Should I cancel my trip for end of May?

I am not an expert but based on the way things are going I highly doubt the world will be back to normal by then. But it probably isn’t necessary to cancel right now. Someone told me we shouldn’t cancel airline reservations until the airline cancels, and that way we can be assured of getting a refund without any date/travel restrictions. Do your hotels have cancellation deadlines?

I have cancelled our car rental and hotels for France, but I have not yet cancelled our airline reservations because I am waiting for American Airlines to cancel, which I assume they will. Our trip is for April 10.

Yep. Cancel and reschedule for much later.
The big European cities will still be there.

If you have to make your decision now or in the immediate future then I would definitely cancel. No one knows where this virus is going, but it sure looks like the worst case scenario right now. If you can wait and cancel later without penalty, than you might as well wait. It’s not like you have many other choices as far a travel goes. One of the problems you will have in London is the high density of people.

One option for a vacation would be to rent an RV and head to a campground someplace. You would have to stock your RV with enough food to be self reliant and hopefully the sites would be far enough apart where you would not have to worry about being too close to your neighbor.

Just a suggestion.

We have travel plans for England beginning the second week of June. We are planning to cancel until next year once the timing is in our favor.

Like everyone has said to you cancel it, health is first, I have also cancelled my sightseeing tour of New York booked from isango!
Although money returns are bit problematic these days with travel companies, thankfully I got it on time, so suggestions would be safe, wait and watch. :)

If it were me, I'd cancel the trip. I have a domestic flight scheduled for about that same time, and I plan to cancel it. As much as I'd love to hope that everything will be safe enough for travel then, I don't want to take chances with my health or my family's.

We have a final payment for a late May Scotland tour due next week. As I read the RS coronavirus notice we can get a future tour credit for 2021 on our $800 deposit or transfer to a tour later in 2020 subject to availability. Basically we don't get our money back but might be able to use the future credit. It is extremely unlikely that this tour will be able to run. Rick has canceled tours thru April 30 and will refund those in full (as required by law). Not to be cynical but by not canceling the May and later tours and letting us come up to our final payment decision he gets to keep our deposit.
The policies on refunds and credits changed yesterday the 16th. Read it on the home page. It has changed at least 3 times so check daily.

Robbie, you should get a full refund if he cancels your tour. I didn’t see where he said “ except” your deposit. I know when you sign on for a tour the deposit is non refundable after a certain amount of time ( I don’t remember number of days) if you cancel. And, many posters here have not said they didn’t get the deposit back.
I could be wrong but he does say 100%.

Rick refunds 100% on tours he cancels. Not tours you cancel. RS hasn’t cancelled tours in May. RS has been above and beyond in shifting deposits to future years. And their above and beyond attitude is not new. Several years ago I had to cancel because of a medical issue. They fully refunded my single supplement and sent me a letter confirming my “initial deposit” was on their books. Took a tour late the following year and they applied that prior deposit. Outstanding company.

They are saying the UK peak is going to be June, so I doubt there will be flights in May. You will only get your money back / credit if the relevant company/ airline is still in business, which may not be the case for all operations.

Last week, I would have said wait and see, as I was planning to do with our Scotland trip leaving May 6. This week, I'm in the cancel camp. I'm waiting on WestJet to extend the cancellations past Apr 30. When I see gov'ts saying closures could extend at least 45 days, I'm fairly certain things won't really be back to normal in May. I am lucky in that my husband just retired and I only work in Nov/Dec, so we aren't beholden to employers. I'm going to most likely reschedule for mid-Sept and keep my fingers crossed.

We're scheduled to be in Scotland the first 2 weeks of June, we haven't cancelled yet, but only because the airline is only cancelling it's flights 30 days in advance. Once it becomes official and the flight is cancelled I'll start cancelling everything else. My hope is I can just simply reschedule everything for the same 2 weeks next year. I have another trip scheduled for England for the last 2 weeks of September and I'm not giving up hope on that one yet.

What's the latest you can cancel and get some or most of your money refunded?

With some tour operators and cruise lines you have up to 48 hours prior to departure.

Short answer: Yes, cancel and cut your losses.

Thanks guys,
It seems like most here believe this will not be over by the end of May in London. Is there an official website that shows information for tourist as far as shut downs and stuff?

As far as losing my money.....some of my stuff is "non refundable". As an example my train tickets from London to Paris and other places don't allow for refunds. I would hope they offer the refunds given the circumstances. Also....I booked a place through "Hotels.com" and it says I will lose a night's pay. But again.... As far as the airline, I guess I will see what the airlines do and see if they offer me a refund.

Thanks again

Right now your best bet is to wait for airlines, railways and hotels to cancel for you (based on the assumption that the crisis will continue into May). If YOU cancel now, their policies are in effect. If THEY cancel on you, they have to return your payments or at least allow you to apply a credit for a future date.

@homeby51, have you reached out to the train company? I had a ticket booked for towards the end of May, I contacted them and under the circumstances they are refunding my money. I talked to family in Wales yesterday, everything is closed down, probably will be late June or longer, due to the fact that coronavirus is suppose to peck the middle of June.

As per the current situation, you should cancel your trip and wait for the situation to get normalized for traveling.

I will reiterate to the point of tedium that there is no safe time to travel until there is a vaccine. I hope I am wrong.

We had a trip planned flying from PDX - LHR May 24. We canceled everything but our flights waiting for Delta to finally cancel but since Delta moved the deadline to use any vouchers to May 31 2022 we could just cancel and plan to travel once we can get a vaccine.

Here is some food for thought: The Championships Wimbledon canceled their fortnight event which starts at the end of June. One of the many reasons for the cancellation is because they don’t know if any and all travel restrictions will be lifted.

Thus if I were you, I would either cancel or reschedule. I did just that for two trips — Switzerland & Québec.

Eurostar has been providing vouchers on a rolling basis. So far as I know they are only running one train daily between Paris and London instead of the normal dozens.

I agree Big Mike. We need the vaccine.