Honeymoon payment advice requested!

[deathorrory]

Hi not 100% this is the correct forum for this bit would really appreciate some advice on our upcoming honeymoon.

We are due to pay the remaining balance of the trip on April 1 of approx £6000. We are due to fly on June 7 to Dubai then a safari in Kenya then a week in Zanzibar.

Obviously this was all booked pre C word, originally for October 2020. Given the ongoing situation, we are not keen to go on a multicentre holiday particularly to countries which will likely have a much lower vaccination rate. We are both unlikely to be fully vaccinated by early June. We are now questioning whether such a holiday is a good idea even a year or 2 from now.

Our options are

- to move the trip to a later date
- cancel and get a refund of our deposit but lose £1k of prepayments for flights within Africa
- pay the remaining balance and hopefully get a refund if unable to travel in June.

I know it's impossible to judge what the rules will be come June, but was hoping people might have a different perspective on what to do?

[Claudette]

There are a few rules I have for myself when it comes to finances. One of them is I don’t throw good money after bad.

So no, I would definitely not pay the balance, knowing I don’t want or a unlikely to go, but in the hope that other things will happen that will lead to a full refund.

I would consider both of the other two options, moving or getting deposit refund but writing some costs off.

[cookiebeth]

I would sadly be tempted to let the £1000 go in an instance like this. A honeymoon should be the best holiday. It would be nice to wipe the slate clean without stress, uncertainty and hassle that you will undoubtedly get from paying the balance. Hard one to take but having seen the various scenarios on here over the last year that's what I would do 😔

[orlandoamber]

I would move the trip to a later date if there’s no extra fees to do this? Otherwise you’re losing the non-refundable £1k on a trip that it sounds like you’d like to do at some point. It might be worth asking how far in the future you can move it to?

We were due to get married in June this year so I know how you feel luckily we never booked our honeymoon so haven’t had that to deal with.

[Scaramouche]

I’d move it. We’ve moved our wedding 4x now and definitely lost the honeymoon we’d planned and had quotes for but thankfully didn’t book. We’ve now lost our back up honeymoon as well due to circumstances so we can’t even look into honeymoons now.

I would absolutely move it, and have it to look forward to.

[deathorrory]

Thanks for the advice given folks - really grateful to get some impartial advice and input from a different perspective.

We have decided to amend the booking and move it to October 2022. It's too good a holiday of a lifetime to give up on!

Thanks again