National holidays

Chelle63

I have just received a letter from National holidays stating they are back in business and do you want to book your holiday for 2021. How can this be when they cancelled thousands of holidays only weeks ago and customers are still trying to get their money back. Surely this is dodgy and should not be allowed !! 

martindow

If a company is going to continue it needs to keep trading and try to take bookings for the future.  With some cash flow they will stand more chance of being able to refund the customers who are waiting.

If someone did not 'allow' it they would be at more risk of collapsing which would not help at all.

Sandtree

Chelle63 said:

I have just received a letter from National holidays stating they are back in business and do you want to book your holiday for 2021. How can this be when they cancelled thousands of holidays only weeks ago and customers are still trying to get their money back. Surely this is dodgy and should not be allowed !! 

You are mistaken about what's happened.

National Holidays was owned by Specialist Leisure Group and that company has gone bust and is being liquidated.

Just Go Travel Group, a former competitor, has bought the Intellectual Property rights of National Holidays from the administrators for SLG. This money will be used by the administrators to help pay SLG's creditors/customers etc

So the company that has emailed you has the same name as the old company but is now operated by its former competitor and is legally a totally different company.

Frozen_up_north

Except they have the same logo, same name and same customer database. I too received a letter a few days after (finally) receiving a section 75 refund from my credit card company. So much for the “bond” that they still mention, that didn’t pay out to me.
I told them not to bother me again (not as politely as that though).

Sandtree

Frozen_up_north said:

Except they have the same logo, same name and same customer database. I too received a letter a few days after (finally) receiving a section 75 refund from my credit card company. So much for the “bond” that they still mention, that didn’t pay out to me.
I told them not to bother me again (not as politely as that though).

Thats not an exception at all.... thats exactly what their competitor Just Go Travel bought from the administrators but they didn't buy the company itself. Intellectual Property is all those intangible things like copyrights, brand names, logos, marketing materials, trademarks etc. You do get phoenix companies where those involved in the original company then set up a new company who come in and buy up the IP but in this case its an established other business thats bought them.

Some companies will buy IP from an administrator and retire the brand just as they don't want others to have it but others will want to operate under that brand as whilst the company behind the brand was insolvent the brand has goodwill with its former customers. 

Brands, and the goodwill associated with them, can be worth a lot of money... if you look at the administrator's report they got a lot more money for the IP than they anticipated which would suggest that there was a bidding war with someone else who wanted them. As already mentioned that money paid to the administrators will then be redistributed to those owed money by the insolvent company.