Several red and orange zones concern tourist regions. This prompts many travelers to cancel their vacations. What are your rights? Can you be reimbursed? Jean-Phillippe Ducart was the guest of RTL Info 13h. He tries to answer these questions.
Several red and orange zones concern tourist regions. Many travelers are therefore tempted to change their vacation plans at the last minute.
So what are the reimbursement rules? For Test-Achats spokesperson Jean-Philippe Ducart, we must distinguish two types of situations. “First hypothesis: you have an organized trip, you have a travel intermediary such as a travel agency or a tour operator. It is therefore to him or her that must be addressed to cancel the trip (…) There will then be a discussion with a possible refund or an alternative that may suit you. Second hypothesis: you have organized everything yourself. In this case, you must take the initiative yourself: see with the hoteliers, the service providers on site what it is possible to do, check the general conditions. You can obviously use the argument of force majeure since this negative travel advice is binding on you and everyone else and therefore you must at the very least negotiate or obtain, if necessary, the reimbursement of the services that have been paid.“, specifies Jean-Philippe Ducart.
However, it is easier to invoke the force majeure argument when it comes to reimbursement for travel to a red zone. For the orange areas, the situation becomes more complicated. “The problem with the orange zone is that you are not prohibited from traveling. We call on you to be more vigilant, to be more careful and we recommend that you quarantine and be screened on your return. But that does not prevent you from traveling and therefore you will not have the same arguments vis-à-vis providers as for the red zone which purely and simply prohibits travel. In the orange zone, you can travel, it is not prohibited and therefore you will probably not get a cancellation and a refund as you could for the red zone“, indicates the spokesperson of Test-Achats.
According to Test-Achats, many Belgian consumers are currently facing this kind of problem. “I tend to recall that at the beginning of June, we said “be careful with travel reservations“. Before adding:”Consumers are confused but there are remedies, possibilities, alternatives. The absolute alternative is to stay in Belgium and go sightseeing in Belgium. This will disappoint a lot of people but unfortunately it is the solution“, concludes Jean-Philippe Ducart.
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