Lowcostholidays collapses – your rights as 140,000 hit by travel chaos

Westin · 15 July 2016 at 8:30PM

hugo15 wrote: »

Due to go to New York on Thursday. I'm trying to contact the hotel to see what the status is. If I claim against the credit card company I am assuming that it is the amount of the original booking I can claim and if it costs me more to re-book then that is just my bad luck. If some one could confirm that would be really appreciated. Stressed!

You can only potentially reclaim from your credit card provider the cost of the transaction made and not an additional amount for your new accommodation.

I would suggest calling the hotel and checking the status of the reservation. It is likely you will have to rebook and pay again but ask them if they will honour the original Lowcost rate.

N20Y1D · 15 July 2016 at 8:58PM

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

You will have to pay again, but check with your hotel as the amounts outstanding are so large, some had already resold the accommodation. If it is available, pay again and make a claim under s75 of the Consumer Credit Act against your card issuer.

I paid in full using an AMEX however this was months ago, and its for a stay in a couple of weeks so obviously if i rebook now prices are a lot higher, would i be able to claim back the difference if i booked via another agent??

++

edit: just seen this answered elsewhere, thought as much - however would my travel insurance cover this type of thing?

Westin · 15 July 2016 at 9:01PM

N20Y1D wrote: »

I paid in full using an AMEX however this was months ago, and its for a stay in a couple of weeks so obviously if i rebook now prices are a lot higher, would i be able to claim back the difference if i booked via another agent??

No, you can't unfortunately claim the difference in price.

JJB1979 · 15 July 2016 at 9:25PM

I am set to leave in less than a week.

Flights are okay, I think. Transfers have been cancelled and I need to rebook.

My hotel booking says non-refundable. I called the hotel and they said my booking is still in place (but I guess they may be unaware of what has happened yet). I asked if it had all been paid and the guy on reception said yes. Often non-refundable is because it's paid in advance (I remember the option of paying more for refundable, but I went for the cheaper non-refundable). Could it be that my hotel is paid for even if it goes against what the administrators are saying?

I unfortunately paid by debit card. Anyone here had experience with chargeback and if it works easily?

hugo15 · 15 July 2016 at 9:27PM

hugo15 wrote: »

Due to go to New York on Thursday. I'm trying to contact the hotel to see what the status is. If I claim against the credit card company I am assuming that it is the amount of the original booking I can claim and if it costs me more to re-book then that is just my bad luck. If some one could confirm that would be really appreciated. Stressed!

Spoke to Thomas Cook who we are flying with and they confirmed the flights were paid for :-)

Phoned the hotel and they confirmed our booking and said it had been pre-paid. Just noticed on the hotel booking that Low Cost Holidays booked it via Lowcost Beds with Expedia with a Travelscape LLP booking reference. Hopefully it will be OK. Have e-mailed the hotel too as I would like something in writing. If I don't get a response I'll probably ring again on Monday to double check.

richardw · 15 July 2016 at 9:41PM

hugo15 wrote: »

...Phoned the hotel and they confirmed our booking and said it had been pre-paid. Just noticed on the hotel booking that Low Cost Holidays booked it via Lowcost Beds with Expedia....

Does the Expedia website recognise your hotel booking?

Alan_Bowen · 15 July 2016 at 9:41PM

It seems they may have been in trouble for some time and it is the accommodation they were contracting directly that has not been paid. If your accommodation voucher shows it was booked through another company such as expedia, it may well have been paid, although if you had booked direct with expedia it would have been cheaper. If you have only booked in the last month, it is very unlikely anything has been paid and you may have to pay again.

If you are travelling to Spain and Portugal in particular it is vital to contact the hotelier immediately as there is a serious overbooking issue and they would be delighted to resell the rooms if you don't tell them you still want to stay.

If nothing else, I hope this helps remind people of the benefits of booking with a UK based company, this was Spanish and claims to be protected by a scheme run in Palma but the government appears to be staying silent. You may wish to use google translate to send them an email, I fear they don't know what they are doing

st0ne5ish · 15 July 2016 at 10:07PM

We are going to Lanzarote on the 26th July we booked our hotel and transfers through lowcostholidays.com in October last year and paid in full using a credit card.

The hotel groups customer service does not open until Monday so I don't know if they have been paid by LCH already, whats the chances?

I also spoke to the credit card provider to ask if we would be covered but they just told us to email the details to their disputes team who will get back to us.

The concern is if the hotel hasn't been paid they might increase the cost to book the room again and the CC company might try and get out of paying for the original amount.

What a nightmare...

ses6jwg · 15 July 2016 at 10:21PM

I paid back in January for a stay in Dublin in September, hotel for 3 nights paid £200 no idea why but I used my Nationwide Flexplus debit card.

I have emailed the hotel to see if the booking is still valid or not.

I have no idea why I used a debit card it's not normally what I do. What is my best bet here? I checked my Flexplus travel insurance and surprise surprise, insolvency outside the UK is excluded... chargeback via debit card?

agrinnall · 15 July 2016 at 10:23PM

Brownpack wrote: »

Their paperwork says "We are established in Spain. Spain, just as the UK does, has financial protection requirements for travel companies. We comply fully with those financial protection requirements. We are licensed with Spanish registration no AVBAL/636"

Does that mean that the is an ATOL-like organisation from which we can make a claim?

See Alan's answer here.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=70999324&postcount=6

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Lowcostholidays collapses – your rights as 140,000 hit by travel chaos

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