AMOMA.com Closure and Upcoming Bookings

DPSo

Hello,

I asked via email hotel if my booking valid and they have payment and got This answer: At this stage we cannot confirm whether your booking is confirmed or not. You’ll have to get in touch with your agent as we do not take bookings directly with Amoma.

Its second email from them, first of all they suggested me to contact handling agent, but i said them that hotel was booked and payed by amoma.com webpage... Any ideas about what agent they asking?
Hotel in Malta. Trip on december, payed full prie 422eur..

A_Bout_De_Souffle

Had booked with Amoma to go to Croatia later in the month. Paid £1450 at the beginning of August. Despite being assured by the hotel that my reservation was fine as late as 11am this morning, I received an email at 1pm saying the booking had been cancelled. They said there was nothing they could do and referred me to a company called Sunhotels (an intermediary I presume).

I paid by debit card so I immediately contacted my bank. To be fair, they were great, they were aware of the Amoma collapse, told me how to go through the disputes process and said they would refund the money I'd paid.

vibo

Shawbee wrote: »

Hi,

I've contacted the hotel who said the booking is confirmed, and while i was on the phone to them on Saturday they tried to take the payment from the supplier - and they said they got the money. However this was AFTER amoma went bankrupt. I'm afraid something doesn't sound quite right, everybody's hotel has been cancelled and this hotel says they claimed the money on saturday - could this be right? Is my hotel booking likely to be cancelled during the week or is there reason to believe the hotel booking wont change?

Hard to say, but getting prepayment for these bookings is quite unusual. Usually, you just receive written approval to invoice after the stay.
Ask the hotel what intermediary the booking actually came through. Because even agents that give a credit card for payment don't activate the card until the day of arrival. So them being able to get paid so far in advance sounds unusual to me.

Could be the agent at the hotel is mixing up the billing instructions to invoice post stay as actual prepayment, i'm not sure

vibo

Most likely they rang the wholesale agent who resold to Amoma

Jen. wrote: »

[/INDENT]So I have received some feedback from Hilton regarding my booking for December.
They confirmed they have the booking reserved under my name but... "if Amoma cancels there is nothing we can do, as they would be paying us for the booking under the special rate plan. I would advise to get in touch with them directly as you made this booking with Amoma, not with Hilton directly."


I responded that I am unable to contact Amoma and would like confirmation of cancellation before I contact my credit card provider.


Response from Hilton "We cannot cancel until the supplier cancels. I rung them querying and was confirmed it will be cancelled, but until received I cannot confirm cancellation to you. It should not take long, but I am afraid I cannot provide a time line"


So I'll wait a few more days and try again - however, I am surprised that Hilton managed to ring AMOMA?


Interested to hear other's experiences...

RenataN

Hi! Does anyone knows when and how this “right “ works? if it works
“your credit card company will refund you for the extra money you will have to pay out to stay in the same hotel.”
We booked hotel for our 10 years wedding anniversary, transfers and trips from hotel after.. (Flight is booked separately) Paid for it with CC, and already contacted Bank.. Now i was trying to find other travel agent/ website to book this hotel but all prices are much more higher than when we booked :( we already arranged all things with hotel according our stay and we choose this hotel specifically:( I know it’s not the end of the world, but maybe someone had similar situation?
Thanks

D_M_E

The last time I booked using AMOMA the booking was confirmed by AMOMA and, at the time, I also called the hotel a couple of days later who confirmed that a booking in my name had been made.

However, unlike the majority - all - on this thread, in my case we paid the hotel after arrival and checkin, so I wonder what would the hotel say if you phoned the hotel and asked if you could pay on arrival - double payment, I realise, but your stay would then be assured if the hotel agree.

Meanwhile, press your debit/credit card provider to reclaim your payment, and any other incidental expenses such as the difference between what you gave AMOMA and what you actually had to pay to end up with what you booked.

eskbanker

RenataN wrote: »

Hi! Does anyone knows when and how this “right “ works? if it works
“your credit card company will refund you for the extra money you will have to pay out to stay in the same hotel.”

There are two separate mechanisms for reclaiming unsuccessful card transactions - credit card payments are covered by Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, which is therefore a legal right.

There is also an industry scheme known as chargeback, operated by Visa and Mastercard, which has less legal standing but applies to both debit and credit card transactions.

They each have their pluses and minuses, some of which are summarised at https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/visa-mastercard-chargeback/

Unlike chargeback, Section 75 claims can indeed entail consequential losses, such as incremental costs of rebooking, but one of the big downsides of s75 is the significance of the debtor-creditor-supplier chain, which means that if you pay a 'middleman' rather than the actual service provider then card companies can decline the claims. As I understand it, this effectively means that s75 claims arising from the collapse of Amoma are highly likely to be rejected on those grounds, but happy to be corrected by any of the posters who actually work in the card industry!

born_again

eskbanker wrote: »

Section 75 claims can indeed entail consequential losses, such as incremental costs of rebooking, but one of the big downsides of s75 is the significance of the debtor-creditor-supplier chain, which means that if you pay a 'middleman' rather than the actual service provider then card companies can decline the claims. As I understand it, this effectively means that s75 claims arising from the collapse of Amoma are highly likely to be rejected on those grounds, but happy to be corrected by any of the posters who actually work in the card industry!

Quite correct. But some may decide to offer goodwill.

Vivadeladiva

Interesting, when I phoned the hotel in New York about cancellation due to Amoma, (and this is one of the finest hotels), they told me that as they get charged to receive funds from whoever pays them in the chain, they would not confirm if there had been a cancellation or not and that this would be the standard case.

Rmh876

I live in Australia and heading back to the UK for two days before flying my parents out for a surprise 2 week trip to Rio.... First the BA pilot strike to get home and then I wake up to this.

Travel insurance has said it will not cover as it’s in the general exceptions. I’ve just raised my dispute with my Visa Debit in Aus.

Devastated, I am waiting for the hotel to confirm cancellation or booking. Interesting to hear about the bank paying the additional costs of rebooking. They’ve said that they’ll get back to me end of this week. I hope you all get the money refunded and it doesn’t disrupt your travels too much.

Question is when do I tell my parents! They have no idea what is happening I’m here losing sleep ha!

Also did anyone else’s not log on to their Amoma account to get the receipts and invoice. The documents they sent by email lacked so much depth. So frustrating.