‘We lost £1200 when my illness was spotted a week after booking a cruise’

A representative of Reader Offers explained that as a travel agent all it does is facilitate a contract between the customer and cruise line, and that the entire deposit was passed on to PO.

She said: “We take the deposit on behalf of the cruise line, and it gets sent to them.”

In the instance of a cancellation, she said the agency is restricted: “That cabin gets released back to general sale – in this instance we haven’t bought a certain amount of cabins from the cruise line that we then have control over.”

She added that for a customer to challenge the keeping of a deposit, they would have recourse to go to the cruise line, but that in many instances this would need to happen via the agent.

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A PO spokesman said: “Adequate travel insurance is a condition of travel and thus his deposit should be refunded this way. We have previously spoken to Mr Ions and advised that should this not be successful then we can review the matter further for him. We are awaiting a response and would welcome a discussion.”

The company did not comment on whether it would be re-selling the cabin, nor if money would be refunded to the couple if it managed to do so.

Insurance will save you from a headache

When someone is potentially profiting from re-selling the holiday, it’s a frustrating “get out of jail free” card that the cruise industry states customers should have insurance.

However, ensuring you are insured from day one of the booking is highly advisable. In all of the cases of cruise-goers losing money due to cancellations that Telegraph Money has encountered, all of the illnesses or injuries that caused the cancellation were new and entirely unexpected.

Additionally, in cases where a cancellation happens immediately before sailing, the cruise line will be well within its rights to keep your money and argue that it’s the insurer’s job to pay out.

Having insurance also does not stop you from demanding a company justify that it is only keeping enough to cover its “reasonable costs”, although if both the company and insurer pay up, you will need to pay back the insurer.

The case of Denise and John Longland was a particularly unfortunate instance of bad timing. On June 5 this year the couple paid a £2,200 deposit to agency Imagine Cruising, and were due to sail from Southampton in January 2017 – a cruise intended to celebrate Mrs Longland’s 60th birthday.

Just five days later, on June 10, Mrs Longland was unwell and visited her doctor. She underwent blood tests, and on June 14 was diagnosed with acute bone marrow failure, on the same day her husband retired.

This requires her to be platelet dependent, which is not a treatment she could get on a cruise ship or while travelling abroad. Unfortunately, the pair were caught unawares by the sudden discovery of the illness, and were still in the process of getting insurance quotes.