What to do if you've been affected by the XL collapse

flyaway

delwynsholidaydeals wrote: »

Hello

Can I just add that travel agents dont have to have a ATOL license, as a travel agent my company doesnt have an actual license. However we only book through operators who do have ATOL. For instance we were affected by the Excel collapse, we only booked the excel flight through freedom flights who were atol bonded

therefore all our customers received refunds. You have to be carefull these days with all these small online companys

Are you saying that all your customers who booked through freedom flights have had their refunds from ATOL?

delwynshd

the majority of all our customers yeah, I dont work in the customer services department so I wouldnt know exactly, however I have not picked up a call for a long time in connection with the refunds from ATOL so im assuming they are sorted, we were very quick to help our customers and got the ATOL claim funds to them as soon as possible. We had really big numbers of passengers affected by this too

Thanks
Del

Vicarondo_2

I booked through On the beach travel who in turn booked my flights through Freedom Flights and I havent had my refund yet. Hopefully its my turn soon. The guy from CAA who phoned me a few weeks back did say I was high up the list so hopefully my payday is dawning!!!

flyaway

delwynsholidaydeals wrote: »

the majority of all our customers yeah, I dont work in the customer services department so I wouldnt know exactly, however I have not picked up a call for a long time in connection with the refunds from ATOL so im assuming they are sorted, we were very quick to help our customers and got the ATOL claim funds to them as soon as possible. We had really big numbers of passengers affected by this too

Thanks
Del

I have just spoken to someone at ATOL and they said that not all Freedom Flights have been refunded yet. Also, Travel City, which is my claim, have not been refunded yet. They are dealing with claims numerically and mine is quite a high number and it will still take at least another 4 weeks!

So it looks like I'm NOT going to be able to get a discounted BA flight now as you have to book by end of Jan. I doubt very much if the refund comes through by Easter.

Who can we complain to about the disgusting delay in refunding our money?

It would have been quicker to have booked the holiday separately with my credit card and I would have had all the money back by now. I'll never book anything with ATOL protection again. At least you're covered under the Consumer Act with your credit card. But not with a third party travel agent who is a "Retail Agent for ATOL holders". Not worth the paper it's printed on.

MissT_3

Hi all,

I was just wondering if any one had had any luck with an out of pocket expense form?

I was in Tenerife due to fly home the day of collapse and had to buy alternative tickets for myself and 7 others in my party as no replacement flight was put on for our cancelled one.

I contacted Atol who advsed me to submit an out of pocket expnse form for the replacement flights.

I sent this on 22nd Nov (so late as my bank had been messing me around for 8 weeks saying they could resolve and refund the payment which it then turned out they could not! I know the docs were delivered to CAA as it was sent special delivery and I tracked it) but as of yet have had no acknowledgement or claim number sent, should I be concerned?

I have also emailed the [EMAIL="claims@cpg.org.uk"]claims@cpg.org.uk[/EMAIL] as advised on their help line but have only received an automated response so far.

Has anyone been sucessful with an out of pocket expense form? How long did it take to be resolved?

Vicarondo_2

Flyaway, When did you recieve your acknowledge letter? If I have to wait another 4 weeks I am going to be p**sed!! I can even find my claim number to phone them myself!! :mad: :mad:

I appreciate it is a big task with the amount of claims they have had, but surely 4 months is taking the biscuit slightly!

How can I get hold of my claim number again! Help!

flyaway

Miss T - You should have received an acknowledgement by now. Try and phone them. I have a number which I will private message you.

Vicaronda - I did not receive an acknowledgement letter with claim number because they sent it to the travel agent by mistake. it was dated 18th November. The travel agent thought ATOL had sent me a copy but they hadn't. When I rang ATOL before Christmas they apologised and said it should have been sent to me. I rang ATOL quoting the claim number on the 9th December and they said it would take 6 weeks for a refund. Well, that is now up. So I rang them again yesterday. I got hold of someone in IT who said the computers were down but he would ring me when they were up again.

He rang me this afternoon to say that the info on the computer said there was missing data (it did not give any details) regarding my claim and that a letter had been sent on the 13th December to me. But I have not received anything. I asked if he would be so kind as to try and find out what the missing data was that they needed and he said he would go over to the Claim dept and ask them and he would ring me back. Unfortunately, I had to go out this afternoon and have only just got back but there was no message that he had rung. I will try again tomorrow.

I've left a message with the travel agent just in case they have sent the letter there again.

I will pm you the phone number I've got.

Alan_Bowen

As other posters have mentioned, some travel agents were very slow in actually sending claims in to the CAA and those who make claims directly are much further up in the queue. For some agents, who sold Freedom Flight tickets but did not pass on the invoice to the customer, and there are thousands of those, mainly from 2 major travel agents whose names have appeared regularly on these pages, the CAA at first planned not to pay and the decision to settle the claims and then sue the agent to get the money back was only taken in December. Those who booked with Travel City should have refunds by the end of the month, but for those of you still waiting, at least you will get a refund, there are many thousands who booked direct with XL.com and get no protection from ATOL at all.

perrydog

Hi Flyaway I can see that you received you letter dated the 18 November mineis dated 20th November and I have not recieved my refund yet so with what you say mine should be about 4 weeks aswell then, providing that our ref number is similar if thay are going in order, Ibooked with freedomflight through sunmaster.

bagand96

Who can we complain to about the disgusting delay in refunding our money?

It would have been quicker to have booked the holiday separately with my credit card and I would have had all the money back by now. I'll never book anything with ATOL protection again. At least you're covered under the Consumer Act with your credit card. But not with a third party travel agent who is a "Retail Agent for ATOL holders". Not worth the paper it's printed on.

Well it is worth the paper its printed on; you are getting a refund as are thousands and thousand of others. Would you be better off without it? It is incredibly frustrating to be waiting so long, but it was well documented that the XL collapse was the biggest ever; the scale of it was unprecedented. ATOL is in place to protect people's money, and that it has, and will do. It does not however have hundreds of staff sat around 365 days of the year waiting for a huge tour operator collapse. Its been a massive operation, and as another poster said, a lot of the delay has been caused by cr*p travel agents.

It is very frustrating yes, but you're money is safe, and despite delays, ATOL is working as it should.