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Back in January, I booked to stay in Hotel Disneyland Santa Fe in March (in Paris). Due to the effect Covid-19 has had in everyday life and travel, Disneyland Paris had to close including the hotels for guests who were not there at the time of the closing down decision. I contacted Booking.com 5 days before my stay at the Hotel and explained the situation and they said they would get back to me in 24 hours.

In the meantime, I contacted the hotel and they said that I should only deal with Booking.com as it's their booking to manage. The hotels in Disneyland Paris also announced that for the visitors affected they would offer either a full refund or a chance to reschedule for a later date whilst keeping the same charge for the rooms as the ones in their original booking.

Now Booking.com says that since the reservation wasn't cancelled beforehand and they're unable to cancel it after the arrival date has passed, they can only offer me half of the money back. I should note that on my initial phone call with them I wasn't told to cancel the booking or do anything for that matter, as they would have to investigate the best way to resolve this.

The booking was made using my credit card, but since it was made in January, I'm now out of the period that I can ask them to step in and withdraw the money and return them back to my account.

Is there anything that I can do at this point to make sure I get my money back for a travel that I was not allowed to make considering the hotel was not accepting guests and the French government was cancelling my Eurostar trains at the same time (Eurostar, by the way, has issued a full refund since my trains got cancelled). Alternatively is there any official route to report this behaviour or complain about it?

I live in the UK if that's relevant at all.

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  • Make sure the hotel has indeed marked the bookings as cancelled by them in the booking.com system, rather than by you. That may make a difference.
    – jcaron
    Mar 23, 2020 at 11:13
  • @jcaron The booking was never canceled as Disneyland offered the chance for a refund or rescheduling, they themselves didn't cancel it, I wasn't told to cancel it, and booking.com didn't cancel it, so it seems as If I stayed there. Even though the hotel wasn't accepting any new guests that period.
    – Nikos Hidalgo
    Mar 23, 2020 at 13:37
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    If you want a refund, then I believe you need to start by asking Disneyland to mark is as cancelled by them, so Booking.com know what the actual status of the booking is.
    – jcaron
    Mar 23, 2020 at 14:18
  • @jcaron thanks for the advice. I'll try to contact them again, although currently because of the volume of messed up bookings they have they automatically send you online to submit a form and If you haven't booked directly with them they ask you to contact your travel agent instead.
    – Nikos Hidalgo
    Mar 23, 2020 at 14:20
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    Honestly your voicing here is kinda victimy... like you're going to extremes the way people do when they think they aren't entitled to something. You are entitled to it. And possibly self-defeating, are you sure you've talked to your CC company and they've said it's definitely too late for a chargeback?
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Mar 23, 2020 at 23:01

2 Answers 2

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You might be out of the period when you can request a chargeback, but you can still contact your credit card provider and require them to honour their obligations under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act if the cost was more than £100, as there is no time limit on that.

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  • The cost was a lot more than that. I didn't know about this, I'll have a look now. Thank you!
    – Nikos Hidalgo
    Mar 23, 2020 at 11:08
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This is a time when everyone is looking for the same thing - a refund. And the travel industry is "tilting" because everyone is looking for a refund at the same time, and obviously, they don't want to give it. So everyone is giving you doubletalk, malarkey, and flat out lies.

And on the other side of that, you seem to be prevaricating a lot in your message, over-justifying, as if you don't feel like you are really entitled to it. You're entitled to it.

Though it may be a bit out of character, you need to go full "alpha wolf" on these people and be completely ruthless about pursuing your refund. And you need to do it fast, because it's a bit of a footrace amongst customers like yourself - some travel companies that weren't properly managed will start declaring bankruptcy. Your deposits are supposed to be held in trust, but they don't all do it right.

You give booking.com one opportunity to issue a refund in full, and they don't do that, go straight to the CC company and avail yourself of Section 75 protection. That's worse for the booking company, because they must relinquish the amount in full, they get no refund on fees, and they must pay fees/costs for the process to boot.

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  • The only reason why I phrased my question this way is simply because I understand there are now more than ever, more important things to worry about than this. I know a lot of people are in the same situation as I am and the travel agents are faced with unprecedented circumstances, so they're still trying to figure out the best way to handle this. That said, you're right and thank you for the advice. I actually called my CC company again and they said they can act under Section 75. At the same time after refusing the partial refund, Booking said they'll communicate with the hotel again.
    – Nikos Hidalgo
    Mar 24, 2020 at 7:26

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