I was scheduled to run the Paris marathon on 5 April. It was cancelled in March, just before lockdown, and moved to October.
The organisers informed me of the date change and automatic change of entry – with no refund on the entry fee. I reorganised my hotel with Booking.com without any problems. I had arranged to go by Eurostar and emailed it only to receive an automated reply.
I continued to try and make contact but there was no reply. Then, in May, Eurostar said it would give me vouchers for my travel for use until December 2020. I received them 14 days later but then another email cancelled them due to an “internal problem”.
To my despair, I got an email to say the marathon had been switched again – to November – but I still could not get hold of Eurostar. I even went to St Pancras station but staff couldn’t help.
MS, London
Eurostar says: “Unfortunately, after your reader contacted us in March, the case was marked as ‘closed’ in error, which is why he didn’t receive a response. An email, sent a few days ago, is back in the queue and would have received a response. However, it is taking us longer than normal to reply due to the volume of inquiries.”
Eurostar says it will process a refund or change your travel date and that all new bookings until the end of the year are now flexible. It apologised and offered a refund, which you have received.
And finally …
Following our letter about Easylife and the difficulties receiving face masks, reader DL from Swadlingcote, Derbyshire, broke through the logjam. He wrote: “I emailed chief executive Greg Caplan on a Friday evening. He responded on Sunday, copying in customer services. The next day I was offered a refund. By coincidence, the masks arrived that very day.”
We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com. Please include a daytime phone number. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions: http://gu.com/letters-terms
