thomas cook :(

[aladdin]

if thomas cook goes bust, how long does it take to receive money back? i'm weighing up my options of cancelling now and rebooking elsewhere (losing the deposit, unfortunately) or waiting to see what happens, but a big part of that decision will weigh heavily on how long it will take to receive any refund if thomas cook do fall into administration? i saved very hard for this trip so can't just book something else without receiving my money back

[Midges17]

Originally Posted by aladdin

if thomas cook goes bust, how long does it take to receive money back? i'm weighing up my options of cancelling now and rebooking elsewhere (losing the deposit, unfortunately) or waiting to see what happens, but a big part of that decision will weigh heavily on how long it will take to receive any refund if thomas cook do fall into administration? i saved very hard for this trip so can't just book something else without receiving my money back

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When Flyglobespan went bust (good few years ago now!) I was surprised how quickly we got our deposit back, as like you we needed it to afford to re book! I filled in an online form & attached the proof of booking.
Obviously that doesn’t mean thomas cook will be quick but it’s a much larger company then Flyglobesspan was so that may help.

[ChrisS]

Originally Posted by aladdin

if thomas cook goes bust, how long does it take to receive money back? i'm weighing up my options of cancelling now and rebooking elsewhere (losing the deposit, unfortunately) or waiting to see what happens, but a big part of that decision will weigh heavily on how long it will take to receive any refund if thomas cook do fall into administration? i saved very hard for this trip so can't just book something else without receiving my money back

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Try to avoid the knee jerk reaction you're considering as your holiday is 299 days away, a few more days of 'wait and see' may not be too bad and could see the return of your deposit, as to when, it's that piece of string.

[lorrie36]

Yea I was also wondering this as my son has booked his holiday (flights only) for next month with TC.
Scary business.

[YorkshireT]

With 299 days to go- Chris has given good advice- just wait and see, be ready then to pounce on new flights.
How long to receive money back? Depends on method of reclaiming. If it is credit card AMEX do it immediately, but others can take a week or so. If ATOL someone said KPI is 30 days but KPIs are there to be broken, and this will be the biggest payout they have ever had to deal with- I would guess it could be up to 8 weeks.
If end supplier failure- similar.

[Junogirl1]

We have booked to go next month with Thomas Cook. Flights only. So we’re more than a bit worried at this point.
Well, my mother’s very worried. But there’s nothing we can do until it either happens or doesn’t. I don’t see any point in worrying. My attitude is very much ‘wait and see’.

[duchy]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

With 299 days to go- Chris has given good advice- just wait and see, be ready then to pounce on new flights.
How long to receive money back? Depends on method of reclaiming. If it is credit card AMEX do it immediately, but others can take a week or so. If ATOL someone said KPI is 30 days but KPIs are there to be broken, and this will be the biggest payout they have ever had to deal with- I would guess it could be up to 8 weeks.
If end supplier failure- similar.

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Intasun
Laker Holidays
Both were far bigger than TC (and came as a bigger surprise) so the assumption that as it's big it will be slower may not be correct.
Some other operators may take a rebooking and get you to sign forms of indemnity assigning the funds to them to use for your new holiday so they are the ones waiting not you.
For a booking for next year I'd definitely wait and see rather than lose deposit.

[400ixl]

Originally Posted by lorrie36

Yea I was also wondering this as my son has booked his holiday (flights only) for next month with TC.
Scary business.

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Just flights are not ATOL covered, so he would not as far as I understand it get anything back from TC/ATOL if they went into administration. He would need to go through either his travel insurance (minus the deposit) or via his credit card provider (hopefully one was used and not a debit card).

[aladdin]

I'm not in anyway having a knee jerk reaction, and i fully intend to bite the bullet and wait if i have to but the holiday has been paid in full. this is over two years of saving and im not at the luxury to be able to book something else without receiving this money back first as i don't have any credit cards that have a balance anywhere near high enough, and if said refund process takes months and months, that means that we will have no holiday booked for next year because it won't be affordable so it will mean delaying another year after having saved so hard to pay this one off in full. the holiday has already been delayed as we would have been leaving today but had to push back. so my question was to see if for me personally, losing just the deposit would be less risky than having to wait months. i have little idea how long the atol process takes?

edit: i know in the grand scheme of things not having a holiday seems like a petty worry but one of the passengers really isn't very well and this may well be her last one so this trip is incredibly important to us and my insurance refuses to cover liquidation but they were also the only insurance that would cover the medical issues we needed it to without too many restrictions.

[EssexSue]

I feel very for everyone affected by this and being very selfish here one more source of competition gone is bad news for all of us.