What insurance will I need to take a trip to Syria?

Simon Calder answers your questions on risky travel, rail chaos and compensation

Q Do you need special insurance to visit Syria?

Ivan B

A According to Dylan Harris, founder of the extreme adventure company Lupine Travel, Syria should be open for tourism soon. He told me he could run trips as soon as the political situation becomes stable.

As you will know, the UK government has opened discussions with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Syrian rebels who toppled the dictator Bashar al-Assad. But the group remains a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK because of its past association with al-Qaeda, once led by Osama bin Laden.

At present the Foreign Office warns against all travel to Syria, “due to the ongoing conflict and unpredictable security conditions”. UK citizens are told: “If you are a British national in Syria, leave the country by any practical means.”

The government travel warning has no legal effect, but travelling to a destination against Foreign Office advice invalidates standard travel insurance policies. That is one reason why it is normal practice for tour operators (holiday companies) not to offer trips to places against FCDO advice – and to bring Brits home in a hurry if the Foreign Office suddenly adds a location to the no-go list.

However, Lupine Travel operates many trips to destinations against FCDO advice, and specialist insurers are prepared to offer cover.

During the Covid pandemic, such insurance policies almost became mainstream because of bizarre Foreign Office advice that categorised Portugal as being as risky as parts of Kabul.

Syria is particularly tricky due to international sanctions. The reputable company Battleface says: “We are unable to provide products and services for trips to the Syrian Arab Republic.”

But Lupine Travel works with High Risk Voyager. For a 10-day trip to Syria, it provided a reasonable quote for a 40-year-old in good health of £150, with enhanced benefits for £187 – increasing cover for repatriation or evacuation to £1m.

The hotel room was dirty and the door didn’t lock (Getty/iStock)

Q My daughter went on a holiday with her partner. They booked through an online travel agent. The hotel room was very dirty and the door didn’t lock, so it was unsafe too. They complained immediately, but the best the duty manager would offer was to send someone along with air freshener.

They left straight away and found a new hotel, which they paid for. This has left them out of pocket. After some back and forth they have been offered £74 and money off a future holiday. The agent is not a member of Abta. Can they go to any other independent dispute resolution?

Hilary M

A Many people are happy with online travel agents, finding they provide decent value. But it is worth explaining how they differ from traditional holiday companies. Firms such as Jet2 Holidays and Tui generally have direct relationships with hotels, and either have holiday reps who are available to guests or 24-hour duty offices for problems such as your daughter’s.

In contrast, online travel agents often source hotel rooms through “bed banks”: wholesalers who contract with properties and sell accommodation to online agents and, sometimes, direct-booking guests. An online travel agent is most unlikely to inspect these hotels regularly. So the assumption is that the accommodation will be fit for purpose.

Were your daughter’s kind of problem to happen with a traditional firm, she could immediately have contacted a rep and reached a swift solution. But with an online travel agent, there will often be an element of “she said/he said”. Extracting £74 in compensation plus a voucher from the online agent represents a triumph of perseverance, in my view.

The only route to possibly recouping more of the cost of the second hotel will be to go to Money Claim Online. This will cost time and energy, and will involve an initial payment of a fee (£50 for a claim of £300-£500, for example). Your daughter should get the fee back if she wins. But proving her case could be difficult. Unless she is ultra-confident of the evidence, regrettably I suggest the best course of action is to put this down to experience, take the £74 on offer and vow to avoid the firm in future.

Sundays can be a chore for rail passengers (Simon Calder)

Q You have been covering what I think it is fair to say is the increasing rail chaos. So, if there is a massive staff shortage, why is it always Sunday when the shortages happen and not other days? Is Sunday working part of every train driver’s working week? And why are there more shortages at Christmas than at other times of the year?

Dave S

A For many Sundays, passengers on Great Western Railway (GWR) and parts of the Northern network have endured large-scale train cancellations. Northern, the second-largest train operator in the UK, says: “Recently, we have seen higher levels of cancellations in the North West and for that we are sorry. The underlying reason is train crew availability, in particular on Sundays which is contractually outside of the working week.”

Passengers expect to be able to travel by rail seven days a week. But the tangle of working agreements going back decades means that in some parts of the country, train crew are not required to work on Sundays.

For both train drivers and guards, there are three possible conditions: Sunday “inside”, as a normal part of the working week; “committed” Sundays, where the staff member can take it off only if they can find appropriate cover; and Sunday “outside”, which means shifts are paid as overtime and are optional. These vary from one train operator to another, and even within the same rail firm. Great Western Railway and Northern both use three different employment contracts depending on where the staff member is based or when they joined.

Sundays, therefore, are always more susceptible to staff shortages. Getting close to Christmas, drivers often want to spend more time with their families and are less keen to work on Sundays. But there is a glimmer of good news: the overtime rate close to Christmas is higher, so more crew may be tempted to work.

Email your questions to s@hols.tv or tweet @SimonCalder