Is it case of ‘you cruise, you lose’?

Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder

We had to cancel a trip and are not happy with the firm’s response (Getty/iStock)

Q We paid a deposit of £690 to a cruise travel agent for a two-week cruise, due to sail January 2020. Unfortunately we cannot go now due to unforeseen circumstances. I contacted the firm to see if we could rebook on one of their cheaper cruises instead. They declined, saying we must rebook on an equivalent-priced cruise. This is not possible for us, so given that we have given 12 months notice, I requested a part refund.

We were then told that we must forfeit the whole deposit and pay a further cancellation fee of £50. Failing that they say they will be billing us for the entire cruise whether we go or not.

What do you advise?

Iain P

A It is an awful position to be in: having paid nearly £700, to get locked into unfavourable terms and conditions, to lose all that cash and facing an extra £50 to exit the contract. I fear, though, that your options are limited due to your decision to commit a year or more ahead. From the moment you handed over your credit-card details, your money was at risk if your circumstances changed. As, I am sorry to say, it has proved.

You could ask the travel agent if your booking can be transferred to someone else (typically for a payment of £50 each or so). If this is possible, you might find family or friends who are prepared to take up the cruise, and you can split the value of the deposit between you.

You have sadly learned an expensive lesson: to book as late as you rationally can. By “rationally” I mean at the latest point before either availability disappears or prices rise sharply. This is, of course, an inexact science: sometimes I have waited too long and the flight/bed/cruise has disappeared, and as recently as October I ended up paying twice as much as I intended for a Mallorca-Gatwick flight.

But for any cruise in January 2020, a time when demand is very low, I wouldn’t dream of starting to look until November 2019 – and quite possibly hold off for a further month in the hope of a price cut.

It is possible that you felt pressurised into buying; if, for example, you were told “Book now or there will be no cabins left” or “If you don’t commit now, you will pay a lot more”. If this is the case, then you could go back to the agent, ask them for evidence to support those assertions. Then decide if you want to take the matter further.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder