Booking changes for Europe based passengers

[sailing oldie]

As our planned April cruise was cancelled, I contacted Viking to reschedule our trip. I have now been told that no new bookings are being taken from European domiciled customers and that I will be refunded instead. Apparently, following the UK exit from the EU, those of us who live in Europe will no longer be covered by ABTA/ATOL for possible repatriation or insolvency claims and therefore Viking will not sell to us. This does not appear to apply to all cruise lines and I assume that others must have taken out some further European cover. Does anyone have any further information on this worrying development?

[Mrs Miggins]

Where are you located    ?  I have constant sales messages from Viking including the offer of being included in a zoom- us webinar promoting Viking Homelands cruise itinerary today.  We are in the UK.

[Mrs Miggins]

ABTA is Association of British Travel Agents and ATOL Organisers Air Travellers Organiser's License backed by the UK Government.  Rather surprised that clients in mainland Europe were covered previously.  One wonders how repatriation and insolvency claims are covered in the US?  

 

Rather jumped in to reply but I still consider myself a European Based Passenger.

[sailing oldie]

We are UK citizens live in France, this won't affect UK based passengers as they are still covered by ATOL/ABTA. It is only those living in Europe who are affected apparently.

[sailing oldie]

I didn't expect to be covered by ATOL anyway, as we hadn't purchased a flight. I told them I had my own insurance for repatriation/insolvency, but they said they still wouldn't book us. I assume they must have other arrangements for US, Canada and Australasia already in place. Re being a European based traveller, physically and geographically you are, but it seems that a lot of the previous agreements are under review following Brexit.

 

[Clay Clayton]

I am unaware of any such protection for us booking in the US. Our only recourse is private travel insurance some of which don’t cover insolvency of the carrier. Our credit cards may provide some coverage but thankfully I have never had to look into how they handle a bankruptcy. 
 

I believe there are some other differences in our bookings from yours.  Our pricing doesn’t include daily service charges whereas I believe that is a requirement for EU/UK bookings. 
 

It will be interesting to see how many unexpected consequences there will turn out to be to Brexit. 

[sailing oldie]

Hi Clay, that's very interesting then, as that makes this decision even more strange. As I said before, we were quite happy to cover our own insurance, but that wasn't acceptable. Re Brexit, it is becoming obvious that many, many contentious issues will come to the fore. I  think that many companies will have to make major changes to move forward and that many people have not got what they hoped for after the transition.

[Heidi13]

I am also a UK citizen, but living in Canada, where we have no problems booking with Viking. In BC we have somewhat similar consumer protection laws to UK, with TA's having a Govt mandated travel assurance fund.

[Berlin Bear]

We live in Germany and booked a Viking Ocean cruise in December 2020 through the UK office, shortly before the end of the Brexit transition period. We hope to sail in March 2022. I wonder whether Viking will contact us to let us know about the changed terms and conditions?

I also wonder whether Viking will finally market their product in the rest of Europe. So far, it’s not possible to book with a travel agent over here at all. Or whether (and why) they really want to stick to mainly English-speaking guests in future. We‘ve only done one Viking cruise up to now, but felt very „exotic“ when we spoke German during the journey. I have dual nationality (thanks to Brexit), but my husband and the hotel manager were the only Germans on board.

Interesting developments and thanks to the OP for making us aware of possible challenges.

 

[sailing oldie]

Berlin Bear - you were lucky to do your booking in December then!! I did feed back  that I was disappointed I was not warned of this before transition ended. Had I known about it, I would have taken my April booking forward then, as it was always a rather optimistic trip!! Apparently, ATOL/ABTA will honour bookings made prior to the end of transition, but not those made afterwards, so your current booking is safe.