MSE News: Kiss Flights goes bust: your travel rights

crystal_clear

I booked October Kiss flights via Airflights on 17th July following the loss of our Goldtrail flights for the same month.

My question is can I claim from my HSBC cc rather than Atol for this loss as having lost out twice now on the same flights I feel the Atol route will delay my refund drastically compared to my CC.
But my CC company are saying I must contact CAA. Can the CC refuse the claim and make me go back via Atol??.

where do I stand legally in order to get my money back as soon as possible.

Crystal clear

Alan_Bowen

If you book through an agent, you should claim from the CAA. If you make a claim via your credit card, it is your travel agent who will end up losing the money. Only do this if you want revenge for them booking you with these companies in the first place. If you book direct with a failed company you can go direct to the credit card company every time!

crystal_clear

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

If you book through an agent, you should claim from the CAA. If you make a claim via your credit card, it is your travel agent who will end up losing the money. Only do this if you want revenge for them booking you with these companies in the first place. If you book direct with a failed company you can go direct to the credit card company every time!

I thank you for your reply, but I was actually not after revenge although I did get a raw deal from the company I booked with. But that aside I actually wanted to know if the flights were atol protected can my credit card company refuse my claim and force me to go via Atol ?? does anyone know the legal standing on this. I have a claim going via Atol already for a seperate flight failure. I have paid to replace flights on my cards a few times to say the least this year and I cannot pay anymore as cards almost maxed. I need to reclaim via credit card if i can asap to clear of some balances. If I am forced down Atol route it will cost me a fortune in interest due to the time it takes to reclaim. So if anyone knows how i stand I would be grateful of there input please.

crystal clear

Alan_Bowen

If you book through an agent you must go through the ATOL route, the card company will simply send you back to the CAA.

crystal_clear

Alan under section 75 can they actually make me claim via Atol though and legally refuse my claim? LEGALLY ?

Also can I ask Alan do you work for a travel company?
or did you lose flights/ holiday and have to make such a claim at sometime ?

I am already claiming via ATOL for a seperate loss (not related) and having to replace the flights this year has caused me to max up my CC. I wish to get some balance back to my CC asap so that when I do travel I have some kind of emergency back up on my CC should I have the need to use (hoping that wont be the case though ) I replaced these flights when goldtrail failed and 1 month later replaced again because Kiss failed. The travel agent has had 3 lots of money from me and 2 they will keep as 1st is going via Atol 2nd via CC and 3rd I am praying I will actually get to go on. So that in mind I really dont think I am taking anything away from the travel company they win twice with me and my CC win twice also as they get interest on 1st ATOL and 3rd I take. the only person that is losing out in a sense is myself, by playing the waiting game to get the cashback to my card asap and reduce the overall costs i am incurring.

I do hope this will now shed a new light on the way you read my post.

Crystal clear

Alan_Bowen

Section 75 technically applies when the company you have paid your money to fails to provide the goods or services bought with a credit card.Your travel agent has not stopped trading so when the card company recieves your claim and sees the merchant who processed the card is still trading, they will refuse your claim. I fully understand what you are saying but this is a risk if you buy bits of a holiday separately and not a proper package. A good agent would probably have allowed you to rebook and just pay the difference between the original cost and the new cost so long as you assigned your claim to them but they do not have to do this and yours clearly hasn't. I am sorry you find yourself in this situation but there isn't an easy way out of it.

I have worked for travel industry for 22 years but I do not work for a specific company so I hope I can be unbiased in the advise I give.

loadsamunney

Hi Bagand96, I've read your replies but what do you think about this.
We booked 6 people through "on the Beach" online. We thought it was a Package,but strangely were sent a separate copy invoice from "OTB", with Kiss flights as the originator. When it went T**S up we were give an option to get a refund from CAA and to re book our own flights.

The new flights were price prohibitive so, at that stage we asked to cancel the accommodation aswell. OTB asked the hotel and hotel said yes, no problem ,full refund, as we are still 5 weeks from flying.
However OTB say they are going to charge us £30 PP cancellation charge. To me, thats not on, even if its a dynamic package. Surely if they have not offered to get us flights at the same price they shoud give a full refund with no cancellation charges.

Can they do this and if they can , will I be able to recover this £180 form anywhere,ie credit card ,insurance,abta ??
Thanks for all your inputs so far.

Alan_Bowen

Oh dear, another time to realise that when you book through On the Beach or Travel Republic and the many other agents who operate in a similar way, you are entering a whole series of contracts, each with different booking conditions. As you have discovered, this can leave you with half a holiday that, without the flights, you cannot use. I haven't looked at OTB conditions but I suspect somewhere in there is the right to charge you a fee if you decide to cancel, and strange though it may seem, it is you that is cancelling the accommodation, otherwise OTB make nothing out of the transaction at all, and according to the complaints about OTB, that is not something they would ever allow.

As it is you who is cancelling, the credit card is unlikely to want to know, but it might be worth a punt but if its covered by the booking conditions, there is no hope. ABTA certainly won't want to know because their member OTB is still trading so your only real hope is if you have 'supplier failure insurance' which protects against losses if part of the holiday disappears.

loadsamunney

Thanks Alan, I really appreciate your input. Sounds like I will probably save myself a lot of time and heartache by just putting it down to experience and soaking the cancellation fees.
Regards

joe13

Hi all

Has anyone received a refund yet? Did ring our travel agent the other day they had no update for me and were not very helpful.

We were unable to re-arrange another holiday - so no holiday and so far no refund.

Will refund come in two lots - ie flights from CAA and hotel from travel agent? Hope that makes sense.