Travel Alerts

This page is where you’ll find all the latest travel advice so please check for any updates that might relate to your upcoming tours with us.

Last updated 04 Aug 2020 - still current as of 07 Aug 2020

A message from the CEO, Jackie Willis

To all our valued customers in 2020

In these challenging times for each of us individually and for the travel industry, I wanted to set out our position with regard to your holiday bookings for the remainder of the year.

As a medium-sized travel company, we are dealing with the impact of an unprecedented situation on hundreds of tour departures and thousands of customers. It will take time to do this, and we need to be sure that we are following the latest UK Government advice at all times. As such, we are working through our tours strictly in date order, please be assured that we will be in contact with you, but I would respectfully ask for your patience so that we can we can deal with the most urgent matters first.

From a personal perspective, I’ve been in the travel industry for more than 30 years and I have never experienced a situation like this. It is genuinely unprecedented, and changing all the time. We are doing everything we can to prioritise the health and wellbeing of our travellers, and to offer you the most convenient alternative arrangements if COVID-19 results in the postponement of your tour. Please bear with us and we will be in touch with you as soon as possible.

Thank you again for your custom, and best wishes from Andante Travels.

Jackie Willis CEO,
Specialist Journeys

We continue to monitor our tours on a case by case basis. Unfortunately many of our tours need to be cancelled in August due to FCO advice or that the suppliers are not yet in a position to put our COVID19 11 point plan in place. However, we are currently working on the below tours as they may be possible to operate. If you are on one of these tours and you are certain you don’t want to travel please contact us as soon as possible to take advantage of our offer that finishes on 3rd August 2020:

  • Transfer to a 2021 tour free of charge saving you £50pp
  • Transfer to a 2021 tour at the 2020 price, with possible £100’s of savings

If your tour has been cancelled we will contact you at the latest 7-14 days prior to departure to update you on your options.

The following tours are still scheduled to run throughout August

AXHC200813 - 13/08/2020 - Hampton Court with Suzannah Lipscombe

AXRV200815 - 15/08/2020 - Roman Villas in Sussex

AXRL200817 - 17/08/2020 - Roman London

The following conditions apply to these tours:

  • We will make the decision whether to reschedule these tours based on UK Government advice and any travel restrictions imposed by applicable countries in due course.
  • If it does become necessary to reschedule your tour, there will be no charge to transfer to the new travel dates and we will match your 2020 price (or refund the difference in the event that the 2021 price is lower). Alternatively, you may choose to transfer to any other 2021 tour (with no admin fee to pay) and we will match its 2020 price. Many 2021 tours may now be found on our website, and you should also have received your 2021 Preview brochure (if not, you can request your copy here).
  • If you wish to transfer to a different 2021 tour before we contact you, there is currently no charge to do so, and we will match the 2020 price of that tour, however, this offer expires on the 3rd August, after which a transfer fee of £50 will apply.
  • If you wish to cancel now, normal booking conditions would apply.
  • We have reduced our balance payment due time from 84 days to 42 days. However, should we still not know if your tour can go ahead at 42 days prior to departure we will not take any further payment until we have secured the holiday within FCO advice and our own personal Covid19 11 point safety plan.
  • If your holiday balance is due, it would still be payable, and not to do so would result in the cancellation of your booking and retention of your deposit. Please note: there is no risk in paying your balance – your holiday booking/monies will be fully protected as part of our ATOL/ABTOT accreditation.
  • We reserve the right to cancel your tour within 12 weeks if the number of late customer cancellations make the tour commercially unviable.

  • We are currently operating on the assumption that these tours will go ahead as planned.
  • For your peace of mind, your balance for holidays due to depart up to 31 December 2020 will not now be due until 42 days prior to departure (previously 84 days). There may be a couple of exceptions to this, where we are obliged to commit to payments in advance – you will receive a letter advising your balance due date.
  • If you wish to transfer to any 2021 tour now, there will be an administrative charge of £50 per person to do so, and the 2021 tour price will be payable.
  • If you wish to cancel now, normal booking conditions apply.
  • We reserve the right to cancel your tour within 12 weeks if the number of late customer cancellations make the tour commercially unviable.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) statement

UPDATED 17 MARCH

We appreciate that the Coronavirus is causing uncertainty around travel at the moment.  Please rest assured that the safety and health of Andante Travels guests is always our top priority, and we are monitoring the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation carefully and continuously. As you will be aware, all tour operators and holiday insurance providers take their guidance from Foreign & Commonwealth Office advice and, with the latest recommendation to avoid all non-essential travel, we are in the process of rescheduling all tours which were due to depart up to 30 April 2020. Clearly the situation is fluid, and it may be necessary to reschedule tours departing after that date, but our current focus is on April. We are working through tour-by-tour in date order – if you are booked on an April tour, we will be in touch with you very soon to discuss alternative arrangements.

Here at Andante Travels we also take seriously the government recommendation to work from home. Having anticipated this development a couple of weeks ago and planned for the eventuality, as a protective measure all of our staff will be home-working from Tuesday 17 March. This will not impact your experience in any way, and you can still contact us in the usual ways.

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