What are cancellation costs and when are they due?
Cancellation costs are cancellation costs that are incurred if someone withdraws from their booked trip. Normally, fees are then due to compensate the tour operator for the failure. After all, the travel preparations and reservations are associated with costs for him. Depending on when the trip is canceled and the contractual conditions that apply, the full booking price or a reasonable share must be paid to the organizer. The vacationers do not get the full money back.
Cancellation costs apply to cancellations for private reasons, including illness, accidents, separations and family deaths. However, no cancellation costs need to be paid if there are official reasons. An official reason is force majeure such as outbreaks of war, riots or natural disasters. Force majeure also includes acute travel warnings, but security warnings or partial travel warnings are not sufficient.
This is how high the cancellation costs are when canceling air travel
The amount of cancellation costs often depends on the type of trip and the time of cancellation. In the case of air travel, the cancellation also depends on which tour operator was booked, as they have different cancellation conditions. What you are always entitled to as a refund are the taxes and duties that are not due to the airline if you do not take a flight. This also applies to other surcharges such as fuel costs.
Normally, customers have to pay cancellation fees of around 15 to 20 percent up to one month before the start of the trip, and then 50 to 75 percent of the travel price from two weeks before the booked flight.
Cancellation costs for hotel bookings are so high
In the case of a hotel cancellation, the costs incurred also largely depend on the time of the cancellation. If you cancel in good time and the room can be rented again, there are no cancellation costs. However, if the cancellation is made at short notice and the room cannot be rented again, the customer must pay the cancellation fee. The German Hotel and Restaurant Association, DEHOGA for short, estimates the following cancellation fees in this case: 60 percent of the price applies to a full-board booking, 70 percent to a half-board booking and 80 percent to a pure overnight booking. This has to do with the fact that with full and half board, additional services such as food are not included in the booking price.
The travel cancellation insurance
You can take out travel cancellation insurance for individual bookings or longer periods of time, it protects you from cancellation costs. But here, too, it depends on the individual benefits of a travel cancellation insurance. If you choose travel cancellation insurance with a deductible, this share must still be paid. An annual travel cancellation insurance costs around 244 euros with the ADAC, for example.
Editorial office finanzen.net
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