How did I "claw" back the money spent before the Covid-19?

Going into the 2nd week of the Singapore "Circuit Breaker" or "CB" and lifestyle definitely has changed whether individually or as a family.

I felt this is the time to save, conserve and try to increase cash flow and savings where possible. Eating and cooking at home definitely helps and as well as cutting down on daily commute to the office. For me, I drive to office together with my wife and has a season parking as well so I saved on petrol as well as the super expensive ERP.

While I try to save on needs and necessity, I am also trying to get back whatever services I had paid for.

1) Travel/Vacation

Since early 2019, I had planned to go to Australia in the first half of 2020 and obviously, this didn't materialized.

Fortunately, I bought a family of four, annual travel insurance straight after I paid for my flights and Airbnb for my Australia trip in Jul 2019. I paid a total of $4.2k inclusive of $2.7k (flight) and $1.5k (Airbnb).

I managed to cancel my Airbnb without any charges before the free cancellation date so $1.5k credited back to my credit card.

For my flights, they were cancelled by the airline as Australia had closed their borders to foreigners before my trip started. The airline did not allow full refund of the tickets as I had bought promotional tickets and they will charged me $400 per ticket and a total of $1.6k will be the penalty fees.

My travel insurer allowed me to claim the penalty fees of $1.6k since I bought the insurance prior to the pandemic declaration and the airline will reimbursed me with the remaining of $1.1k. I understand from the insurer that they will not allow any claim on Covid-19 if you bought the air tickets before 23 Jan 2020. Phew!

Super happy that I managed to claim back the $4.2k I paid for my family vacation. Back to the joint account.

Lesson learnt: Always buy travel insurance (it is a MUST!) as early as you book your flights and accommodation to cover any unforeseen circumstances.

2) Office Season Parking

My company has started "Work From Home" or "WFH" since mid March and they told us that there's no end date to this arrangement. This means that my office season parking that I had prepaid for for every quarter ($450) will be wasted since I am not driving to the office anymore in the near future.

For many people, they probably just let the prepaid season parking lapse since typically the commercial landlord does not allow any refunds. For me, I am someone whom will try before I give up.

I emailed the admin office of the landlord and told them about my situation and ask them whether my season parking for April and May can be refunded, I am expecting them to say NO or simply refund me 50% of lesser of what I had paid.

To my surprise, they said on email that their management understand the current situation and will specially grant me with a waiver and allow full refund for April and May season parking.

Super happy again, I managed to claw back $300 for unused season parking fees for April and May.

Lesson learnt: Never try Never know, don't assume until you TRY.

So I have added back $4.2k + $300 = $4.5k back to our family joint account coffer. This amount definitely comes in handy in times of crisis.

But I have to admit that these whole administrative process (countless calls to the airline hotline and insurer office went unanswered) is painful for some but for someone like me, I will try and get back whatever possible amount within my legal means.

If it was my wife, I think she will give up after 3 calls (LOL) but not for me (even if I need 100 calls, I will do it!). Well, I am the stingy and "kia-su" Turtle.