NEWS: Am I covered if I take a voucher and the airline goes bust? & Virgin move to Heathrow

Am I covered if I take a voucher and the airline/travel agent goes bust?

With my other article about the possibility of package holiday customer being forced to take a voucher even if the flight is cancelled, this seems timely

In this case, I am talking about non-package holidays, specifically flights and hotels on separate bookings.

If you accept or are forced to accept a voucher, the good news is that you should be covered if you paid for it by credit card and it was over £100. There are two ways you could claim for this – under section 75 law which covers credit card purchases of more than £100. Vouchers are definitely covered under this scheme. There’s also something called chargeback which is for similar cases that are not covered by the law and decided by the credit card company. Amex are normally pretty good with chargebacks. 

Finally, if you paid by Curve then it’s not clear cut that you are covered as it states that gift vouchers are not covered. However, it is a grey area since originally you bought a flight. You can find the full details here. 

Virgin move Gatwick flights to Heathrow

In what I deem a very sensible move, Virgin are moving all their traffic to Heathrow from today 24 March 2020. They have been very badly affected by the travel restrictions and only operating to a small number of destinations. It will now be interesting to see if this move becomes permanent as it will be some time before the full range of destinations comes back. One good thing is that the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow is a fantastic lounge, far better than Gatwick. So if it continued into when everything reopens, it would be a nicer airport experience for their Gatwick destinations at Heathrow. 

I would also put money on BA looking at the same option, although with Heathrow consolidating terminals, there may not be room for BA’s Gatwick flights too.

HT: London Air Travel