Insurance info if Thomas cook goes bust

[Princesa]

Just realised it was a bit blurred

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by Princesa

Just realised it was a bit blurred

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Interesting wording because 'announced' isn't a defined term. Does it mean speculation? It will be given its ordinary definition:

"make a formal public statement about a fact, occurrence, or intention"

There is no formal public statement "announcing" the possible insolvency to my knowledge.

The contract is also interpreted contra proferentum- that is against the maker.

So there's a distinct possibility they'd try to say it isn't covered, but I think it would be in your favour if you went to FOS and made the above argument .

But I wouldn't book now simply expecting a refund on that without expecting a fight.

If you booked before this week it should certainly cover you if you already had the insurance, but that's not your situation.

However you are suggesting buying the insurance now for a pre booked trip? Again expect the first point to be made by them and your argument in response. But I'd be surprised if they don't ask you if you've got a trip booked, who with, then decline to write the policy anyway on proposal.

Also you'd need to consider the policy overall- would it cover you for pre booked trips generally? Is there wording elsewhere that would mean TCs situation would be excluded from cover?

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Princesa

Just realised it was a bit blurred

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Technically there has been no insolvency warning given, just a lot of opinion.

Legally you should be safe to buy the cover and be protected (but I wouldn't delay as usually bad news comes on a Sunday evening - think back to XL, Flybe, Monarch etc. all went under on a Sunday evening)

If something bad did happen I'd expect the airline to put up a robust defence against a claim (which would have most rollover and accept the airline view) but if you stand firm you should eventually get the repayment made

Of course this could all be irrelevant - well except for the fact that insurance is always relevant so being reminded to take it out is no bad thing

[Princesa]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

Interesting wording because 'announced' isn't a defined term. Does it mean speculation? It will be given its ordinary definition:

"make a formal public statement about a fact, occurrence, or intention"

There is no formal public statement "announcing" the possible insolvency to my knowledge.

The contract is also interpreted contra proferentum- that is against the maker.

So there's a distinct possibility they'd try to say it isn't covered, but I think it would be in your favour if you went to FOS and made the above argument .

But I wouldn't book now simply expecting a refund on that without expecting a fight.

If you booked before this week it should certainly cover you.

However you are suggesting buying the insurance now for a pre booked trip? Again expect the first point to be made by them and your argument in response. But I'd be surprised if they don't ask you if you've got a trip booked, who with, then decline to write the policy anyway on proposal.

Also you'd need to consider the policy overall- would it cover you for pre booked trips generally? Is there wording elsewhere that would mean TCs situation would be excluded from cover?

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Yeah we’ve DIY booked flights (on a credit card) and hadn’t found anyone to insure us for supplier end failure before a year out until someone mentioned holiday extras yesterday, and so we haven’t yet got insurance. We’re buying insurance online so it doesn’t ask who we’ve booked or are flying with, no point buying it if we won’t be covered though.

Im not sure what you mean about ore booked trips being covered in the last paragraph, sorry.

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by Princesa

Yeah we’ve DIY booked flights (on a credit card) and hadn’t found anyone to insure us for supplier end failure before a year out until someone mentioned holiday extras yesterday, and so we haven’t yet got insurance. We’re buying insurance online so it doesn’t ask who we’ve booked or are flying with, no point buying it if we won’t be covered though.

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I think you'd likely win with FOS but expect a fight - maybe not, but expect it.
If you paid with CC you'll get your money back. If it fails when out there, government brought back Monarch passengers but no guarantee they'll do it again.

When I bought airline failure insurance a few years back online, you had to tell them the flights you had booked for the policy. More fool HEs if they are accepting new policies now for TC.

[baboons]

Originally Posted by Guest

I disagree, I've never liked the TC product and have paid over the odds to other providers to avoid travelling with them.

I'm not alone though, the Scotsman published the result of a global survey that ranked TC as the 72nd worst airline in the world; which sounds bad as it is, but it was out if 72 - they are officially the worst airline on the planet if you believe that survey.

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That was a PR release from a travel claims firm who decided to award a third of all marks to how well the company paid out EU compensation. TC scored 7.6 out of 10 by customers rating their service in that survey.

There are also more than 72 airlines on the planet. TC are definitely in trouble, but this sort of PR fodder to get a company in the press is wisely ignored.

I've had excellent service from them over the past couple of years and really hope the best for the fantastic crew we've met.

[Lucky23]

Originally Posted by Princesa

Yeah we’ve DIY booked flights (on a credit card) and hadn’t found anyone to insure us for supplier end failure before a year out until someone mentioned holiday extras yesterday, and so we haven’t yet got insurance. We’re buying insurance online so it doesn’t ask who we’ve booked or are flying with, no point buying it if we won’t be covered though.

Im not sure what you mean about ore booked trips being covered in the last paragraph, sorry.

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We are in the same position , waiting to buy insurance with end supplier failure one year in - if anything happens now we would get our money back as paid on credit card, so no point buying this policy as doesn’t do end supplier failure so will only protect same as credit card at moment.

[julie b]

I’ve just phoned tsb as we have platinum insurance..£17 month.
We have flight only booked through Thomas cook.which is not atol protected.
I’ve been told we are covered on our insurance because we booked direct with Thomas cook for airline failure..
So that’s a help if it does happen...

[YorkshireT]

Some advice from someone who had 3 Monarch flights booked should the worse happen, and if it did, it would happen quick.

Re getting money back, double check your flight booking. It transpired some Monarch flight only sales were ATOL protected as the CAA has insisted they had to do it when it was looking very iffy- the same may happen here.

Next if you paid by credit card, then you should have no problems getting a refund.

Next if it is by debit card, you should be OK via chargeback so contact your bank straight away if it does go under, this can then be claimed but it can be a longer wait and is not as certain as you do not have the same Consumer Credit Act protection as with a credit card.

When Monarch went under, I had three flights booked, and each one of the above applied to a different flight- but I got all my money back in the end.

More problematic is if you need another flight. It will probably be more expensive and the early bird catches the worm, as other flights will likely only go up when people start looking for the same dates, same airport etc.

When Monarch went under I saw this on the Internet very late in the evening, it was looking like it might, and when I woke up early morning it had gone. I immediately got on Ryanair and booked alternative flights to Portugal, before others started doing the same. So my advice is be prepared just in case, and do some alternative flight scoping now, so you are ready to go if it goes under.

By being quick, overall it cost me around another £1000 across my 3 flights for my family for new flights (we’d got good prices with Monarch as very early bookers) but it could have been much worse.

Finger’s crossed it won’t, but it is all in the hands of their banks at this point and if I were their lender I would be very nervous indeed.

[TeeKayDawn]

Originally Posted by baboons

That was a PR release from a travel claims firm who decided to award a third of all marks to how well the company paid out EU compensation. TC scored 7.6 out of 10 by customers rating their service in that survey.

There are also more than 72 airlines on the planet. TC are definitely in trouble, but this sort of PR fodder to get a company in the press is wisely ignored.

I've had excellent service from them over the past couple of years and really hope the best for the fantastic crew we've met.

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We’ve also had extremely good service from TC and are hopeful of a good outcome.

There does seem to be a lot of scaremongers on this thread though only posting about the trouble TC are in without posting that those articles are also stating people who have or are in the process of booking have nothing to worry about.

In fact apart from the FT article the only other article that seems to prove TC’s demise is taken from a daily newspaper that has a personal issue with TC and continually posts predominantly negative articles, so I’ll take it with a pinch of salt.

The caution we’ve taken so far for our holiday with TC in Oct 20 is that we’ve stopped payment at the deposit point. Our worse case scenario is the loss of £500 we’ll pay the balance at the very last minute now even though we could pay off in full now if we wanted to.