A Burnaby, B.C. family is on the verge of losing out on thousands of dollars after not getting a refund for a dream vacation they have to cancel due to a surprise pregnancy.
- For complete coverage, visit CTV Vancouver.
Rahela Nayebzadah and her husband Joseph Reves booked a $6,000 vacation to Cuba back in October, but found out last week that Nayebzadah is pregnant with their second child.
With the zika virus so prevalent in Cuba, the family does not want to risk harming the unborn child, but they say Sunwing is not offering a refund.
"This vacation meant a lot to me," Nayebzadah told CTV Vancouver. "The way they're acting, they're saying my fetus isn't important, me as a pregnant woman isn't important."
Back in February, Health Canada issued a travel warning for areas in the Caribbean due to the virus. The virus can cause brain abnormalities, vison loss and hearing loss to a developing fetus.
Sunwing said it’s because of instances like this that they offer a travel insurance, which the family did not purchase.
"We appreciate that sometimes unforeseen circumstances can result in customers no longer being able to travel. For this reason, we always recommend that our customers take out our Worry Free travel insurance," spokesperson Rachel Goldrick wrote in an email to CTV Vancouver.
Gabor Lukacs, the founder and coordinator of Air Passenger Rights, said the airline and travel agent is liable for informing travellers about the risks associated with international flights, but Flight Centre, the travel agency the family used to book the trip, said there’s no way they could’ve known the family was expecting if they didn’t say so.
"While we do our utmost to advise people…if they didn’t tell the agent they were planning on getting pregnant, or could possibly be pregnant, it would have been impossible for our agent to have known to advise them against travelling to Cuba for that reason,” the agency wrote in a statement.
