Lowcostholidays collapses – your rights as 140,000 hit by travel chaos

gardner1

Mathev wrote: »

Hi. We booked with lowcostholidays a few months back for a hotel end of September. Yesterday I contacted the Hotel and asked if the booking is still valid and has been fully paid. They confirmed this over the telephone telling me that it was prepaid and all we needed to do was pay room tax on arrival.

They confirmed this via email. After looking at the low-cost holidays website statement I am just querying whether they can still cancel the booking despite theHotel saying that it has been prepaid? Any informed advice will be welcomed. We are insured but paid fof our hotel with debit card. I don't want to take any action before encountering any problems. I am hoping that because our room has already been paid for,that the booking will remain valid.

Don't be surprised if you get an email from hotel tomorrow saying your booking has been cancelled by LCH/HOTELS4U. We had same sort of email from hotel ...then 5 hrs later room had been cancelled but because hotel had my email/tel number offered me same accommodation for almost same price

Edwardevans606

We booked to go to Beatriz Hotel and Spa in Lanzarote in August. Numerous emails to their booking team and hotel provided nothing. Called them today and all they could tell me was that we have been taken off the system for our dates, and to call back on Monday. Not reassuring, so we may have flights but no accomodation. Looking at availability and prices we cannot afford an alternative so if we have had our room rebooked I'm not sure what to do.
I am hoping section 75 covers flights as well if we cant go. I am reading a lot of comments on Twitter regarding banks promising refunds within 7 days using chargeback.....seems debit card payers are better off than credit card payers.......

wendylou38

Exactly same thing happened with us. at 8am then 10am yesterday we were told by the hotel that our booking was still valid and on their system. I said that I wanted to pay for it over the phone as I had spoken to Hotels4U that morning who said that it would be cancelled (probably Monday). The hotel said not to worry, it was still confirmed and just to call Monday morning to confirm/make payment if necessary. I then phoned the hotel again at 7pm last night and was then told that my booking was removed from their system and there was no availability left!. Was very upset as I had 4 flights and no accommodation and had been trawling websites all day and was unable to find anything in our price range for our dates (we go in 1 weeks time). I realised I would probably lose the money spent on flights as I had paid by debit card and they were valid anyway. Finally, today found an apartment in our price range and booked the last 1! I spoke to the nationwide to start a chargeback and they said they will claim the lost accommodation money back for me. I've ended up having to pay an extra £500 for the alternative hotel but it was either do that or lose £1500 on the flights. I booked through website e-dreams that are connected to Ryanair if that helps anyone. Blimey will need a holiday to recover from the stress of this. Fingers crossed everyone gets something sorted out.

leylandsunaddict

wendylou38 wrote: »

I booked through website e-dreams that are connected to Ryanair if that helps anyone.

Edreams are not connected to Ryanair. Ryanair have taken various court actions against them already for their misleading website and advertising of non existent fares.

Engadine

Lowcost holidays did not work directly with all of the hotels and apartments they offered. They bought a lot from other wholesalers, in most cases these wholesalers have not been paid, it is the wholesalers who have the contract with the hotel not Lowcost. In most cases the wholesalers will not have been paid so they will cancel bookings. If you have paperwork for you accommodation booking with Lowcost and it tells you who the wholesaler is then you should try contacting them. If you don't, then try contacting the hotel or apartment, they should be able to tell you who your booking is actually with.

Bear in mind that it may not be possible for you to pay the wholesaler for the booking you had with Lowcost, you may have to make a new booking with them and the cost will likely have increased since the time you booked.

Engadine

peachyprice wrote: »

The problem I can see arising is:

Hotel send invoice to H4U
H4U ask LCH for the money you have paid them
LCH have gone bust so don't have your money to pay H4U
H4U don't pay the hotel invoice
Your room gets cancelled.

Most wholesalers will cancel bookings because they have not been paid by Lowcost. Lowcost bought accommodation from many different wholesalers some based in the UK and some overseas

Edwardevans606

If we cant get accommodation we're going down the route of trying to claim everything off the credit card through section 75. That includes the flights, transfers and parking. My credit card bill shows lowcostholidays, not ryanair or the hotel so it is for that reason I will claim every last penny.....or at least try!

Engadine

wendylou38 wrote: »

In my case, I am due to go in 10 days and I have trawled every single website and prices have gone through the roof for accommodation now (shameful cashing in!). That is if you can even find a hotel room somewhere.

Do we have any legal rights that the hotel can only charge us again the original amount we paid (if we are able to re-book the same room/hotel)? or can they just hold us to ransom and name their price?!

Prices increasing is not shameful cashing in due to the failure of Lowcost. Prices have increased due to the drop in the £ due to brexit. Plus OTAs and wholesalers in many cases operate fluid pricing models, so prices can change daily, they all advertise rates are subject to availability and frequently only x amount of rooms will be available at a certain rate. The next x number of rooms can be higher prices.

Unfortunately you do not have any legal rights to make the hotel or supplier Lowcost used to honour the rate you paid to Lowcost. The hotel or supplier have not been paid by them so in a lot of cases they will cancel bookings and will charge you the best available rate, they are quite within their rights to do this I'm afraid

deeboy1

Things I've learnt in the last 24 hours...

1. The travel industry's workings are extremely complex and opaque and difficult for a consumer to understand. In my case, both my accommodation bookings with lowcost travel have a footer in the confirmation emails mentioning one or even two intermediary wholesalers in the chain that they've bought beds from. No wonder margins are so thin and my hotels can't tell me if they've been paid. As well as contacting the hotels direct, I've also contacted these wholesalers to ask if they can tell me anything.

2. You are very unlikely to be covered under your insurance policy. My Nationwide policy certainly doesn't cover me, and as far as I can see most don't. Even if I did have 'end supplier failure' cover, I can't see it would cover me for the failure of these intermediary travel agencies anyway. I have tried to look today for an add-on insurance that would cover all this, but no joy so far. So anyone being told by their hotel or anyone else that they will be able to claim on their insurance should be very skeptical indeed and check their policy before making any decisions. Frankly, the advice of the liquidators on the low cost website that you may be able to claim on your insurance is at best wishful thinking and at worst, well I won't say.

3. It isn't at all clear that claiming from your credit card provider under section 75 is likely to succeed because it isn't designed to protect you against the failure of intermediaries and agents in this complex industry model. People need to be careful about making assumptions they'll get their money back through this route. Amex were very helpful when I contacted them today and somehow reckon I'll be getting my money back (we'll see...) but they aren't pursuing the 75 route, it's some other dispute mechanism. From reading others' experiences the card providers seem to all be taking different approaches and again things seem to be amazingly complicated and far from transparent.

4. When purchasing hotel rooms from an online travel agent only (i.e. not with flights as part of a package, as many of us do because it's often cheaper and/ or more transparent to book the flights direct with the airline) there is absolutely no industry protection whether or not the OTA is UK-based or a member of ATOL/ ABTA as far as I can see. It's also clear the hotel might not be paid for the rooms until after the stay. It therefore seems sensible to avoid bookings where the OTA takes payment upfront, because your money is at risk. In future, if using an OTA and there is any significant outlay, I will be booking only cancellable rates where payment is taken by the hotel in resort. This often seems to possible with booking.com, but others want the money upfront whether cancellable or not.

5. When purchasing flight + hotel you should check they they are still an ATOL bonded/ ABTA company based in the UK every time you book with them, as many of us still wrongly believed that lowcost was, and didn't pick up that this had changed.

6. Some OTAs are likely to be financially healthier than others. I'm definitely going to be very careful going forwards and stick with the better known brands/ bigger companies like hotelopia, hotels.com, expedia, etc. as well as trying to avoid any upfront accommodation payments.

shaun_moorhouse

Lowcost holidays have taken £1030 from us as a deposit stating at the time of booking that they needed to pay for flights in full immediately. I have checked with the airline and they have not booked at all. The paperwork indeed states on the front our full flight schedule as well as the transfer booking and details of accommodation. There is no flight reference on thir confirmation. This demonstrates planned deception surely ? Easyjet have no booking confirmation at all for us.....