JustPassingBy
Member
- Joined
- 17 Oct 2018
- Messages
- 73
Hello
In December I visited family in Vienna. We started from London, travelled by Eurostar to Amsterdam, spent a few days there and then intended to travel onward to Vienna by Nightjet. At 3pm on the day we intended to travel from Amsterdam to Vienna I got an SMS message and email informing me that all Nightjet services that night were cancelled due to heavy snow in Germany. I was unable to get through to OEBB by phone (unsurprising given the volume of cancelled trains). I needed to be in Vienna by lunchtime the next day so booked an overnight hotel at Schiphol and a flight the following morning. The flight was relatively expensive (nearly £250 per ticket) and I noticed later the last few seats on that flight were going to significantly more.
OEBB eventually refunded the train tickets (more than a month later) but refused any additional payout - claiming we made our own decision on where to stay/how to travel. Whilst strictly true, I find it a bit harsh given the difficulty in reaching anyone at OEBB that day.
On looking at travel insurance, I noted they had a term limiting any cover to train journeys that originated in the UK. From a quick look around, this seems to be pretty standard. It seems that I might have been able to argue the case if we'd not had a stopover in Amsterdam (not sure).
So my question is this... for future trips, is anyone aware of travel insurance that covers multi-stage trips like this?
Or trips where for example you fly outbound but travel by train back? We have a trip like this coming up soon (fly to Berlin, return via Nightjet and Eurostar).
Thanks
In December I visited family in Vienna. We started from London, travelled by Eurostar to Amsterdam, spent a few days there and then intended to travel onward to Vienna by Nightjet. At 3pm on the day we intended to travel from Amsterdam to Vienna I got an SMS message and email informing me that all Nightjet services that night were cancelled due to heavy snow in Germany. I was unable to get through to OEBB by phone (unsurprising given the volume of cancelled trains). I needed to be in Vienna by lunchtime the next day so booked an overnight hotel at Schiphol and a flight the following morning. The flight was relatively expensive (nearly £250 per ticket) and I noticed later the last few seats on that flight were going to significantly more.
OEBB eventually refunded the train tickets (more than a month later) but refused any additional payout - claiming we made our own decision on where to stay/how to travel. Whilst strictly true, I find it a bit harsh given the difficulty in reaching anyone at OEBB that day.
On looking at travel insurance, I noted they had a term limiting any cover to train journeys that originated in the UK. From a quick look around, this seems to be pretty standard. It seems that I might have been able to argue the case if we'd not had a stopover in Amsterdam (not sure).
So my question is this... for future trips, is anyone aware of travel insurance that covers multi-stage trips like this?
Or trips where for example you fly outbound but travel by train back? We have a trip like this coming up soon (fly to Berlin, return via Nightjet and Eurostar).
Thanks