Skybargains

[ihateabta]

Hi all,
I have read most of the content on your site and find it very interesting. I have a problem at the moment because skybargains.com has gone bust. our flights have been honored but our accomodation booked via hotel beds was not. This is the first time i have had anything like this happen so i am new to the abta bond, atol and such like. Skybargains were abta registered and claimed to be atol registered but the werent. I booked my holiday to las vegas as a package however since i noticed 2 payments from my debit card same day same time. i did not relise that this could be a problem as it added up to the same amount however since i was told it could be by trading standards. Secondly hotel beds is a spanish company but it displays a tui travel group sign and says it is part of tui. I have checked with tui and it is however abta still refuse any claim. This holiday was our honeymoon and even though the fights are safe abta says there will be no refund on flights because they have been honored we have 10 days to book new accomodation and pay again which we cannot afford.
any ideas greatly appreciated I think that abta needs publising more as they are useless yet if 10 consumers were asked if the think they were protected if they booked through abta 9/10 would say yes. This is not the case what a load of rubbish abta bond is useless. i have registered with the receiver but an expecting nothing found out the receiver is on £350 per hour and has set aside £5000 for initial creditors meeting no wonder there is no money left..............................
anyone considering legal action??????????

regards dave

[Spikeyblonde]

Hi Dave
Sorry to hear of all your problems,I agree that the ABTA logo is useless in our situation. I have however been onto the Halifax AGAIN, as I paid by Visa Debit after reading an article from the BBC which I found on google. This says that I should be re-inbursed under the "Chargeback" system and gave 2 similar examples - one involving the Halifax I really had to work for it though, and read the customer service lad the article. Finally he consulted with a manager for the second time and said there was a form he could fill in and send to head office, which he did. - Will keep you posted. Good Luck

[leisurelad]

ABTA ABTA ABTA - They think they are god - soo not true.

Having read so many stories about them when companies have gone bust I feel as a Travel Agent myself, Abta are not all that's cracked up to be.

Abta and Bonding explained - Most folk would assume that if your abta bonded then your protected, as quite clearly put in this thread from others it doesn't all work out like that. Abta states that each member is required to have a bond in place for situtaions like this and that membership is only granted once the agency has obtained this bond. So if this is the case then why are some people having trouble with operators not being paid and their holidays basically ruined. Surely if the customer can prove that they had paid skybargains for this service then the arrangement should be honoured. Isn't that the reason why the bond is there.

As an agent that doesn't belong to Abta you might be think arrrgghh, not safe to book with. The agent i work with is bonded by the Travel Trust Association whereby monies paid to the agent are deposited in a Trust Account and is only released on the following basis.
If the booking is with an ATOL protected operator then the funds can be released upon the operators request for payment as financial protection will lie with the Atol protected operator.
or
The monies are only released to the tour operators upon date of return of the customer.

Please take a look at http://www.traveltrust.co.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=130

Alot of people think that if your not ABTA then your a bit dodgy, this is soo not the case and it won't be long before you see alot more TTA members as the TTA are in final talks (i believe) with the purchas of Worldchoice, a very large travel consortium.

Sorru if i have gone on here but realy felt the need to get my point across about the TTA as i explain this quite regulary to customers who question the bonding arrangements of the company.

I would also like the MODS to maybe do a piece on the different types of bonding agents have to have so that people can be better informed and that its not just ABTA rule the travel industry.

Thankyou

[leisurelad]

Sorry just had to add this bit which i found:


What is the difference between Travel Trust Association and ABTA?

ABTA ended its consumer promise in 2006. This means that not all of the travel arrangements that you book through an ABTA member are necessarily protected in case of the financial failure of the travel company.

You will need to ask the ABTA member how financially secure their travel arrangements are. If the arrangements are not automatically protected, the ABTA member may be able to offer suitable insurance to cover you.

Interesting eh

[ihateabta]

Thanks for your answer I have really gone to town with abta and have told them i will try to give them as much bad pres as i can i will spread the word that abta are very poor. ttc is much better but until i researched this so called abta bond and abta itself i was unaware that this could happen i believe mr bretton who was an leading executive at abta defected last year to ttc because in his words abta were not fulfilling their commitment to protecting the travel consumer

abta have been disgracefull in the help they have given me in assistance with the skybargains mess.

regards dave

[ihateabta]

sorry last post should of read tta not ttc

cheers dave

[patriot]

we booked a holiday with this company back in January,paid the deposit then and the rest of the money in May.Only to be told by ABTA a week before we were due to fly that they had ceased trading,7 people including a 4 year old boy's holiday ruined.How could this be after we'd paid in good faith month's before,we even phoned the hotel we should have been staying in to be told our rooms had been cancelled so we couldn't even try and get another flight.I can honestly say I will never book another holiday that far in advance,I sympathise with anyone going through what we are to try and get their money back good luck to you all

[Steve Endacott]

Guys,
I am the CEO of the On Holiday Group and have beem reading the Blog trail on the Skybargins collapse with interest, since it is clear that ABTA have not been telling clients actually what the issue is here which I will be taking up with them immediatly.

The issues are;
[*]OHG act as agents for over 5,000 hotels arranging distribution agreements with UK Travel agents. Agents make reservations via OHG however no bookings/contracts are created until the agent pays for the booking.
[*]Skybargins although they had taken the money from customers had not paid it to OHG or many of the other similar bed banks such as Hotel Beds.
[*]Not surprisingly Hotels refuse to honour reservations that have not been confirmed by payments from Traval agent.
[*]ABTA 18 months ago dramtically reduced the amount of financial protection they offered customers and now do NOT protect customers monies for the hotel element of what is generally refered to as Dynamically Packaged holidays.

As a response to this lack of financial protection OHG now offer both agents and customers direct a insurance policy offered by European Assistance called "Supplier Failure Cover" which cost around £3.00 per passenger and gives customers upto £5,000 to replace a flight, hotel, car hire etc if any provider goes bust.

Unfortunalty financial protection in the travel industry is currently a complete mess and i as a memeber of the industry i can only appologies and ask you to check ABTA's web site to find out what they really cover.....which is not as much as many customers think.

Steve Endacott

[HW Jan.C]

Many Thanks for your posting Steve it is appreciated.
Jan