Maybe you had an indulgent trip to Aruba planned — or maybe it was just time for your annual trip home to see your folks.
Here’s all of our coverage of the coronavirus outbreak, which we will be updating every day.
Maybe you’re simply wondering, what happened to all the events that were planned and paid for before this pandemic hit?
Here’s a rundown on cancellations and postponements because of the coronavirus.
Cancelled Because of Coronavirus? Here’s What You Need to Know
The best answers to specific questions about tickets and reservations that have been derailed by the coronavirus come straight from the issuer’s mouth. If you have a flight, ball game or concert booked, we recommend contacting the company directly.
Here is some general information about how different industries are responding to the crisis.
Music and Event Venues
If you had tickets to a concert in April or early May, chances are the event was rescheduled or cancelled altogether. But different venues and ticket sellers are assisting customers in different ways.
For instance, if you purchased your tickets through Ticketmaster, your cost will be automatically, fully reimbursed in the case of a cancellation. However, in the case of a postponement, event organizers are in charge of whether or not refunds are offered — and in many cases, they haven’t been. At least not yet.
Coronavirus shutdowns have hit small music venues and theaters hard, and many are asking audiences to hold onto their tickets as a rain check, rather than having to shell out refunds en masse.
If that’s the case, you can contact the venue or organizer directly to try to negotiate a different outcome.
In the meantime, there’s plenty of streaming entertainment to check out from the comfort of your own quarantine cave. With local artists doing Instagram livestreams and superstars performing sold-out concerts in empty arenas, you can turn free (or ticketed) events into an at-home concert experience.
Sports
Serious sports fans were hit extra hard by the quarantine measures — particularly those with tickets to NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball games. In the majority of cases, games have been postponed rather than officially cancelled, which means that ticket holders aren’t being issued refunds quite yet.
However, most teams are offering the promise of future recourse, stating that ticket holders will receive information on how to file for a refund if a game is cancelled outright or played without fans. You may also be able to credit the ticket price toward a game in the 2021 season.
Theme Parks
Theme parks are one of the most popular destination vacations, but the coronavirus has them shuttered.
While you’ll definitely want to contact whichever theme park you have tickets for directly, most are offering flexibility to guests whose bookings have been affected by COVID-19.
Walt Disney World in Orlando, for example, is extending the validity of most unused park tickets through the end of 2020 and waiving its fees for changing or cancelling reservations with arrival dates through June 30, 2020.
Universal Studios will extend the validity of annual and season passes by the number of days the theme parks are closed, and will postpone monthly FlexPay payments during the quarantine period.
Six Flags parks are offering similar extensions on prepaid tickets and season passes.
Airlines
Airlines have experienced a major dropoff in business; it’s not unheard of, these days, for a passenger to have the entire plane to herself.
So what will happen to those with prepaid plane trips planned?
American Airlines is allowing passengers to cancel flights booked through September 2020 and reschedule for anytime before the end of 2021 without incurring a change fee.
Delta is offering a similar deal, but allowing passengers to rebook their travel anytime through September 30, 2022.
With Southwest, you can cancel your flight at any time up to 10 minutes prior to its scheduled takeoff and receive a voucher in the same amount that can be used to book another Southwest flight. Vouchers are valid through September 7, 2022.
Jamie Cattanach’s work has been featured at Fodor’s, Yahoo, SELF, The Huffington Post, The Motley Fool and other outlets. Learn more at www.jamiecattanach.com.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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