If you’ve read my article “What’s in store for 2026?” then you’ll know that I was intending to book a trip to Dubai early this year. If you’ve not read it go read it here.
Well, I booked the trip almost straight after writing that and I was very excited about my plans. I managed to get a great deal and was going to fly long haul for the first time with Swiss. After the great experience with Swiss on my trip to Barcelona, I was very excited about trying their long-haul product.
But it was not to be, 2½ weeks before flying war broke out between Israel/America and Iran, and the entire airspace was closed down. Eventually my trip was cancelled and thankfully fully refunded. So, this article will just tell you about the deal I did manage to get and what happened when I had to cancel.
Booking
Having identified the perfect weekend to go I started looking for flights to get me to Dubai on a Thursday and back overnight on a Monday for return to normal on Tuesday.
Searching exclusively with Lufthansa and Swiss I started playing around with lots of different routes and ideas. I mostly used Google flights to search these as it gives you the widest variety of options. I looked at flights going from all sorts of starting places to see if I could get a better deal. I was almost sold with going from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, via Frankfurt or Munich, as that was a pretty good deal, but it turned out that there were a few, well priced flights I could go on from London, which would save a certain level of hassle. I think the Paris flights were slightly cheaper but only marginally and the cost of the Eurostar, and maybe hotel in Paris, would have made them a more expensive option anyway. I did notice that the route I’d used before had come up, being via Frankfurt on Lufthansa, on an A330. But if I went via Munich, they had an A350, which I wanted to try out. As it happened the outbound leg going from London, via Munich to Dubai was actually one of the cheaper options. For the return leg there was an option to fly on Swiss, who operate an A330 from Dubai to Zurich and then connect on to home from there.
All of this was in business class, and I was quite satisfied with the price because it came in under £2000. So, the route booked was; Wednesday evening all on Lufthansa, London to Munich, with a 3 hour turn around to wait for the night flight on the A350 to Dubai. The return was on Swiss, the 1:00 AM on Tuesday from Dubai to Zurich, followed by another hop back home again to London. And I made doubly sure this time that it was the Tuesday 1:00 AM flight I wanted, meaning that I would check-out of my hotel on the Monday morning, go for a late dinner and then head to the airport for the night flight. A mistake I’ve made in the past is not clocking the Tuesday 1:00 AM flight is actually very early Tuesday, not very late Tuesday night.
The flights were booked and next for hotels, I booked myself into the same Crowne Plaza I stayed in last time by the marina, with the intention of spending a couple of days with my friends in Dubai. I was going to spend the weekend in Abu Dhabi, staying with my friends and then one more night in Dubai at my old favourite, the Hilton Jumeirah beach, which I booked with some Hilton Honors points for my last night in Dubai.
Unbooking
The war kicked off 2½ weeks before I was due to fly. Naturally I was very concerned about my friends living out there and I was in regular contact with them, they assured me that whilst it was concerning, it was not massively dangerous, and they spent some time trying to talk me into still going. However, with the airspace closed and the government advising against travel to the region, the chances of my trip going ahead were looking very slim. Naturally airlines wish to postpone cancelling as late as humanly possible so that they have the best possible chance of keeping their funds and getting people where they want to go. After a few days Lufthansa announced that they would cancel all flights up to the 10th of March, my flight was on the 18th. They did however offer to refund any flights up to the 15th, which was also not helpful.
The most important advice I’ve been given, and I pretty much already knew myself, was that I should not prematurely cancel my trip, but I should wait for the airline to offer me a refund or cancel it for me, this gives me the best chance of getting a full refund. I had to wait until the 9th before Lufthansa changed their policy and they cancelled all flights for the rest of the week and allowed refunds for the week after. So, with only 9 days to go before my trip I was allowed to cancel my flights and get a full refund.
I was very pleased that I was able to do this easily through the app, which confirmed how much my refund was, being the exact amount I originally paid, and after a few clicks on my phone it was fully refunded. This was on the Monday, the funds were back in my account by the Friday.
All that was left was the hotels, of which the Hilton was easy, as I booked with points it was a flexible deal and I could cancel anytime up to the day before arrival. So, the Hilton was gone with no money ever taken. This left the Crowne Plaza, an IHG hotel, and I had to contact the actual hotel directly to find out what the options were. I don’t know if they were extra nice to me because I’m listed as a Platinum Elite member, but they were very polite and helpful. They were quite keen to offer me an opportunity to re-book to another date or to have credit to then hold the booking until I could find a date to rebook later on. The credit option was only valid for 6 months, so that didn’t really work for me as I don’t really know when I’ll be going back. However, on the second e-mail they did quietly put at the bottom of the list that there’s an option for a full refund if I wanted it. I replied and said I’ll take the full refund. At the time of writing this was one week since that e-mail and have not received the funds, but I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t in due course.
Bottom line
Sometimes plans change and you’ve not booked flexible tickets, sometimes your fate lies with the airlines. The biggest takeaway from this experience is don’t cancel your trip yourself until the airline either cancels or offers you a full refund. Cancelling early will most likely result in you loosing most of your money.
