Thomas Cook Collapses..
 

So, how you gonna get home, guv?

What a nightmare.

Thin,aristocrat 🐕

After all, it's not a big surprise

I kept getting the tail-end of this all weekend and finally heard the name. Before credit cards, Thomas Cook was our "goto" for travelers checks. Do folks have any recourse in such situations other than travel insurance???

Depends on what kind of holiday they booked. If it is a package holiday, it should be ATOL protected.If it is flights only &/or accommodation booked separately then it might only be the credit card company that people can turn to.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...s-live-updates

Also: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...36f_story.html

It looks like people on package holidays are protected, people who only booked flights may need to rely on their insurance. The UK government is repatriating Brits, not clear what is happening with other nationals - apparently there are a lot of stranded Germans too.

Thanks, Odin and thursdaysd.

Seems there is also a(nother) political row over Boris's government's refusal to bail the company out. Although it does seem that the hole they were in was mega-deep.

I found their world-wide rail timetable very useful back in the day, but they stopped publishing it a few years back (it's now being published by a former employee). I still find the Rail Map of Europe useful, again with a new publisher.

The oldest tour company in the world. Management helping its self to the cash instead of investing in the company. Same old story.
It is as yet unclear if the European Thomas Cook companies are affected by it all in any case. The Dutch who are booked with a TC company are covered by a scheme and will get home OK. Germans will no doubt have a similar scheme.
Those yet to leave are being rebooked on similar holidays with other operators just in case.
Only those who booked a charter flight, or didnt book through an agent need their travel insurance.

Another good reason to have insurance - you never know when a company you have part of your trip booked with could go belly up, no matter how big, or old.

It seems to depend on which airline or company the trips had been booked.
Most German tourists will be flying with Condor which is still operational and is only allowed to bring back tourists. But not to take anyone from now on to their holiday destination.
As far as I understand the regulations re. bankruptcy... which is not really far ;-)

Very little row about not bailing this one out. UK holidays of this format and their airlines have been going bust every year since I was a lad. The industry was/is well set up to carry out this work because it happens every year ( in fact the industry carries its own tax to pay for all this stuff). Just this time it was a big one. I suspect the Chinese company trying to buy it was on the side of the hedgers (who made a killing).

The UK has far more important things to do at the moment, the parties are at their own throats each trying to out suicide the other. Labour has announced that it will destroy the UK's two most profitable industries and the Conservative party have found a new unknown blonde to wave at Boris. Perhaps by the 31st, we may have gotten back to talk to Europe.

It's interesting to read that the Chinese company were prepared to cough up 900 million and the remaining 200 million (which was suddenly requested by the banks, and actually not part of the original bailout) would have been less than the cost of repatriation...

I think everyone needs to sit up and take note of this. It's a huge company, been around something like 140 years and has tens of thousands of employees worldwide. Part of the issue is undoubtedly the competition from websites that allow us to be our own travel agent, but I think it's also down to tour and flight operators being expected to run the tightest margins imaginable. Every time I hear someone whinge about flights being overbooked, or having to pay extra to choose a seat or check a bag, or expecting a better hotel room than they actually paid for, I think about those margins. The public are uber-unrealistic in this regard, and wants something for nothing. This is a direct consequence.

I suspect it is a HUGE "surprise" for some people. What kind of a person would book something with Cook if they KNEW this was going to happen? Right, nobody.

"I found their world-wide rail timetable very useful back in the day, but they stopped publishing it a few years back (it's now being published by a former employee)."

Unfortunatey the world-wide timetable(contained bus and ferry schedules too) called the Overseas Timetable is not published anymore since TC suspended it.

It is only the European Rail Timetable which is still being published.

I'm also a fan of it and it's a pity how few travellers realise how useful a printed timetable can be even in this digital age.

As far as Belgium is concerned, since October 2017 Brussels Airlines serves the airports peviously served by Thomas Cook.

I think the talk of being "stranded" is a bit hyperbole. No one is in Antarctica, Thomas Cook doesn't fly to unusual places nor have packages to places where you can't easily leave. No place they go is without other airlines and an airport, so no one is stranded, and most people are being flown home by others or can just book a flight themself. At the worst, they are out some money. The use of the word "repatriation" in the press is also alarmist, these people are on holiday, they aren't in war zones or refugees.

I don't think they ever were big on travelers checks in the US, I think American Express was the main vendor, there used to be Travelex also but they've been out of business a while.

Most people don't know the financial stability of vendors, so it is a surprise for them. Cook has been in trouble a long time, they were on the verge of filing for bankruptcy over five years ago. The problem is when airlines or companies are unstable, they can be exempted from travel insurance sometimes and the policy may have a list of whom they don't insure which you have to read. Cheaper travel insurance policies don't even cover financial default, anyway. At least not in the US. I remember WOW airline went under and a lot of people (including me) didn't know they were about to do that, luckily I didn't book a flight on them although I was helping book a trip for someone who was thnking of it. I didn't know that was a bad idea.

The Dutch branch has cancelled flights from tomorrow. It isn't bankrupt apparently but can't guarantee the flights - all on other airlines, not TC planes.

People can be stranded - they don't take out insurance because they are in the EU and think they don't need it, or they fly to the US without, and they can't afford to pay for a new flight home. Most who book TC holidays are not well off and save up or year for their fortnight in the sun. The British flew on now grounded TC planes, so their flights just aren't there, and there isn't the capacity on other flights to get them all home, even if they could afford to buy a new ticket. So they may not be in some far flung corner of the world, but they might as well be.

My son was caught out by WOW, he was in Iceland at the time. Luckily he could afford to get a new ticket, and eventually got the money back from his insurance.

Wrong. People with TC vouchers booked something with TC as soon as it became clear that it was going bust. Vouchers would likely be worthless when it goes bust. Booked package is ATOL protected. Some booked hours before the High Street shops closed.

Yeah, they have High Street (Main STreet) shops all over. Filled with all kinds of printed brochures for all kinds of destinations and holidays. Talk about an outdated business model. Very sad for the staff, of course. Some, i'm sure, were very proud to work for one of the best known 'British' companies (OK, not really). For anyone who doesn't know, TC is a British institution among many. Old people love it. Middle aged people remember TC holidays when they were children and use it. Sad but that's what happens when the world changes and you don't.

Something I never understood and will never understand. Not only for these problems, but also in case of illness, accident or, even worse, sudden death.

A 20% rise in cost due to Brexit was cited as one of the reasons.

Also, it's the beginning of the end for the "airline industry". In a few years' time it'll become clear that Airlines and many travel orgs are stranded assets.

The world only ends once

EU regulations supply most of the guarantees for repatriation, replacement options and refunds. People in the UK are very lucky that this happened before Brexit.

Let's see what today and the next days brings. Belgian TC tourists have been flying Brussels Airlines for the last two years. Today Brussels Airlines announces that they will stop flying the TC routes.

"People in the UK are very lucky that this happened before Brexit." "Management helping its self to the cash instead of investing in the company."

UK-based travellers affected by TC's collapse are largely protected by two industry programmes - ATOL and ABTA bonds - which predate all EU traveller protection rules. Unlike the EU-mandated minimum rights, the ATOL and ABTA systems actually mobilise, almost immediately, replacement repatriation flights. TC went bust about 9 am UK time on Sep 23: by midnight over 90% of travellers due to return that day had been taken home on flights organised by Britain's Civil Aviation Authority,

The threat of Brexit has contributed to TC's problems (by causing a 20% devaluation in sterling, and therefore helping depress demand for foreign travel and inflating TC's debts): but had Brexit actually occurred after TC's collapse, UK-based travellers would have had almost identical protection. Though I'm usually the first to criticise our current hapless government and all its doings, the efficiency with which our public servants have swung into pre-planned action has so far been quite remarkable. Probably because our ghastly Prime Minster was out of the country at the time, so couldn't interfere, and our Trotskyite Leader of the Opposition was plotting the destruction of his own party. Parliament, being suspended, couldn't get in the way either.

"Management helping its self to the cash instead of investing in the company."
TC's basic problem was that over the past decade it spent money like a drunken sailor on assets (like planes) it ultimately didn't need. It finally collapsed because it couldn't service its £1.9 billion debt burden. Some may argue - possibly correctly - that senior management were overpaid. But if so they were overpaid because they met shareholders' expectations of lavish spending on new toys and investor payback. It's stupid, fabulously inaccurate and downright libellous to claim "management was helping itself to cash instead of investing". The truth is that shareholders agreed to pay management absurd bonuses for irresponsibly excessive investment.

OK, blame management AND the board of directors. Now is everyone happy?

But in fact management IS under a lot of pressure and scrutiny related to salary and bonuses paid as the company was headed toward bankruptcy. I think that post was just loose language - 'helping itself' which could imply stealing or cooking the books to appear to meet performance hurdles, charges which I have not seen made. But cash, etc paid to management is a key point now under formal investigation so the OP is not as wildly far off as you suggest.