A1 travel refund!

jonnymcs

Has anyone booked with a1 travel & been affected by the goldtrail collapse?
I booked to go to Crete last summer which i subsequently didn't get to travel due to the goldtrail collapse, after numerous calls & e-mails to their unhelpful customer care department i filled in the claim forms & sent off. Whilst I understand that the CAA will refund the flights I am extremely unhappy that I paid for a weeks hotel accomodation which i could not use & A1 are refusing to re-imburse any money at all.

Anyone else in this situation?

bagand96

Whilst I understand that the CAA will refund the flights I am extremely unhappy that I paid for a weeks hotel accomodation which i could not use & A1 are refusing to re-imburse any money at all.

Anyone else in this situation?

Whilst you may be extremely unhappy, this may be absolutely correct. You did not book a package holiday with A1 Travel, you booked "Flights & Hotel". There is a big difference.

A1 Travel are only an agent (not a tour operator) and they booked your flights with Goldtrail, and then your hotel through a hotel provider. The key thing is these are two separate bookings. No different than if you had booked the flights directly with Goldtrail and then booked a hotel directly.

The problem here comes that with it being seperate bookings, one is not dependant on the other. The hotel could still provide the room, it is not their fault Goldtrail went bust and your flight was cancelled. Therefore you are bound by the cancellation terms on your accomodation contract, which may well be no refunds.

This scenario has been very common recently, with the failure of Goldtrail, Kiss Flights, and XL before. However this is all in A1's terms and conditions that you will have accepted. It would have been the same had you booked on many websites that sell you a "Flight & Hotel" rather than a package holiday.

Final chance, do you have travel insurance, or did you have it relating to this trip?

koko.btn

Hi there,

I had similar situation, I booked with a1 travel to go to tenerife, and next day kiss flight ceased trading, a1travel refused to refund any money.
Anyway I booked separate flight ticket, and went on holiday, the accommodation and the transport was still provided.
Now here is where all the story begins:
After the holiday, I sent all the forms and documents to ATOL to proceed with the refund. A few months later I found out that ATOL are unable to proceed with refund because A1travel has never purchased the flight tickets from kiss flight. I contacted A1travel right way, to explain me this situation and asking them to refund me the money they had taken from me for the ticked that they never purchased. I Spoke with Sandy and she refused to do that, she said that the money has to go to the administrator company ( the administrator are LEONARD CURTIS . ) I asked Sandy why after six months they still hold this money,and why they have not paid to the Administrator yet? and she excused with the Director of the company who has been way...... Yes that what she told me. I contacted the A1travel again after a month and she excused again and said that they are waiting for the administrator to find out how much money they have to pay, as after 7months they still did not know how much they have to pay( it doesn't make a sense to me) therefor I contacted the administrator - Leonard curtis and spoke with Katie and she told me that they sent the statement since last year, and A1 travel are nor responding to their letters as well, so it's look to me that that A1 travel are not willing to do anything about it.
Now it's has been more then 9months and A1 travel still hold this money, I ve emailed Sandy from A1 travel a couple times and I ve not heart back from her......



Does anyone else have the same situation????

I have lost the trust to this A1travel, and its look to me that it does not want to pay this money.
Does anyone else knows what is the legal proceeder ???
Please people help me out , this nonsense has to stop.


Regards,
Koko

budgetflyer

So the administrator wants A1 travel to send payment for a flight that didn't take off ?
Sounds dodgy to me.

Alan_Bowen

There is nothing dodgy about the administrator but that may not be the case with A1. The law is quite clear, if an agent collects money on behalf of the operator, it belongs to the operator from that moment onwards and if the operator goes bust, the administrators have a duty to collect the money and then distribute it to the creditors. A1 ought to know how much they owe as they know how much they collected and to say one person has been too ill from August to May the next year to deal with it is nuts and an excuse. A1 appears to be a trading name of the ABTA member Chadwell Travel of Essex, ABTA F9077 and may be in breach of the ABTA Code of Conduct. You should write to A1 sending the letter 'to be signed for' and send a copy to ABTA Consumer Affairs, 30 Park Street London SE1 9EQ, and say that as you have now waited more than 8 months, unless you have confirmation that a refund is being processed, you will issue legal proceedings to recover the loss on the basis of their breach of contract and duty to act with sufficient skill to enable you to make a successful claim against the bond of Kiss Flights. You can start proceedings on line at www.moneyclaim.gov.uk but if you paid by credit card, not a debit as the time for claiming has passed, you could also seek a refund from your credit card issuer on the basis that the failure to pay the administrator has prevented you making a valid CAA claim and therefore under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Crad, you want a refund from the card company. Good luck

koko.btn

Thank you Alan, for your respond and suggestion, I really appreciated.
I have emailed ABTA and explained them the all citation, but they email me back saying that they had forward the email to A1 travel, and if they do not respond in 14 days, i should write back to ABTA, so i guess they want to first give an option to A1TRAVEL to sort this out, is that correct?
It’s been one week already and have not hear from A1, I will wait one more , and will definitely write back to ABTA as I also think it’s a breach of ABTA Conduct.
In the mean time will write and provide all the documents and prove i have about A1 to the credit card as well, and will state them section 75.

Yes, it will be a long journey but i am not going to give up from this money.
Thank you very much again Alan.
Regards,
Koko

LFITT

We are in the EXACT situation as KOTO.
Booked two days before travel and kiss went bust therefore A1 have our money.

Our stories are so similar its uncanny. We spoke to exactly the same people on the phone and at the administrators and seem to be getting no where.

Have you got any further with it?
We need this money back urgently its over £500
Thanks

jonnymcs

bagand96 wrote: »

Whilst you may be extremely unhappy, this may be absolutely correct. You did not book a package holiday with A1 Travel, you booked "Flights & Hotel". There is a big difference.

A1 Travel are only an agent (not a tour operator) and they booked your flights with Goldtrail, and then your hotel through a hotel provider. The key thing is these are two separate bookings. No different than if you had booked the flights directly with Goldtrail and then booked a hotel directly.

The problem here comes that with it being seperate bookings, one is not dependant on the other. The hotel could still provide the room, it is not their fault Goldtrail went bust and your flight was cancelled. Therefore you are bound by the cancellation terms on your accomodation contract, which may well be no refunds.

This scenario has been very common recently, with the failure of Goldtrail, Kiss Flights, and XL before. However this is all in A1's terms and conditions that you will have accepted. It would have been the same had you booked on many websites that sell you a "Flight & Hotel" rather than a package holiday.

Final chance, do you have travel insurance, or did you have it relating to this trip?

I am still waiting for my refund for the flights after numerous telphone calls although A1 now say (yesterday) my claim has been passed to their accounts dept for approval so i'm hopeful for some money back shortly.
Regarding the accomodation it wasn't A1 travel's fault Goldtrail went bust but its wasn't mine either & they didn't make any effort to find an alternative flight at the time. My money for the hotel seems to be lost although my credit card company are looking at it for me at the moment so here's hoping!!

Needless to say I wont be booking an on-line holiday again.

LFITT

Has anyone ACTUALLY recieved a FULL refund from A1 yet!?

happy35

i havent had an email about 5 weeks ago saying should take about a month to get my money, they are refunding in dates of travel order.

When I e-mailed they said they were refunding those who were due to fly in July 2010

koko.btn

I still Have not got any progress.
Sandie from A1 does not respond any more, last time She did, she said again that they are still waiting to hear from the Administrator, but i rung again the Administrator and they told me that they had sent the statement since last year and that A1 are not responding as well.
I have written to ABTA as recommended by Alane above, but i have not heart back from them.
I also have written to the credit card, but still waitng on that.

What everyone could do you is :
Please write the whole story to Simon Calder, Watch Dogg from BBC, and the travel section in Guardian.
I can not post links as the forum does not let me, but you can google them.


Hopefully they will be interested in making a story out of that, and to help us to speed up the process.
Also have a look at their Facebook page there are other people affected as well.



For me its been 10 months, and I want my money back, they charge me for something they never provided and still holding this money, is not that illegal?

Regards and good luck to us all.