Delayed Before We Start

With just a month before departure we got the email from GNV that our ferry has been delayed by a day. I had already read online that if they had not ben able to fill the boats they often cancelled one or “postponed” it so that everyone got shoved into a full boat.

I was not really bothered because now I would get to spend and extra day staying with Ali and we could have a relaxing day before our short drive to Sete the following day. Another story to add to the adventure I thought and moved on.

Ali messaged to say that we could use this to our advantage – we could recover the “lost” deposits from our earlier rebooking back in July. We had paid €57 euros deposit with €565 to pay at the end of August. In early July we saw that we could buy a new identical ticket for €32 euros deposit with €288 to pay by the end of August. Presumably as the boats were not filling up and the same reason tat has led to the consolidation postponement.

The new ticket price saved me €300 euros on the advance price but it meant throwing away the €57 Euro deposit. Still €245 euros up on the deal and so as of last week we both had 2 identical bookings each.

With the note from GNV saying we could cancel and get a full refund the door was open to get our original deposit back by cancelling the unwanted booking while retaining the cheaper one that we wanted – Result ! – I am back to €300 Euros

I spent almost 30 minutes making sure that I had the correct reference numbers and did not inadvertently cancel the cheaper booking. I checked several times before finally making the call to Italy. I was relieved that the call was answered in English and the woman on the other end refunded the money immediately, the confirmation email arrived before the call ended.