Goldtrail Holidays

jennieharris

I filled in the form on Sunday but haven't had any response. Also, they are apparently charging large admin fees to process claims. Am wondering whether to claim directly from Atol but not sure if it will be more difficult that way as we need to claim for the accom and transfers as well as the flight. I looked at the Atol claim form and it seemed OK so don't know why Bookable Holidays are claiming for their customers.

Janinex

Im really confused.

I booked a holiday for september with flightsandhotel.co.uk. The flights with goldtrail. We cannot afford to pay extra for the flights (lots extra) so the guy on the phone said we can cancel it, get our money back for the hotel from them and then apply through atol/caa for the flight money. Is this right?

jennieharris

I think the best thing might be to ask ATOL because TA might be trying to make money out of the situation.

mecrazybenz

Right, from my understanding if you booked your holiday from a travel agent, and your flights were supplied by the operator 'Goldtrail' you can claim that from the CAA.

If your hotel and/or transfers were supplied through a different operator, and you wish to cancel them, you would need to do so through your travel agent that you made the booking with. The travel agent/suppliers may charge a cancellation fee. You cannot claim hotel and transfer costs from the CAA if they were not provided by Goldtrail.

I am in a similar situation. Booked holiday with Travel Republic. Flights were provided by Goldtrail. Transfers were provided by a different supplier and hotel was provided by a different supplier. I was fortunate enough to find and book some alternative flights that did not cost much more then my original flights. Yesterday I sent off the CAA claim form to Travel Republic to claim the lost money for the Goldtrail flights. Hotel and transfer remain the same.

If you booked your holiday/flights through a travel agent then the CAA claim along with any required supporting documents must be completed by you and sent to the travel agent. There is a section which the travel agent needs to complete. They must then send the claim form to the CAA to process.

It seems like a long winded and complicated process, which is why they are saying it will takes months. Also be prepared for lost forms etc etc and no one being able to tell you the progress of the claim. Arrrggghghhh

Happy days !!!

mecrazybenz

jennieharris wrote: »

My friend and I are booked to go to Crete on Friday with Bookable Holidays and haven't had any info from the either despite emailing them. I was thinking that maybe it would be best to seek a refund directly through Atol to avoid their admin charges. Also wondered about whether its worth trying to claim on the visa debit card we used to pay for the holiday (Chargeback scheme). I guess that we have to wait to hear from Bookable holidays first.What if we don;t hear from them? What do other members think?

jennie, was your entire holiday booked through Goldtrail? i.e. flights/hotel/transfers ??

As far as I know, you can only claim aspects of the holidays that were provided by Goldtrail through the CAA.

If hotel/transfers were provided by another supplier, then only Bookable can cancel these for you and they will probably charge an admin fee.

Its disgusting that bookable is behaving like this and leaving you in the dark.

Hope you get it sorted.

grantk76

Well what do you know i got through to bookable holidays and i spoke to someone who transfered me to a dead line, magic or coincidence you decide. Called back numerous times and got through to someone who couldnt help me but assured me i would get a call today regarding our holiday as we are due to depart tomorrow. I asked if this was like the call i was supposed to get yesterday and sunday afternoon and still havent got yet. I assume everyone else is still in the same boat with bookable, how can we do anything when they wont speak to us??? I have options visa debit charge back, caa claim and the possibility of filing small claims against bookable but like most folks would just like the holiday we paid for! The way this company has failed to deal with this is disgusting, they just dont want to be in contact with the customer, the customers who pay their wages, the customers who line the pockets of the directors. Please no one else make the same mistake we made and use bookable (but uncontactable) holidays.

Ash_Ra

I booked a holiday to Crete through Purple Holidays (part of Hays?) with credit card. Flights and accomodation were not separated, both handled by Goldtrail.

I've just had an ATOL Claim Form through from Purple Travel, will this cover the whole amount of money paid, or just the flight? Also are they able to deduct an admin fee? No idea who was respnosible for the hotel / airport transfer - this was never confirmed.

I didn't have the best experience booking with them in the first place (wasn't sent confirmation, kept on hold and passed around when trying to request email confirmation that seemed to be nearly an impossible task for them), and am worried that the refund may never materialise. Paperwork they sent me was minimal, not even a Goldtrail Booking Reference.

Would it be advised to just claim back with American Express, or do I need to go through this with ATOL?

alipops1986

Good Afternoon All,

My boyfriend and I have been struck by the GoldTrail collapse as well, although, from what i've read on here not too badly.

We were due to fly out last night, booked flights 2 weeks ago with flightline, who then [unknown to us] booked the flight with Gold Trail. We then booked accommodation with Thomson.

Initially we had no idea we were with GoldTrail, didn't realize until Saturday PM by which time no flights were available, or were too expensive, OR, weren't the correct dates.

We tried to contact Flightline but obviously it was engaged. They phoned us on Sunday night and said all they could offer was Manchester to Dalaman on monday night - not even the right resort! So we are going through the process of a refund. From what the lady said, they are going to refund us and then take it up with GoldTrail so hopefully not as long winded a process.

Thus, we cancelled our accommodation with Thomson, fortunately only lost £175, as didn't pay on credit card so can't claim for it.

By Sunday afternoon we'd rebooked a package this time with Thomson - 4* half board, same resort as we wanted to be at for £430, cheaper than booking a new flight to the wrong resort!

Now, i've just got another 14 sleeps to count until we finally go on our holiday :T

grantk76

Whoop whoop i just got my long awaited call from bookable holidays and what a waste me time. Given my options 1st book flights but they would cost a lot more than the original flights and to be paid up front. To which i replied if you had bothered to contact me when you said you would i could have had flights cheaper but there are none left now. 2nd option book another holiday and pay full amount up front. Yeah like im going to give those muppets more of my cash! 3rd option cancel it all and get full refund minus admin fee. When asked how much admin fee was she did not know she said. She should know she is offering these options! I however chose to cancel everything which wouldnt have been required if bookable done their job. I wont hold my breath about refund as i dont trust this lot so going to try visa cashback claim. Once this is all sorted out i hope everyone gets their money back or a holiday. I personally am going to spread the word as much as i can to avoid bookable holidays i hope everyone else who has had a bad experience with them will do the same. I wonder if the directors ride to work on a horse called bess and wear black masks.

Lymmguineas

Back in 2006 I had booked holiday accomodation with a company called open holidays that went bust. We had paid using a Visa debit card and were still able to claim a 100% refund. Our friends who had paid using a Maestro debit card were unable to claim. We had to wait until the date that our accommodation should have been provided to prove that the "goods" we had ordered were not supplied but we did get all of our cash back.


As I'm a fairly new user I can't post links but if you search the web for "is debit card protection the same as for credit cards" you should find a link with your search phrase as the title that tells you a bit more about what Visa debit covers you for.

Good Luck!