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.

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 and initially only those departing up to 30 April 2020.  If you are booked on a tour departing after 1 May 2020, 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.

If you are booked on a tour departing between now and 30 April 2020

• All tours within this date range are being rescheduled.
• We will be in touch with you at least seven days before you were due to depart – please only call us if your tour is due to depart within seven days and you haven’t yet heard from us.
• We will outline new dates of travel when we call you. There will be no admin fee to transfer to the new dates, we will match your 2020 price (or refund the difference in the event that the 2021 price is lower) and issue you a voucher to the value of 10% of your booking value to use against any future Andante Travels’ tours. This credit is valid for two years and may be combined with any other offers.
• If you wish to transfer to any other Andante Travels tour departing in 2020 or 2021, any price difference would apply, but you can also take advantage of the 10% credit offer. 2021 tours will be added to the website from this week, and you should be receiving your 2021 Preview brochure within a month.

If you are booked on a tour departing on or after 1 May 2020

• 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 2020 or 2021 tour (with no admin fee to pay), though in this case any difference in price would apply. 2021 tours will be added to the website from this week, and you should be receiving your 2021 Preview brochure within a month.
• If you wish to transfer to a different tour now, there will be no charge to do so – any difference in price would apply.
• If you wish to cancel now, normal booking conditions would apply.
• 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.

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

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.