Devall Travels

When my MasterCard statement for 13th May finally arrived it showed that one of the refunds had come through! Although dated 13th, it is always at least the 20th before it arrives on the doormat. This one for the car excess insurance with AXA through Cartrawler.  Still waiting for other refunds.to arrive and hopefully we'll see if either have made it.   I don't hold out much hope for seeing the airfare from Travel-Up as they constantly email every few weeks to say how stressed they are and how they have employed more staff.  I expect that last bit is to cover their arses for the cancellation fee that they have said they will charge. I know they have a lot of clients but it's getting on for three months that all our money has been in their bank account accruing interest.... So we wait.

Well another MasterCard statement has arrived. Still no refund from Cartrawler or Travel-Up. Only takes seconds to pay and months to repay.

So back in March I cancelled the hotels I had booked with booking.com. 👍 RCI gave a credit for the exchange fee to use later and our points back. 👍 Still waiting for the airfare from Travel-Up. 👎 I also logged into Cartrawler and cancelled the car hire and emailed the excess insurance. Both replied on March 16th - refund in ten days. My MasterCard statement dated April 13th came today. I guess March 16th to April 13th is less than 10 days!! 👎 More bloody emails... Update 19/04/2020 Gatwick Parking.  One email sent on the 18th. Today email from them and then from PayPal to say that they have repaid the money.  👍👍 Cartrawler replied to say that they are sorry and that thir 10 day refund has gone longer and that they are experiencing unprecedented calls for refunds and therefore it is taking longer.  We'll see.

Instead of having a lay in and then later this afternoon checkout out of the apartment in Denia, we are of course at home in Kent on lockdown. We have had a drive out to Tesco in Cheriton.  I happened to look on their website and saw that there were free "click and collect" slots today.  Marvellous. We could do most of our week's shopping and pay online and collect. We were also able to get some things for our neighbour, Connie, who is in her 80's and lives alone after her husband passed in January. Our flight home was to be tomorrow morning but of course, it was cancelled and we are here.  Still waiting to see what, if anything, has been credited back to my MasterCard.  Why am I not feeling confident that anything has arrived there yet?

Or rather Locked down at home instead. So instead of a nice Sunday meal out we'll eat at home and have a few glasses of Sam Miguel! ¡Salud!

I managed to cancel the car hire and the extra top-up insurance to update the rather piss poor insurance cover the car comes with as standard. I lodged a claim with British Airways as they cancelled the flights under the Foreign Office instruction and Spain in lock down as well as the UK.  They said they'd send a voucher for the cost. Then they reneged on that and said to go to the travel agent.  Waiting for them now! RCI were easy to deal with with an online chat session. They said they would give me a credit for the points used to book the apartment in Denia.  Plus they said that they would credit my bank with the cost of the booking. The credit has to be used by the end of September 2020.  As far as I am aware that means a booking has to be made by then! Not having online banking for my MasterCard I can't see whether or not any money has been paid back yet.  The April statement due in the next week or so. It usually triggers on the 13th of th...

Rather than get up at about 5am for the drive back to the airport from Denia, we decided to leave in the afternoon on Friday and drive back to Alicante area.. So I booked the Ibis Budget again. Time to get up and breakfast on Saturday before the short drive back to the airport for the 1020am flight home.

After reading some very low opinion reviews of Drivefly Gatwick on Google Reviews I decided that maybe I was lucky in early 2019. The car came back undamaged and clean. Or at least as clean as it was when I dropped it off! Instead I have booked with the airport's own long term parking solution. We have used this many times before. Except this time, I have signed up for their meet and greet.... So that's another thing checked off the list.  We've only flown into Alicante once before although I had a few times in the 90's when I went quite often to visit ex partner in Murcia. Then I used the bus to Murcia and didn't hire a car.

With all the scare stories surrounding where to park at the airports, especially Gatwick, I might revert back to the long term parking on the airport where I park the car on concrete and take the key with me. The bus from there to the departures takes only a few minutes.  The problems surrounding "meet and greet" seems to stem from unscrupulous people with a website and a field taking people's cars and leaving them in an unattended and unguarded field. This is one of the cases that was brought to national attention -  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2nY7zwtVKkhl134HBvWhcPy/park-direct-gatwick-ltd When we went to Florida earlier in the year we booked a "meet and greet" service at Gatwick with DriveFly . The car came back to us as it was when we left it and wasn't damaged any more than it already is.  No mud. So we will possibly go with them again in the future. Reviews on Google not good though. They score 2.8 out of...

As I am going to use the timeshare week that needs to be used by December 2020, I have been searching on the website for ages.   Our home laptop seems to run a WIN10 upgrade every time we turn it on and so it is a long process! The east coast is usually awash with places but as it is Easter there are fewer to choose from. Even La Manga looks like there are no vacancies. I managed to get online at lunchtime at work and check a few places out.  In the end booked the week at Ona Ogisaka Garden in Dénia. It has some decent reviews both on the RCI edited version or Tripadvisor and on the main site too. The week banked was worth 24 points and this cost 17 of them. So I have a rollover of 7 still to use!! Easier said than done in summer, but there often places in Autumn to use that on.  It's about 60 miles to the site from the Ibis Budget, where we stay the night before.  We have almost all day to get there though. Check out from the Ibis will be abou...

We have a timeshare week to use by the end of 2020! When we went to Florida at Easter we used up the 2018/2019 "banked weeks" with RCI. Every year we have another week to use. Until I retire there is no chance of us being able to go to there to the resort where  I "own" a week in Tenerife. I know it's not as exotic as Florida or the Caribbean but for an Easter break it will do us fine. I am still looking on the RCI website for a resort to book but as flights were relatively cheap I have booked British Airways return to Alicante. I used TravelUp as we have used them before and they have always been efficient and cheaper than most oters, si I guess they trim their commission. I had looked at Malaga but for a two and a half hour flight it was around half the price of a nine hour flight to Miami! A fare of £350 each to Malaga is simply a joke. I chose to go on the Friday and so we'll need a hotel.  As we don't arrive until about 8pm...