STA Travel - no way to get my 20k back after 2 years of work

GingerVicar

hey everyone 

in 2019 I booked a once in a lifetime trip for my family to travel the world costing us 20K - we had saved a long time for this - We booked with STA and also took out their insureance - I paid via bank transfer as the amount was too big to put on any of my credit cards. Well you know what happened! The ticket we bought was a Flexi ticket - I can not find anyone talking about this type of ticket!!!!! - It seemed that STA would pay the airline after we had taken the flight allowing us to be truly flexible up to the point of departure. However this means that the airlines don't take responsibility, ATOL don't take responsibility, Insurance doesn't take responsibility (epidemic clause) The bank doesn't take responsibility as it was a transfer........so no what - I have made a claim as a creditor but the liquidation company tell me there will be nothing .......so anyone got any ideas - I have been truly stumped as to what to do next - 

[Deleted User]

Unfortunately, you'll just need to wait to see if you get anything from the administrators - but it's unlikely.

Did you not put any amount at all onto a credit card?

GingerVicar

no sadly - what a mess - thought I had it all covered with the £5000 holiday insurance 

Olinda99

what is the wording of the epidemic clause in the insurance policy

jon81uk

Are you sure you aren't covered by ABTA or ATOL, what exactly did you book, flights only or a package?
See STA Travel ceases trading – what you need to know (moneysavingexpert.com)

What exactly does the pandemic clauses of the travel insurance say?

Alan_Bowen

Forget about the administration,  that is not going to yield any return for your money. Did you just book flights or was there even one night's accommodation or car hire along the way in which case the sale should have been ATOL protected as a package and the CAA would be liable.

If the sale was just flights, then were the tickets issued straight away, in which case no ATOL protection was necessary but the airlines do become responsible, as they appointed STA as their agent. They may have been foolish enough to allow them to issue without paying them, a unique situation in the UK, but that does not detract from the fact that STA was an appointed agent, and like it or not, the airline is responsible under the simple law of agency. If the tickets were not issued at the time you paid, then the sale becomes ATOL protected again.

STA's failure had little to do with the pandemic, they were in difficulty in 2019 due to the wildfires in Australia which put students off from booking and this represented a huge part of their business. Had you cancelled the flights before you were due to travel or was the whole holiday cancelled by STA prior to their failure? if you were due to travel after the date of their failure, and your sale was ATOL protected, then you should certainly be protected by their ATOL licence, so long as you put the original claim in within 12 months of their failure.

sheramber

But  if there was a refund due from the airline would it not go to STA as they handled the booking. The OP had no contract with the airline.

No money had been paid to the airline so it was still held by STA.

Alan_Bowen

If tickets are issued, there is certainly a contract with the airline, it is this issue which allows agents who issue tickets immediately upon payment to avoid the need to issue an ATOL Certificate

Sheepfan

STA Travel for a long time sold "SATA" tickets, which were very different to most other flight tickets.  Page 8 of the document below gives more details.  They were issued on 000 paper rather than say 074 for KLM or 125 for BA.  When I worked there (albeit over 10 years ago) the financial arrangements in terms of supplier payment and ticket issuance were different from normal IATA tickets so I am afraid the OP may well be correct in terms of their summary.   

https://www.afta.com.au/uploads/436/customer-update-no.-2-faqs.pdf

Alan_Bowen

We still do not know whether this was a flight-only booking or had accommodation attached which makes a substantial difference. Did you contact ABTA as they usually accept liability if the circumstances of the contract mean no one else is required to accept responsibility and if you did, what excuse did they give for refusing to help?