Below is an email I received today from a client of many years. I hope you’ve had better luck than he has?
Hope you are well and enjoying being back in the UK albeit a little early. Just thought I would drop you a line of my experience of my cancelled trip to Val this Easter and also to warn other clients so they don’t get financially caught out like I did.
As we have been skiing for 30 years I like many other skiers made our booking independently for our Easter trip. As the resort was prematurely shutdown in March our flights where cancelled by the airline. These along with ski school & lift passes were all subsequently refunded over the last month without any issues.
However accommodation is proving very difficult. Our travel insurance was with the Ski Club which might be suitable for off piste but not that great for these circumstances. It turns out their policies have a pandemic clause buried in their T & C’s which only now comes to light. That’s warning number 1!
Warning number 2 is booking accommodation independently and paying by bank transfer. Obviously as explained above the insurance is useless to recoup any money. Our accommodation was with Mountain Rooms & Chalets in Val who are enforcing their “force majeure” clause and therefore refuse to offer refunds (of any amount), vouchers, discounts or even a rebooking for next season. Any or all moneys paid over (as was our case) is therefore lost.
The 3rd and final warning is looking forward to next season. As you can no longer get travel insurance to cover pandemics and the accommodation companies such Mountains Rooms haven’t and wont amend their terms and conditions anyone making independent bookings in the future need to be very very careful with whom they book their accommodation with (check T & C’s) and how its paid for, for all the above reasons. Independent skiers who were lucky enough not to have been caught out this season might not realise the risks in their booking and could be caught out in the future should there be another lockdown.
In your blog you mentioned being worried about next year’s season and I would agree. The actions of a few accommodation companies may well encourage skiers not to return to some resorts.
Keep well and stay safe.
Hopefully YSE will still be with us next season as John and Fiona have always done everything possible to take care of not only their customers but also their staff.
Stay tuned!!!