by The hotspot mayhem continued in many other ways, including some northern beaches residents being contacted by tour operators in other parts of NSW and interstate, and asked to cancel their holidays well in advance if the problem intensifies.
Given more than 10,000 consumer complaints about travel providers have been lodged with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission since the virus struck in March, refunds and cancellation policies remain a fraught topic.
As the phones ran off the hook along Sydneys northern coastline, a few rental operators declined to speak to the AFR Weekend about the situation, including Contemporary Hotels and Palm Beach Holiday rentals, both of which have luxury properties in the area with price tags north of $5500 a night.
Palm Beach is a traditional favourite over summer for the bold, beautiful and very wealthy.
Melbourne-based Luxury Escapes chief customer officer Jason Shugg said the Australian-owned business had put extra agents on to cope with the high volume of calls on Friday morning, which were up 30 per cent.
We are very busy, mainly with residents of Sydneys northern beaches trying to understand what will happen if they cannot travel to honour bookings for late December into January and if not, how to rebook. Its not a case of panic, more confusion, Mr Shugg said.
We dont have a lot of product on the northern beaches of Sydney, so its not been such a problem the other way around.
Like so many tourism providers, Luxury Escapes has offered more flexible booking and date change policies over the past nine months.
Flight Centre has refunded more than $1 billion since March this year, with more to go. A Flight Centre spokesman said they had not seen a huge or really dramatic reaction to the northern beaches outbreak, given it was reasonably confined.
Their cancellation policy is dependent on when airlines and other providers refund them, which they then commit to passing on to the customer within 48 hours. We do everything we can to help customers, but nothing takes away the disappointment of not being able to go on your trip, Flight Centres Haydn Long said.
Qantas and Jetstar also saw a significant spike in call volumes. For most of this year weve offered customers extra flexibility when they book, with the ability to change their flights once with no change fee or hold the value of the ticket as credit; though, a fare difference may apply when rebooking, a spokeswoman said.
