“We got a Sainsbury's Bank Mastercard under the mistaken impression that this would mean that we were protected against loss should the unexpected happen. How wrong we were. We are now out of pocket to the tune of nearly £400 for circumstances beyond our control. Sainsbury's customer services have consistently misled, mishandled and changed their story.
We booked a holiday to Norway at the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic. We used our Mastercard because of their travel guarantee, saying that should there be any reason we could not travel because of circumstances beyond our control, we'd be refunded, even if the booking was deemed non-refundable.
We booked at the Frogner House hotel in Norway, via Hotels.com.
Hotels.com state on their website that you are bound by the terms and conditions of the hotel once you have booked.
When Norway closed its borders, our flights were cancelled and we applied to Sainsbury's bank for a refund of the flights and hotel.
Sainsbury's refunded us for both.
Six weeks later then re-debited the card for the hotel, an amount of nearly £400. The reason they gave for this changed completely every time we complained.
1. "You did not cancel with Hotels.com. therefore the hotel was expecting you." Nope, we gave them proof that we had told them we would not be able to travel, and that we could not even enter the country.
2. "Hotels.com do not offer refunds". Nope, they offered us a voucher refund and acknowledged that we would not be able to travel. This information also provided to Sainsbury's; whose customer services told us not to accept the voucher, as that would mean accepting their terms and conditions and we would not get a refund.
3. "You are bound by the terms and conditions of the hotel. The hotel was expecting you because you didn't cancel." They could not possibly expect us to arrive- we had told Hotels.com that we could not travel, the Norwegian borders were closed and the flights were cancelled. The hotels terms and conditions have a force majeure clause which invalidates the contract.
4. "Mastercard changed their terms and conditions on travel and refunds due to the pandemic"; however, we are bound by the terms and conditions we made at the time of the booking; not the new ones.
Sainsbury's have just now offered us £100 as hush money. That doesn't even cover us for the telephone calls and letters; let alone the stress, distress, sleepless nights this has caused us.
We have consulted with a lawyers specialising in this area, he has told us that Sainsbury's have acted in their own interests, rather than ours, to avoid being left out of pocket. We have also complained to the Financial Ombudsman and will be taking this legally further.
Please, for your own sanity, don't end up like us. Don't use Sainsbury's Bank.
We will certainly be boycotting the entire brand and advising our friends and family to do the same.”
“Sainsbury's offer good rates on currency exchange and you can also get Nectar points on the purchase. When I did this recently the member of staff was helpful and generally I'd recommend this supermarket for this service.”
