Postponing Hawaii Due to a Pandemic

Like many of my fellow travelers, the situation in the world right now has forced me to cancel vacation plans that I was very much looking forward to. This trip was going to be a big one, and one paid almost entirely with points and miles. For a few years now, I’ve been planning to celebrate my 5th wedding anniversary with Annie in Hawaii. Everything was booked — flights, hotel, rental car — $10,000 worth of travel booked for a mere $250!

I booked the entire trip in early February and less than two months later, the entire world had changed. While this trip was important to Annie and I, it obviously pales in comparison to the devastating impacts that COVID-19 has had on the world. I feel lucky that nobody in my family has gotten sick and that I’ve been able to continue to earn a living and work from home. That being said, it was still disappointing to finally come to terms that this trip would no longer occur.

Cancelling Our Anniversary Trip

Of course, cancelling the reservations wouldn’t be easy. My hotel reservations allowed cancellations up to 2 days prior to arrival, so I had no problems with those. However, I ran into some issues cancelling the car rental and airfare.

Car Rental

I rented the car through Hertz with 7,500 Hertz points. When I cancelled the reservation, they charged me a 25% redeposit fee, putting only 5,625 points back into my account. When the pandemic hit, Hertz announced they’d be waiving that redeposit fee since customers would be cancelling through no fault of their own. Of course, the execution of that policy change didn’t happen.

So I filled out a case on their website, and argued that I shouldn’t have been charged the redeposit fee. Within just a few days they responded by adding the missing points back into my account. However, only a few days afterward, Hertz filed for bankruptcy. So who knows if I’ll be able to use these points in the future, but for now, I’m happy to have them back.

Airfare

United Airlines was harder to work with and quite frustrating. During March and April, I was listening to news reports every day and reading articles to figure out the right time to cancel my flights. United’s website stressed that customers wishing to cancel flights more than 21 days in the future should wait, so that other customers with sooner flights could be prioritized. That made a lot of sense, so I waited. I also knew that if the airline cancels the flight, you will definitely not be charged a cancellation fee.

Then about a month from the date of our flight, and with Hawaii strictly enforcing a 14-day quarantine for arriving tourists, I decided it was time to cancel. I didn’t want to string it out any longer since there was a 0% chance we were going to Hawaii.

So I logged onto United’s website and saw a message that cancellation fees would be waived for those cancelling reservations more than 30 days in advance. That was very different than the previous messaging to come back once you were within 21 days from departure. And now, guess how many days it was to our flight? 29 days of course! Naturally, I was charged $125 per ticket to cancel the flight, which I went ahead with anyways.

Later that month, I called United’s customer care team. They were pretty easy to deal with on the phone and agreed to process a refund for $250. The entire call, with hold time, was around 45 minutes. Receiving the refund could take around 27 business days, for some odd reason, so this isn’t totally resolved just yet. So I’ll be watching my credit card statements to ensure they keep their word.

Bottom Line

So now we wait. I have no travel plans scheduled at all for the remainder of 2020 and there’s no guarantee that 2021 will look much better. However, I’m hopeful that we can try this again next spring. In the meantime, I pray that everyone stays safe and the scientists are able to get the world a vaccine as soon as possible.