A newly married couple who were looking forward to the trip of a lifetime to Mexico have lost more than £5,000 after their holiday was cancelled due to coronavirus.
Nathan and Lauren Thomas, from Rhymney, Caerphilly, married in October were due to fly out on March 25 with their three children Joseph, eight, Isabelle, seven, and Florence, four.
But due to the Government's lockdown restrictions and the fact their accommodation had been cancelled they decided to stay at home.
It was a wise move because their return flight was later cancelled, meaning they would have been stuck out in Mexico with no way to return home.
Despite the circumstances of their missed honeymoon, the couple have been told they are not eligible for a refund and have only been offered a credit note by travel operators Love Holidays to use at a later date.
Nathan, 31, said: "It's really frustrating, when we booked the holiday nearly all our wedding money went towards it and all our gift money, that's why we didn't go straight after the wedding so we have lost virtually everything we saved for our wedding.
"My wife is devastated, she works for the NHS as well so she understands why the honeymoon had to be cancelled but we just want our money back. Our three young children are really disappointed as well."
The couple booked both their flights and accommodation through Love Holidays, £5,400 in total with the flight costing £2,900. They were due to be staying at Crown Paradise Club in Cancun for 11 nights with their three children before returning to Wales.
Nathan said he had tried to contact Love Holidays to try and resolve the situation but so far he has been told he will not be able to claim a refund.
He said: "They won't answer the phone and they tell you to on their website to go the live chat but it goes straight off.
"We had an email from them saying their offer was in our booking page and when we looked they offered us a voucher to rebook but I would have to pay for my flights again .
"I have messaged them back to say I want a full refund instead because we don't know when we're going to be able to fly again and they with the way things are we don't know if we want to travel for a long time."
Love Holidays said, like the rest of the entire travel industry, it was operating in "extraordinary times".
A spokeswoman said: "Our immediate priority has been to assist our many customers around the globe since this situation started to unfold.We are doing everything we can to help our customers at this incredibly difficult time and are dealing with customers in departure date order.
"The situation, with border closings and airline cancellations, is a fluid one which we are closely monitoring.
"The scale of the exercise in contacting suppliers around the globe to process refunds for flights, accommodation and other services affected by cancellations as a result of the Coronavirus travel restrictions in place globally is massive and entirely unprecedented. We are working hard to process refund requests to suppliers but with many different suppliers, and each supplier running a different process regarding refunds, we are experiencing significant delays in processing and receiving refunds from suppliers which in turn impacts on our ability to refund customers in cash.
"As a result and in line with ABTA guidance, for customers who have had ATOL protected holidays cancelled due to current FCO restrictions or airline cancellations, we are seeking to issue refund credit notes (which are fully ATOL protected).
"This refund credit note will keep the ATOL protection of the original booking attached to it and will enable customers to keep the value of their holiday and can either apply it to future bookings or exchange it for a cash refund after July 31 while we continue to work on receiving refunds back in from suppliers. "
