SKI CLUB HOLIDAYS REFUNDS
Ski Club stands by Members through Covid-19 crisis
As the travel world crumbled under the weight of Covid-19, the Ski Club’s Holidays division truly stood out from the crowd in its determination to honour its commitment to Members. Ski Club Holidays has proved to be one of just a handful of travel companies to issue full refunds to all those who had booked ski holidays, consolidating Member confidence in the Club’s excellent holidays team.
It was Friday 13th, so you might say it was written in the stars. I was tentatively packing for a ski trip to St Anton with my family, clinging to the hope that we might still depart that weekend. It was a biggie: a celebration of my husband’s 40th and my daughter’s second birthday, and we’d splashed out on a lovely chalet.
Sadly, it wasn’t to be - following in the footsteps of Italian ski resorts, which had closed the week before, Austrian resorts closed on Sunday 15 March. Due to the fact that we were due to fly that day, and because the FCO hadn’t yet advised against all but essential travel, we couldn’t even soften the blow of missing our celebratory holiday with the knowledge that we’d get any money back for it.
Had we booked a Ski Club Holiday, we wouldn’t have been quite so glum: the Ski Club of Great Britain’s holidays division is one of just a handful of ski travel companies to have awarded full refunds to all customers (over 200 Members) who had booked a holiday to resorts that closed in March. This is particularly significant given that the consumer association Which? estimated that insurers would receive some 400,000 claims for travel cancellation and disruption caused by Covid-19, only a minority of which will be even partially honoured.
Officially, anyone who booked a package holiday due to take place after 17 March 2020, when the FCO advised against all but essential travel, is legally entitled to a full refund for a holiday. However, this simply hasn’t been possible for all travel agents and companies, many which have taken to issuing credit notes for the next season instead of awarding full refunds.
“The Ski Club of Great Britain’s holidays division is one of just a handful of ski travel companies to have awarded full refunds to all customers (over 200 Members) who had booked a holiday to resorts that closed in March.”
The UK’s travel trade association, ABTA, explained the unprecedented impact Covid-19 had on the travel industry and resulting responses by some operators: “As a result of the extraordinary situation and customer concerns over coronavirus, many travel companies and airlines are doing all they can to offer more flexible booking policies at this time, such as giving customers the option to change their travel date should they wish to postpone their holiday. In certain circumstances this may not be possible.”
Notwithstanding the unprecedented pressures on the industry, Amanda Pirie, Head of Holidays, remained resolute: “Despite the financial difficulties the Ski Club was already facing, we were absolutely determined to act in the best interests of our Members and honour our refund policy.”
Emma McQueen and Julia Jones, part of the Ski Club Holidays sales team who had already helped repatriate Members on in the Alps when Europe went into lockdown (see our article, Escape from the Alps), faced the challenge of liaising with Members due to travel before being able to start the monster task of arranging refunds. “We were phoning up Members as late as 9pm the night before they were due to travel, explaining that resorts were closing and they wouldn’t be able to fly,” explains McQueen.
While Ski Club Holidays was able to issue full refunds for many Members within a fortnight of the Alps going into lockdown, an emergency Council meeting was called to discuss the financial impacts of continuing to issue refunds so promptly. The Club was by no means alone: ABTA made an urgent appeal to the UK government to extend the 14-day period typically required for operators to make cash refunds to customers, explaining that operators are themselves facing extreme financial pressures, waiting for money from hotels and airlines that closed because of the pandemic.
The Council agreed that asking Members to tolerate a slight delay in awarding a full refund would be preferable to resorting to the voucher scheme favoured by other operators and thus extended its refund deadline to six weeks. Happily, the Holidays team beat that deadline and all Members received full refunds by 13 May.
“It was a massive relief to us when we realised we’d processed all the refunds,” explains Jones. “We’re so grateful to all the Members who respected our requests not to phone or email asking for updates as it gave us the space to focus on processing their refunds as quickly as possible. They put their trust in us and we’re really grateful to them.”