Holiday Company gone into administration and have been bought out 25 September 2022 at 4:45PM in UK holidays, days out & entertainments 29 replies 1.4K views

CovTeej

Hi

I have a holiday booking with a company that went into administration on Friday and was immediately bought out by another company, which seems a bit fast but there we are.  It is for a long weekend due to start on the 14th October, it is a club event so there are 100s maybe 1000s of bookings affected.  We have all now received emails advising that we all need to claim the money we paid to the 'old' company back from our banks/credit card issuers and then pay it to the 'new' company, has anyone come across this before, it seems a bit concerning to us.  Surely with less than 3 weeks to go the holiday park should have been paid by now?  We are worried that when we arrive the group booking will have been cancelled and we will have possibly paid twice, depending on how long the banks take to return our original money.

Thank you

onashoestring

Was this Arena Travel that has been acquired by Leger Shearings Group ?

lisyloo

CovTeej said:

Hi

I have a holiday booking with a company that went into administration on Friday and was immediately bought out by another company, which seems a bit fast but there we are.  It is for a long weekend due to start on the 14th October, it is a club event so there are 100s maybe 1000s of bookings affected.  We have all now received emails advising that we all need to claim the money we paid to the 'old' company back from our banks/credit card issuers and then pay it to the 'new' company, has anyone come across this before, it seems a bit concerning to us.  Surely with less than 3 weeks to go the holiday park should have been paid by now?  We are worried that when we arrive the group booking will have been cancelled and we will have possibly paid twice, depending on how long the banks take to return our original money.

Thank you

How did you pay?
banks don’t pay out for liquidations.
you would be ok on credit card and possibly debit card if paid recently.
sound like a standard email.

So how did you pay?
and can you call the holiday park to see if your booking will be honoured? (Ideally get that in email before your travel

was it a package?
was it covered by Abta? ATOL? Or tta?

CovTeej

onashoestring said:

Was this Arena Travel that has been acquired by Leger Shearings Group ?

Yes it was.

CovTeej

lisyloo said:

How did you pay?
banks don’t pay out for liquidations.
you would be ok on credit card and possibly debit card if paid recently.
sound like a standard email.

So how did you pay?
and can you call the holiday park to see if your booking will be honoured? (Ideally get that in email before your travel

was it a package?
was it covered by Abta? ATOL? Or tta?

Paid by debit card and am currently waiting to see what the bank says, others in the group have already been told no by their banks, the nest option is to claim off the company's insurance   The company was covered by ATOL but the holiday wasn't a package holiday but accomodation only.

lisyloo

When did you pay by debit card. Asking as there’s a chargeback scheme that has a time limit.
was it visa?

do you have holiday insurance?
does it cover supplier failure?

was your booking covered by ATOL
i.e. Were you sent an ATOL certificate with your booking?

CovTeej

lisyloo said:

When did you pay by debit card. Asking as there’s a chargeback scheme that has a time limit.
was it visa?

do you have holiday insurance?
does it cover supplier failure?

was your booking covered by ATOL
i.e. Were you sent an ATOL certificate with your booking?

The deposit was paid in March, the balance in July, some people in the group paid more than 2 years ago  The chargeback timelimit is 120 days however Visa and Mastercard have both agreed that for any payments for future events, such as holidays, the time starts from the date the event should have happened.  The issue is that Leger are saying that the holiday is going ahead but they want us to claim the money back from the Arena booking and pay them.  The banks are quite rightly refusing the chargebacks as the holiday is not cancelled. If we do not sign the Letter of Assignment from Leger confirming that we will pay them once we recevie a refund we cannot go on the holiday, if we do not receive a refund we will still need to pay Leger so could end up paying twice.

I don't have holiday insurance when I holiday in the UK, I don't see the point and I have been using Arena since 1992 with no issues so didn't expect them to go to the wall.

As I respnded to your previous post, the company is a member of ATOL and CLIN but as the bookings were for accomodation only (we all have to make our own way there) then there is no cover.

We are told that as a last resort we can claim back on their Financial Failure insurance but how long will that take?  We have been assured that our money is safe and that the holiday is going ahead but how can that be?  If that was the case why this claiming back and repaying?

I have contacted the venue to see if our bookings still stand but due to GDPR they probably won't tell me as the booking would be in Arena's name.

onashoestring

CovTeej said:

We have been assured that our money is safe and that the holiday is going ahead but how can that be?  If that was the case why this claiming back and repaying?

What is the exact wording of this assurance ?I would also be asking the same questions as you are . You have been told that  customers must pay again for their holiday - so it would seem if people don’t repay the holiday won’t go ahead .

To claim a chargeback from your bank you need something in writing that says your holiday with Arena is not going ahead . 

CovTeej

onashoestring said:

CovTeej said:

We have been assured that our money is safe and that the holiday is going ahead but how can that be?  If that was the case why this claiming back and repaying?

What is the exact wording of this assurance ?I would also be asking the same questions as you are . You have been told that  customers must pay again for their holiday - so it would seem if people don’t repay the holiday won’t go ahead .

To claim a chargeback from your bank you need something in writing that says your holiday with Arena is not going ahead . 

We've had the letter from Arena with all the blurb about the administration and takeover, and the instructions are on there about claiming back and repaying and signing the Letter of Assurance, we haven't seen this yet, we are still waiting for that to arrive so don't yet know the exact wording.  There are people who will pay again regardless so the holiday will in all likelihood still go ahead and I would have thought that at this late stage the accommodation will still need to be paid for, as will all the guests and the sound engineers etc etc that are part of the event.

lisyloo

I saw you said the company did ATOL, but that does not mean all bookings are ATOL protected as you know, hence why I asked if the booking was protected.

It looks like you are asking all the right questions.

do you have legal cover on home insurance?
this can be used for free legal advice from a solicitor as well as a claim.

Alan_Bowen

Arena almost certainly hasn't paid the venue, they owe customers money from cancelled holidays in 2020 and they have ceased to trade. Leger is happy to run the holiday, and presumably, take the profits but only if they get paid and Arena certainly don't seem to be in a position to do so.

I suspect the credit and debit card companies will eventually take the hit. Still, this failure was only announced publically over the weekend and I suspect no banks have yet advised their chargeback staff of the failure. There is certainly no ATOL cover as there were no flights involved, their website claims that if there is no ATOL protection, the holidays were protected by financial failure cover through Zurich Insurance. What worries me is that every other operator was told last year that Zurich had pulled out of the market altogether last September because of Covid, so I just hope that the claim on the website remains correct!