Europe has been dealing with record breaking temperatures, with some areas hitting over 40 degrees Celsius.
The conditions are putting pressure on local governments as people struggle with the serious weather.
This has left many tourists wondering if they should cancel their holidays, or if they could possibly change dates until the heatwave passes.
Read more: Charon Heatwave: How Irish tourists are affected in Greece, Spain, Turkey, Italy & Portugal and more
Travel expert Eoghan Corry shared his advice on what options holidaymakers have if they are travelling to affected countries.
He explained that the opportunity to get a refund and cancel your holiday is incredibly limited.
He told RSVP Live: “Discretionary cancellation isn’t something that any airlines or insurance policies give to people by right.
“The reason is that you can’t cancel without a real reason. Generally, this is for medical reasons or for funerals. That applies to whether there’s a weather event, government directive that gives reasons not to travel or genuine health risk.
“Currently, there isn’t a general health risk. People with underlying health conditions or those who have small children might have an individual health risk. That is more complicated.
“It would lead to an exchange of letters with your travel insurance provider at least. If you get enough overwhelming medical evidence on your side, there’s a chance you will get your compensation. But it’s not a given right.”
Eoghan has found that there are some travellers asking to move the dates of their holidays.
“There’s very few cancellations happening. Quite a few people have been inquiring about it and looking for date changes,” he found.
“That depends on how sympathetic an ear you get, how you booked it, terms and conditions and where you’ve booked it.
“If you’ve booked it directly with airlines or through an internet intermediary like loveholidays, you’re not really going to get really far.
“If you’ve booked with a traditional travel agency, they have more control over the flights if it’s with a tour operator. They may be in a position to offer you date changes.”
These extreme temperatures aren’t affecting the entirety of Europe, with some areas in the same country experiencing varying temperatures.
Eoghan shared: “The heat is in different spots and places in Europe. It’s also behaving in different ways.
“The general sweep of where the heatwave is starts in the arch of Gibraltar, up the middle of Spain, around the city of Madrid and the Alps - underneath that is where the big red spot is.
“Athens and Greece are going to be slower to cool down than the western part of that.”
He added: “There’s a whole section of places where Irish people go in large numbers that are not baking at all, like the Algarve, northern Spain and France.
“The places that concern holidaymakers in the heatwave are the Andalucia and the eastern Andalucia region. There’s some suggestion that it will be tapering off at the end of this week.”
You can find out more from Eoghan Corry on his website, found here.
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