Tassie family left with $2,000 bill for a holiday they’ll never get to take

A Tasmanian family who had their Queensland holiday cancelled due to a snap lockdown have been left with a $2,000 bill for a holiday they’ll never be able to take.

Jarrod Lawler

2 min read

August 27, 2021 - 2:52PM

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A Tasmanian family who had their Queensland holiday cancelled due to a snap lockdown have been left with a $2,000 bill for a holiday they’ll never be able to take.

Sam Hind and her family had been planning a holiday to Queensland for over 18 months

and were all set and ready for their time in the sun when a snap lockdown by the Queensland government three days before their arrival date threw their plans into chaos.

With their long planned trip up in smoke, Mrs Hind contacted her accommodation booking agency and to her shock was informed her accommodation had been cancelled with a 100 per cent cancellation fee- leaving the family to pay $2240.00 for accommodation they weren’t able to use.

“When I booked, I inquired about Covid and we were verbally told that if our booking got cancelled due to Covid we didn’t need to worry as they would look after us,” Mrs Hind said.

“We have four kids and run our own business so it was our first family holiday in years and it was a huge deal for our whole family and now we’ve paid for a holiday we will never take,” she said.

Mrs Hind said after having no luck with booking.com, with whom she organised the accommodation, she went straight to the hotel and they were equally as unaccommodating.

“I called the property to work out a solution and I was abused for more than 10 minutes,” she said.

“Once he stopped, I asked him what our options were and he said there were no options and that our accommodation was cancelled and they would not give us any of our money back.

“With a 100 per cent cancellation fee, we had no reason to cancel and would have tried to find any other way to make use of our booking but they wouldn't give us any other option.

Sam Hind and her family have been charged over $2,000 for hotel accommodation in Queensland despite not being able to go due to a snap lockdown. Supplied pic

“We did not ask them to cancel, but for options. If we still had our accommodation, then we could have flown there after the scheduled end of the snap lockdown to use the remaining six nights of our accommodation but they have simply refused to provide a service that has been paid for.”

The frustrated mother said the hotel representative told her ’don't shoot the messenger’ and that he was instructed by ‘investors’ of the property to enforce the decision not to allow a refund or a credit at the property.

Mrs Hinds said she has since taken the issue to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and written to a Queensland MP to get the dispute resolved.

Consumer advocate Adam Glezer has led a social media campaign for greater rights for consumers hit by Covid cancellations and disruptions since April 2020 after his own poor experience and said it was worrying how many Australians had similar experiences to Mrs Hind and her family.

‘Over the past year and a half I have directly assisted hundreds of people in their quest to receive refunds,” Mr Glezer said.

“If people cannot go on their holiday due to government restrictions then in my opinion flexibility should be provided by providers in all situations,” he said.

“Telling a customer that they cannot get a refund and even worse, they cannot change their dates of travel or accommodation, is immoral.

“The fact that travel providers are getting away with this is why we need legislative protection brought in for consumers.”