Just got back from my hols. 8 days in sunny Ibiza.
6 days before we travelled (Friday 13th) my Wife came running up the stairs. Oh my God, the travel firm we booked with has gone bust. I got straight onto the phone and rang the emergency number on our booking form. The number was a Spanish number and a Spanish lady answered it. She could not speak a word of English and she did not know anything about our hotel or travel company – in other words I think it was a random Spanish number on our booking letter! I tracked down our hotel in Ibiza and rang them. Yes – they had our room and they said everything was fine. They gave me the number of the booking agent to check if they had received payment. So my third call to Spain ended up in the lady saying that ‘Yes’ money had been received and that we should proceed with our holiday. I asked for this in writing, but of course never received it.
We arrived at our hotel at 23:00 to be told that our booking had been cancelled because our tour operator had gone bust. They said it was not their fault and we should find somewhere else to stay because they were full. They made the mistake of showing me an email from the booking agent that asked the hotel to let us know of the cancellation. So I grabbed the email and put it in my pocket as evidence. We kept our calm even past midnight. We were still in reception arguing that the hotel had a responsibility to find us a room. Eventually we had to play the disabled card (due to the fact that my 4 year old girl is disabled). Only then did they start to show some sympathy.
To cut a long story short, we had to buy a room off them for 2 nights then we moved down the road to a room above a bar for the remaining 6 nights. They tried to charge us the full price for the 2 night stay in the hotel, but I was having none of that. Eventually they sold it to me for the same price they charged the agencies.
ABTA & ATOL are useless in this situation because we did not book a ‘package’ holiday. I only booked the hotel and was therefore not covered by their protection. I am now in the process of trying to get my bank to pay for our loss, as I had booked with a VISA debit card.
Saying that, we still had a good time away. The weather was great, but it did take 3 days to finally calm down after the dreadful start.
The way the holiday industry works is a complete joke. I’ve heard that in some cases the hotel gets paid 2 years after a customer has stayed! The low cost airlines on the other hand demand that payment is cleared before the plane takes off
I hope that’s and end to travel firms going bust, but I fear it won’t be.
6 days before we travelled (Friday 13th) my Wife came running up the stairs. Oh my God, the travel firm we booked with has gone bust. I got straight onto the phone and rang the emergency number on our booking form. The number was a Spanish number and a Spanish lady answered it. She could not speak a word of English and she did not know anything about our hotel or travel company – in other words I think it was a random Spanish number on our booking letter! I tracked down our hotel in Ibiza and rang them. Yes – they had our room and they said everything was fine. They gave me the number of the booking agent to check if they had received payment. So my third call to Spain ended up in the lady saying that ‘Yes’ money had been received and that we should proceed with our holiday. I asked for this in writing, but of course never received it.
We arrived at our hotel at 23:00 to be told that our booking had been cancelled because our tour operator had gone bust. They said it was not their fault and we should find somewhere else to stay because they were full. They made the mistake of showing me an email from the booking agent that asked the hotel to let us know of the cancellation. So I grabbed the email and put it in my pocket as evidence. We kept our calm even past midnight. We were still in reception arguing that the hotel had a responsibility to find us a room. Eventually we had to play the disabled card (due to the fact that my 4 year old girl is disabled). Only then did they start to show some sympathy.
To cut a long story short, we had to buy a room off them for 2 nights then we moved down the road to a room above a bar for the remaining 6 nights. They tried to charge us the full price for the 2 night stay in the hotel, but I was having none of that. Eventually they sold it to me for the same price they charged the agencies.
ABTA & ATOL are useless in this situation because we did not book a ‘package’ holiday. I only booked the hotel and was therefore not covered by their protection. I am now in the process of trying to get my bank to pay for our loss, as I had booked with a VISA debit card.
Saying that, we still had a good time away. The weather was great, but it did take 3 days to finally calm down after the dreadful start.
The way the holiday industry works is a complete joke. I’ve heard that in some cases the hotel gets paid 2 years after a customer has stayed! The low cost airlines on the other hand demand that payment is cleared before the plane takes off
I hope that’s and end to travel firms going bust, but I fear it won’t be.
.
