Teletext Holidays stops taking new bookings while Alpharooms cancels all existing trips

MSE_Emily

Teletext Holidays has stopped taking new bookings, while sister company Alpharooms says existing trips will not be fulfilled. The move comes after their membership to the Travel Trust Association, a trade body that ensures travel companies abide by industry regulations, has unexpectedly come to an end...

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Teletext Holidays stops taking new bookings while Alpharooms cancels all existing trips

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Ganga

MSE_Emily said:

Teletext Holidays has stopped taking new bookings, while sister company Alpharooms says existing trips will not be fulfilled. The move comes after their membership to the Travel Trust Association, a trade body that ensures travel companies abide by industry regulations, has unexpectedly come to an end...

Read the full story here:

Teletext Holidays stops taking new bookings while Alpharooms cancels all existing trips

If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply.

Will save a lot of grief in the future .

bagand96

Finger on the pulse MSE 🤣

@Westin reported this 3 days ago https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6308347/teletext-ceases-trading

Alan_Bowen

The scenario seems to be getting more curious by the day. The Travel Trust Association (TTA ) effectively threw them out of the organisation, and since they arranged the ATOL licence, that was automatically cancelled by the CAA. This means there is no longer any form of financial protection in place and on the face of it, the company is unable to trade. According to the CMA they still owe £1.2 million in refunds for cancelled holidays and presumably don't have the money to refund. This means the refunds must come from TTA itself. they operated using a trust account so that should protect customers..

Over the weekend it appears a number of customers who travelled last week, half term, arrived at their hotels only to find Teletext Holidays hadn't paid for the rooms and had to pay again. They will also be looking for refunds on top of the existing £1.2 million so most companies at this stage would give up and let their regulator deal with the fallout. However, although their days as a tour operator are over, TTA appears to have said today that they intend to continue to operate as an online travel agency. Hopefully the court when it hears the case will take steps to prevent that happening but it looks as though this saga is far from over

Krankyoldman

I cannot understand how these two companies have been able to continue trading for years by failing to return customer deposits !!
In my particular case, Alpharooms have still not refunded the deposit I paid in February 2019, despite several attempts, citing a voucher only policy (with auto extension on expiry), and this year, ignoring all contact attempts.
I will have to go for chargeback, but I suspect that it will be too little too late .

Krankyoldman

My Bad - Booking was actually made in January 2020 - It just seemed longer !!

Alan_Bowen

The company is reported this morning as having appointed liquidators! Despite this all may not be lost, if you paid by credit card, contact your card issuer and ask to make a section 75 claim. If you used a debit card, you are too late as this has a very restricted time limit for claims but you can contact the Travel Trust Association who were supposed to be holding all customer funds in a trust account. The contact point is trulytravelbookings@ttatravel.co.uk (truly Travel being the parent company of Alpharooms)

macfkc

I had to repay for my accommodation on 18th October 2021, this was a holiday I had booked and paid for 21st Dec - 28th Dec 2020
Paid almost £3,000 for Xmas week with kids, couldn't go due to Covid, TT made me pay an extra £960 on 18th Dec to secure a future booking for 18th October, wouldn't let me book for Xmas 2021
When we arrived at Tenerife, TT had cancelled my booking so I had to pay an extra £1254 to stay, I paid by Credit Card, can I claim back from them?
This Self Catering holiday (not even in half term) has cost me £5,214. Three adults, One 10 year old
Please advise, I am fuming!! 

Westin

macfkc said:

I had to repay for my accommodation on 18th October 2021, this was a holiday I had booked and paid for 21st Dec - 28th Dec 2020
Paid almost £3,000 for Xmas week with kids, couldn't go due to Covid, TT made me pay an extra £960 on 18th Dec to secure a future booking for 18th October, wouldn't let me book for Xmas 2021
When we arrived at Tenerife, TT had cancelled my booking so I had to pay an extra £1254 to stay, I paid by Credit Card, can I claim back from them?
This Self Catering holiday (not even in half term) has cost me £5,214. Three adults, One 10 year old
Please advise, I am fuming!! 

If you mean you had to repay the accommodation provider/hotel/apartments direct then NO, you can't make a S75 claim against that accommodation supplier for the new booking.

Alan_Bowen

It will be a lot simpler to send all the details to the email address I posted in the post above and explain exactly how much you are out of pocket. The company ran a trust account which should mean your money is safe and the Travel Trust Association will pay you back. They are often faster than the CAA or ABTA, mainly because their failures have been small, this may take a little time as I suspect they had no idea of all the problems that occurred before the business closed down.

[Deleted User]

macfkc said:

I had to repay for my accommodation on 18th October 2021, this was a holiday I had booked and paid for 21st Dec - 28th Dec 2020
Paid almost £3,000 for Xmas week with kids, couldn't go due to Covid, TT made me pay an extra £960 on 18th Dec to secure a future booking for 18th October, wouldn't let me book for Xmas 2021
When we arrived at Tenerife, TT had cancelled my booking so I had to pay an extra £1254 to stay, I paid by Credit Card, can I claim back from them?
This Self Catering holiday (not even in half term) has cost me £5,214. Three adults, One 10 year old
Please advise, I am fuming!! 

Sadly you are probably going to be out of pocket. You can't make a claim against the hotel, they did nothing wrong.

Your claim would be against TT. You should get what you paid them for the hotel back, but the difference between the price you paid and what TT charged you would have to be recovered by Small Claims Court or similar. Given that TT is apparently in administration now the chances of there being any money left for you is slim to none.

I just hope TTA have enough cash to issue refunds, and do it promptly.