it did. I actually have a post in the works with all the sites and tricks I use to organize travel like this…maybe I should actually finish writing it 😉 . Overall though I use TripCase to keep everything organized – you can just forward travel confirmations for anything and they keep it in one place and give alerts if something changes.
I am curious how you are able to rack up that many points when your expenses are so low. Usually you need to spend a lot of money within 3 months of getting the card.
That’s why it took 3 years to get the points – we had to plan them out in advance when I knew I would be spending money.
Wow I bet you did a lot of planning and to cancel them all must have taken a lot of time too. We cancelled our FinCon/Disneyland trip for last Sep and got everything refunded. No trips planned until it’s safe to travel again.
Too true! And that’s cool – I’m in the same boat for international travel.
We came back to the US at the end of 2019 so we didn’t have any urgent travel plan. I wanted to go see my parent in summer 2020, but held off on purchasing. By March, I knew the trip wasn’t going to happen. We didn’t have to cancel anything in 2020.
Anyway, you can live vicariously through me. 🙂 I’m heading up to Chiang Mai as soon as I get out of quarantine.
Oh, Air Canada canceled my flight from Vancouver to Portland. I’ll have to make a connection at SFO then Portland. I’ll also have to get a Covid test before boarding the flight. Travel is difficult right now. Hopefully, it’ll be better in the second half of 2021.
I will live vicariously through you thank you 🙂 ! And that’s weird about Air Canada – did they say why? Cool on the covid test – I didn’t realize rapid pre-flight testing had come to the US. Fingers crossed for 2021!
This is so useful! Thank you for sharing.
Yay! I’m happy it was helpful!
I was actually on my honeymoon when COVID hit and we flew home early. I don’t normally buy travel insurance but this time we had, because my now husband didn’t have health insurance since we were planning to add him to mine. He booked travel health insurance that came with travel insurance too—which ended up working out really well for us! We got $1500 back for the legs of the trip we weren’t able to take, and the additional expenses from having to come home early on a hastily booked flight. And we got the Chase points back from the airline cancelling our original flight home.
The insurance took a lot of time and paperwork though—we weren’t sure it would be with the hassle but I’m glad we stuck with it, that $1500 is going towards taking a “honeymoon take 2” someday!
That’s awesome! Do you mind sharing what travel insurance company you used?
Sure! It was Travelex, and the travel coverage we bought cost us $206 total (and we bought it literally the day before we left when I panicked about the lack of health insurance).
Awesome!
Hate to be the wet blanket in this conversation, but I’m curious if you’ve ever tracked your carbon footprint? Flying is one of the most destructive things we do to the environment. All those birds you enjoy watching are counting on you to keep their habitat healthy. I’m not saying people shouldn’t fly. I’m just encouraging everyone to be mindful of how much and how they do their travel and be complete in their accounting: in your tracking spreadsheet, calculate how much your travel costs in terms of money but also cost to the environment.
I have. My decision to not have children far outweighs any flights I would be taking. I talked about that in a guest post here: https://treadlightlyretireearly.com/2019/11/04/the-environmental-impact-of-having-no-or-fewer-children/
Be careful with Qantas! I checked a back pack (nice trekking one) on a visit to AUS in 2019. It took a week for them to get it back to me. I was promised compensation for the amount of days without the bag. After I got the bag not only was it so damaged it was unusable they only gave me 1/2 the amount promised. After several angry emails, I eventually got the full amount, but it was definitely a pain.
I was intending on moving to AUS in 2020 to be with my partner. Unfortunately, the border restrictions are so strict, I haven’t been able. It will be a year since I have seen him in Feb.
Oh no!! I’m sorry that happened with Qantas and I’m SO sorry about not being able to see your partner – that sounds awful. I hope restrictions ease so you can visit them soon!
I was planning to spend a month in Arusha, Tanzania and then park in Koh Samui, where I booked a beautiful condo on the beach for 3 months with the option to extend the lease.
When Thailand closed their borders, I decided to stay in China and canceled my flights. Since I booked through trip.com, a Chinese app that was well-versed in COVID refunds by June, my flights were easily refunded; however, I lost the money to my Airbnb in Tanzania because their borders were open, and I was the one who decided to stay in China. That said, I had worked up a relationship with the owners by then and am hopeful I might get some credit towards future plans.
As for Thailand, I paid a nonrefundable 50% deposit, about $1750, that technically expires in July. Tanzania was $620 after a small initial refund when I changed the dates once … Worst case, I am out those two amounts, but it could have been much worse.
Thank you for sharing your experiences in such detail! I will definitely bookmark this page.
That’s awesome about trip.com – I haven’t heard of that site before. And nice on building a relationship with the owners – that would be awesome if they could give you credit. I didn’t know hosts had the power to do that. I’m sorry about the money you lost and love your attitutude – it can usually be worse 🙂 . And of course! Thank you for reading it.
P.S. Thailand’s borders were closed until recently, for context.
Got it – thank you 🙂
Your experience for each of the airlines and other travel companies was interesting. We still have our points but probably close to losing them. I need to check
I’m glad it was interesting and yes please check! Depending on the amount they can have a lot of purchasing power 🙂 .
Thanks for the post.
We played the credit card bonus game to fly our family of eight to Spain and back during the fall of 2019 for a total of $600. We unknowingly timed it perfectly to skip the pandemic. Since then, we had to cancel a flight through American Airlines, and while they say the credit won’t expire for a while, I’ve mentally written it off, especially given the health of the airlines in general. I do look forward to returning to traveling when we can.
Of course 🙂 and that’s awesome! That’s probably smart to write the credit off – we’ll see what happens. And me too 🙂 !
An important clarification on your AA miles. AA miles only expire after 18 months of absolutely no activity in your AAdvantage account. However any activity — no matter how small, inbound or outbound — resets the 18 month clock.
That can include:
Leaving a comment on AwardWallet (free!): https://awardwallet.com/blog/earn-bonus-miles-for-commenting/
AAdvantage Dining (low cost – a cup of coffee): https://www.aadvantagedining.com/
AAdvantage Shopping (low cost – buy swthing you already planned to buy): https://www.aadvantageeshopping.com/
Surveys (free): https://www.milesforopinions.com/
COOL!! Thanks so much for that information and the links 🙂 !
Air NZ cancelled my flight which I had booked with a rather seedy online retailer called Ovago. I had a really hard time getting my money back and after 3 months of fighting I managed to get a refund minus a $100 “Transaction fee” from Ovago (clearly illegal). I disputed that with my credit card company and got that back as well. Lesson learned – NEVER deal with small shady online retailers like “Ovago” – always go with only the big ones like Expedia and Orbitz and better yet book directly with the Airlines.
My second experience was with Copa for a flight booked to Havana. I was only able to get a voucher for that as Copa refused to refund me the ticket saying that they were going to operate the flight (Cuba had closed the borders so not sure how)… this forced people to take the voucher which was really disingenous.
At the time I was living in LA, but now I am in Dallas, TX ( I moved last year) and I can’t use the voucher because Copa does not fly from Dallas and like your Alaska experience I would have to fly to Miami to catch a flight which is not efficient since I have to spend hundreds to fly there first. So about $300 down the drain there.
I just take solace that it’s a bit of money lost for a once in 100 year even that nobody could have forseen so I consider it a “charge off”.
Yes! I saw how third party sites were treating covid cancellations and it was unimpressive. I always buy directly from airlines, hotels etc and this just solidified my stance. And good to know about Ovago – never heard of them and now will never use them 🙂 . Same with Copa. I’m sorry those companies were being silly. Love your perspective though – $300 for a once every 100 year event isn’t humongous in the grand scheme of things.