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Back in February, my husband and I booked a Virgin cruise for November 2022 through the agent Imagine Cruising, evDEN EVE NAkliyAT paying £1,988.

But hours later, we realised that we had accidentally booked for November 2023.

We emailed Imagine to cancel the next morning, but it said we could not have a refund and could only move the booking to new dates, which would incur an administration fee of £1,500.

We cannot travel on those dates in 2023 because it is our Grandson’s Bar Mitzvah.

We wondering why there wasn’t a ‘cooling off’ period in place for the booking – isn’t this fairly standard?

We would like either the money back or a credit for the full amount so we can rebook.

We don’t mind paying a fee as this was our mistake, but an extra £1,500 on a £2,000 holiday is excessive – especially as the firm won’t have any trouble re-selling our cabin with almost two years’ notice.Can you help? L.D, via email

Helen Crane of This is Money replies: You told me you had been ‘so excited’ to book the cruise as you and your husband had not been away for more than three years during the pandemic, and it was a special trip to celebrate both your seventieth birthdays.

But that excitement soon turned into horror, as you received the booking confirmation email and realised that you had accidentally paid for a trip in November 2023 – not November 2022 as you intended.

<div class="art-ins mol-factbox floatRHS money" data-version="2" id="mol-bc08e160-a52e-11ec-a9dc-fbec4dabc965" website booked cruise for right date, but wrong year: Can we get a refund?