Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Booking a holiday well in advance can be a great way to snap up a deal. Back in the summer, Leighton and Rachel Porter from Pontypridd went to Thomas Cook in Merthyr Tydfil and booked a holiday to Salou for a week in May 2011 for themselves and daughter Ruby.

They paid a Β£450 deposit in instalments to Sunset Holidays, which is part of the Thomas Cook Group, and also paid for airport parking. However, in September Rachel discovered she was pregnant - with the new arrival due just days before the holiday.

Leighton and Rachel Porter

Flying in the later stages of pregnancy isn't medically advisable: the say it's sensible to avoid flying after 32 weeks of pregnancy and women are strictly advised not to fly after 35 weeks. And after the birth, some airlines won't let newborns travel for at least a week.

Consequently, the couple decided that their best option was to cancel their holiday. They turned to their travel insurance company, as they had purchased insurance just two days after booking their holiday. Yet Leighton says he was told they weren't covered for cancelling under the pregnancy terms.

The Porters then approached their holiday provider, Thomas Cook, but Leighton explained: "They just advised that if I cancelled the holiday I would lose the full deposit of almost Β£500 or we could take another holiday within the first 3 months of the initial dates we were going away."

But the latter option seemed impossible to Rachel, who thought it impractical to take a newborn abroad just a few weeks after the birth. So the couple wrote to Thomas Cook proposing alternatives; they offered to go in a year's time, or some time before the due date, or to use the deposit on a UK break - but were told all their suggestions weren't possible.

So how does Thomas Cook compare to other large travel companies? With Virgin the Porters would have had up to two years to change their booking and take their holiday, while with Thomson or First Choice they would have had the option to travel any time before the baby arrived.

Rachel Porter

Rachel added: "We're not asking for our money back, we're just asking for them to be a little bit more helpful and sympathetic."

X-Ray asked Rochelle Turner, head of research at consumer publication about the Porters' case. She said that travel insurance companies try to protect you from unforeseen things. However, regardless of what individuals may think about pregnancy, many insurance companies take the view that if you are a woman, the chances are that you may get pregnant and therefore it's one of the things not covered in terms of cancellation.

Rochelle said that while the Porters had contractually signed an agreement with Thomas Cook to travel at a specific time, they now cannot go. She said: "Morally, I think the company probably can be slightly more accommodating than they have been."

Since X-ray contacted Thomas Cook, they've now offered to extend the period in which the Porters can take their holiday. According to their original booking conditions, they could only rebook to travel in the three months after their original departure date. This has now been extended to three months prior and five months after the original dates. They can also now book with any of the operators within the Thomas Cook Tour Operations family, not just Sunset Holidays.

Although the Porters purchased their travel insurance independently, the insurer - Big Blue Cover - is underwritten by a Thomas Cook company. The insurance does cover them for certain unexpected situations surrounding pregnancy but not just for unexpected pregnancies. Unfortunate, but it was in the small print!