Holiday Nightmare - Advice Section 75

Twerly

Hi All,

Sorry for the long post

as a group of 12 we had arranged and booked a holiday of a lifetime to South Africa. departing on 18th April 2024  To book accommodation and Safaris we used a local Cape Town independent CAV (Custom African Vacations), owned by a trusted advisor we had used for a previous trip. CAV was brilliant, made bookings, great discounts and great communication.  We paid is advance to get the best discount using credit card over secure encrypted link. We received receipts from payment and receipts from CAV.  We received holiday accommodation vouchers also.   I did email some of the hotels earlier this year checking they had our booking and received positive confirmation. 

All sounds great .........

To my horror I received an email on 4th April 2024 from reservations at one of the hotels saying can I chase out agent as they have not any payment and her emails are being rejected.  I got hold of the Agent, she said she paid last year and it was a mix-up and she will sort it. Not fully believing her I then sent emails to all the hotels and Safari companies asking if they had received payment - not a single one had been paid. !!!!!   We thought we had all out documents and would have tuned up on SA in 10 days and discovered nothing was paid.

Cindy from CAV was still communicating on 5th April insistent that she had paid all the suppliers and it was just a mix-up and insisting she was not scamming us. her company is a registered SA company on their equivalent of companies house. She did make bookings with each supplier, so my assumption is took our money in good faith and then her business ran into difficulties and then rather than be honest commenced the lies. One of our friends went to SA back in February 2024 booked through Cindy and had a great holiday with no issues with her hotels or Safari and even went on the Blue Train. She only booked 2 weeks before Travel so I assume this was why!. 

Each of the 6 couples paid separately and have individual receipts and confirmation of payments to CAV and can provide proof of payment, I can also get each service provider to confirm CAV did not pay the invoice by the due date. We are each going to commence Section 75 action on each of our cards to try and recover the money we paid to CAV,. 

Can anyone add anything we may need or any issues you see. I have been investigating and see hopefully we are covered. There are some reports of having section 75 claims against a travel agent fail when a hotel or airline fail as the section 75 rule is between you and the service provider and not the third party. In our case the failure is with the CAV the agent not completing its contract and defaulting with our money.  CAV web site and email is now failing.  I have sent email to other contact points with the owner of CAV asking her to send an honest email conforming CAV has closed and all money lost and therefore unable to complete the service we paid for.  I very much doubt I will get a response. 

PS - we are still going on holiday, I have now personal contact with each supplier, but some miracle we can still go to all the locations, price has gone up by 25% but hey ho it is year later. I have a very busy week ahead re-booking and making secure credit card payments direct to the suppliers - lessons learnt there !!

Steve 

born_again

If you paid the independent co to then pay hotels etc, then there is no debtor creditor link. Unless this is a package holiday. Which it really does not sound like (could be wrong, as can't find site you used)

All you can do is each party will need to speak to their CC co one this.
If only one party paid, then that makes it even worse.

enthusiasticsaver

Goodness what a nightmare.  We have just booked a South African trip for later this year ourselves.  We have booked through a UK travel agent though who has a South African agent they use. Our contract is with our UK travel agent and payments go to them so if we were to use S75 it would be via them. We have an ATOL certificate which says if their South African agent stops trading we are protected. Did you not have the same guarantee. 

Each of you will need to use S75 separately with your CC providers. 

WillPS

If Section 75 fails because of the 'middle man' issue then simply ask your issuer for a chargeback instead. You should have more than enough detail to prove that the agency has not fulfilled their contract with you.

Edited to add: you won't be able to get any consequential losses that way tho (i.e. you won't have any coverage for the prices which are now higher than you had originally paid with chargeback, but you might with S75).

Was any travel insurance secured at the time of the original booking?

Twerly

born_again said:

If you paid the independent co to then pay hotels etc, then there is no debtor creditor link. Unless this is a package holiday. Which it really does not sound like (could be wrong, as can't find site you used)

All you can do is each party will need to speak to their CC co one this.
If only one party paid, then that makes it even worse.

Hi, we each paid separately, I ensured this was the case.  We each have separate receipts.  The creditor -  debtor link is with the Agent that has gone bust so this is why I believe we are covered

Twerly

WillPS said:

If Section 75 fails because of the 'middle man' issue then simply ask your issuer for a chargeback instead. You should have more than enough detail to prove that the agency has not fulfilled their contract with you.

Edited to add: you won't be able to get any consequential losses that way tho (i.e. you won't have any coverage for the prices which are now higher than you had originally paid with chargeback, but you might with S75).

Was any travel insurance secured at the time of the original booking?

Hi, thanks accept that prices have risen, this is a fact of life.  Our claim is against the company that folded so I belive this does meet the Section 75 criteria, the issue would be if one of the hotels went bust as we then paid the middle-man and there is no direct credit link to the hotel. I agree Chargeback is an option also. 

born_again

Twerly said:

born_again said:

If you paid the independent co to then pay hotels etc, then there is no debtor creditor link. Unless this is a package holiday. Which it really does not sound like (could be wrong, as can't find site you used)

All you can do is each party will need to speak to their CC co one this.
If only one party paid, then that makes it even worse.

Hi, we each paid separately, I ensured this was the case.  We each have separate receipts.  The creditor -  debtor link is with the Agent that has gone bust so this is why I believe we are covered

If you have proof they have gone bust then chargeback is the best & fastest option.
But you will not be able to do this till after date of travel, which would be the same with S75 & S75 is a longer process.

DullGreyGuy

Broadly what happens between your agent and the hotel is not really any of your business generally... just because you pre-pay the agent doesn't mean they pre-pay the hotel or it could be they paid the hotel before even taking your booking like tour operators do and just allocate their pre-bookings to customers as and when they are made. 

Ultimately if it is a case that they have failed then as others have said, chargebacks are a more robust mechanism in this scenario and no fear of the item being contended on the basis of middlemen.