With the situation constantly evolving, it is unclear what the travelling landscape will look like from July onwards. We are therefore currently suggesting a wait-and-see approach until your next payment is due. Please note, for anyone wishing to cancel, our standard cancellation conditions do still apply, but we are able to postpone your trip now if you prefer. Please do get in touch to discuss the best solution possible.
For those who wish to postpone their booking and have flights booked with ETG, any payments on the postponed booking will remain protected by the government-backed ATOL fund under the terms of our ATOL licence. If no flights are included, any monies paid will still be protected by our bonding scheme with ABTA.
While the FCO advises against all but essential travel anywhere, ETG is unable to arrange travel. We advised all clients still in Asia to return home as soon as possible and have facilitated those arrangements for our clients.
As you might expect, we re-booked all of our clients onto scheduled services and did not have to rely on special flights or FCO arranged services. We are proud of how swiftly and decisively our team reacted to the unfolding situation, which you can read more about here.
Any responsible travel company like ETG will have had to deal with their share of situations all over the world – natural disasters, health scares, protests and terrorism, to name just a few. We have had previous experience with events such as the Asian Tsunami, SARS, the volcanic ash cloud and the Sri Lanka bombings. Our MD, Sam, wrote this blog about how ETG manages this sort of uncertainty for our clients.
For bookings departing from the 1st July onwards, our normal terms and conditions for cancellations apply. These can be found here. Please speak to us if you'd like to pursue this avenue and we will be as flexible as possible during these difficult times.
We will do everything possible to ensure you can move your booking without incurring additional costs (which we have done in many cases already). Importantly, please note we do not charge any amendment fees ourselves. We suggest that you speak to us about it as every situation is different.
ETG will seek to minimise these costs which will mainly depend upon the airline and the dates that you wish to shift the booking. For example, moving to typically busy periods such as Christmas may mean you incur additional costs due to 'peak season' supplements, primarily from hotels.
Your money will continue to be 100% financially protected against supplier failure.
ETG is a member of The Specialist Travel Association (AITO) and The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA). ABTA’s latest guidance for travellers can be found here.
We can fix an identical holiday at the same price, pick an arbitrary date in the future and leave open the possibility of changing the date closer to the time without amendment fee (subject to the usual qualifications about peak season supplements). This will mean your booking will continue to be fully protected financially.
Yes. You are welcome to wait until closer to the time to see how the situation unfolds. The outcomes are so uncertain we wouldn’t like to make any predictions at this stage. Note that in this case, your holiday balance will be due on the normal due date.
Your money would be protected under the terms of our ATOL or ABTA bond in the normal way.
It depends on the situation and your policy. If you are prevented from travelling because you are unable to obtain a visa, or because the Foreign Office advises against leaving the UK, your insurance policy may well cover you.
The situation is fluid and nobody can predict the state of play in ETG’s destinations (or anywhere else in the world) in the future. As mentioned in our personal message this applies to all kinds of events such as accidents & natural disasters, to protests and terrorist attacks. We are on hand to talk through any ideas, concerns, or various scenario's that could play out. We have a Covid-19 response team on hand and we pride ourselves on our customer service.
If this happens and you'd like to travel during your original dates, or close to these, then we will do everything possible to move the trip back without incurring any costs (as ever, there would be no amendment fees from our side). The key factors will be flight routes/costs and availability to consider.