On the Beach and Loveholidays leave ABTA
 

I really haven't had the chance to read the fallout of On the Beach and Loveholidays decision to leave ABTA over their decision about refunds relating to the Coronavirus. But thought it important to at least bring it to the attention of the Dibb. Here is the link to Travel Weekly and their view on the story:-

https://travelweekly.co.uk/articles/...igns-from-abta

Regularly used to use OTB for cheap European trips. Will need to understand the implications of this a bit better.

Thank you for posting.

If I see any more re-actions to this I will post here if that's OK - it's hard to know if it is a "throwing your toys out of the pram" syndrome by OTB and LH or something more serious. Time will tell.

Travelmole article about Loveholidays:-

https://www.travelmole.com/news_feat...etreg&region=2.

Are LH and sunshine the same thing? The first article refers to sunshine.

Good idea to keep it all on one place.

Do you know what it means for people with existing bookings by any chance ?

I think that this will make people wary about booking with smallertravel agents if they can just choose to withdraw at anytime. At least bookings already made appear to be still covered.

Also if they go bust you won't get any money back via ABTA either or possible help getting home if stranded abroad.

I didn't think ABTA gave money back or helped get you home if stranded - they help resolve complaints. The situations you refer to are covered by ATOL/CAA.

Loveholidays are a separate company and have no ties to Sunshine. On the Beach owns Sunshine.

There's a lot of confusion over ABTA and ATOL - the former is basically a trade association for the industry and help deal with complaints. ATOL is a financial protection scheme which includes repatriation and refunds in the event of company failure (e.g. Thomas Cook).

No news about existing bookings and how the companies will deal with any further complaints in the future. Customers certainly won't have ABTA to turn to.

Thank you, useful to know. My mum has an ongoing complaint about lack of refund. One of many people complaining about the same thing. Will be interesting to see how it pans out. Suspect money lost long term now.

I am an ITA. It basically means you are not covered with anything that would relate to ABTA.