Thomas Cook
- Thread starter Maximum Triceratops
- Start date
Associate
- Joined
- 23 Aug 2019
- Posts
- 502
Such a shame for the workers of Thomas Cook, never nice to see anyone lose their jobs (Unless ofcourse they deserve it). Hope they all get jobs fast, hope all the people who have booked get their money back quickly too.
Associate
Bosses receive a lots of bonus cash that should pay it back plus should sell 12 of 27 A321 fleet to pay off heavy debt that would keep firm afloat. terrible news and hope people get money back in time.. so it gone and it may happen to other travel firms in the future..
Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Mar 2013
- Posts
- 9,150
I notice there's already a petition on change.org.
Soldato
Some more to the story of why there was no rescue, and perhaps why no bailout:
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/...lapse-sets-up-250-million-hedge-fund-windfall
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/...lapse-sets-up-250-million-hedge-fund-windfall
Soldato
Well I booked out Novemebr hol to the Canaries 6 mths ago and thought it was with TUI until I got an email from love holidays this morning saying it was a Thomas Cook hol, they're going to try and arrange alternative flights and not to try and call them because they're dealing with people in date order and will email me. I rang them anyway and the VR said they're too busy to speak to me at the moment.
WE're atol protected so can get a refund, however loveholidays say (on their website and VR) they will try and arrange alternative flights. The problem we have is it's very difficult for both myself and the gf to get annual leave at the same time, so if we book something else it will have to be in the same week. There are flights available for about £100 more than we paid (once seat allocation and baggage goes on top) but the outbound flight is much later in the day and the return flight is much earlier, essentially turning a 7 day holiday into a 5 day one.
So I'm loathe to book something else until I've seen what loveholidays can offer, but at the same time I can;t help thinking that when they finally come back to me it'll be a refund or holiday on dates we can't do
WE're atol protected so can get a refund, however loveholidays say (on their website and VR) they will try and arrange alternative flights. The problem we have is it's very difficult for both myself and the gf to get annual leave at the same time, so if we book something else it will have to be in the same week. There are flights available for about £100 more than we paid (once seat allocation and baggage goes on top) but the outbound flight is much later in the day and the return flight is much earlier, essentially turning a 7 day holiday into a 5 day one.
So I'm loathe to book something else until I've seen what loveholidays can offer, but at the same time I can;t help thinking that when they finally come back to me it'll be a refund or holiday on dates we can't do
Soldato
I've heard about this! Flight prices going up and down like they are shares. What's the best way to go around this? Use private browsing so that it doesn't remember the cookies? Or out-of-the-box (freshly installed) browser? Change IP address using a VPN? MAC address spoofing? Spoof the Windows serial number or use a Linux box? The obvious one to me is don't use "login with Facebook" / "login with Google" etc.
Soldato
I would not walk into a high street branch to do that, however i booked online via crystal ski. It was £360 per person 1 week. Accommodation, flights, and the coach from Geneva to France, all sorted by them, easy.
Nothing wrong with that business model, the problem is having shops and staff on the high street when you can do this online. But most importantly, too many managers.
Caporegime
I always use incognito mode to check prices and only use normal tab through Quidco when actually booking and use the cookie then so it tracks.
if you have a VPN, you can use that. Also UK airports have high taxes, sometimes you can save loads by flying a short flight out of UK to Amsterdam or Paris before embarking for the rest of the journey, you can save hundreds.
In my experience there is no hard and fast rule, sometimes going through Expedia with flight and hotel works out cheaper than separate, sometimes cheaper direct with airline. Quidco often have 10% or more cash back through Expedia which can swing Booking with them make more sense. But if the difference is tiny I rather save first then money back later, which could take like a year.
I’ve gone to Amsterdam for 2 at £240 each for 3 nights, Copenhagen 4 nights for £400 alone, Florence 4 nights myself, Lisbon 4 nights for £350...etc all including flight with BA and a stay in lovely hotels, some even including breakfasts. Some times I book both hotel and flight together through BA.
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Associate
- Joined
- 24 Nov 2013
- Posts
- 475
A friend of ours is (was) an air hostess for TC. She’s highly experienced mainly doing long haul flights so hopefully she’ll find another employer fairly quickly
Soldato
Well I booked out Novemebr hol to the Canaries 6 mths ago and thought it was with TUI until I got an email from love holidays this morning saying it was a Thomas Cook hol, they're going to try and arrange alternative flights and not to try and call them because they're dealing with people in date order and will email me. I rang them anyway and the VR said they're too busy to speak to me at the moment.
WE're atol protected so can get a refund, however loveholidays say (on their website and VR) they will try and arrange alternative flights. The problem we have is it's very difficult for both myself and the gf to get annual leave at the same time, so if we book something else it will have to be in the same week. There are flights available for about £100 more than we paid (once seat allocation and baggage goes on top) but the outbound flight is much later in the day and the return flight is much earlier, essentially turning a 7 day holiday into a 5 day one.
So I'm loathe to book something else until I've seen what loveholidays can offer, but at the same time I can;t help thinking that when they finally come back to me it'll be a refund or holiday on dates we can't do
Well just had an email from love holidays saying they can't find us alternative flights and are refunding me in full, offered me a £50 off voucher and I've found the same hotel for the same dates (albeit the outbound is 4 hrs later) for the same price but this time the flights are with easyjet. So that is now booked and from memory I'll need to go on the easyjet website to pay for us to sit together, that'll probably be about £40 each way for both of us so taking into account the £50 voucher will only work out about £30 dearer overall.
Hopefully loveholidays can honour the holiday I've just booked and haven't advertised something they're unable to fulfil. I went on the easyjet site to see what flights they had on offer for our dates and they were sold out, however I then bought a package deal including easyjet flights. I guess this is because loveholidays buy blocks of seats from easyjet knowing they'll sell.
Depends what you mean by bailing them out, if you mean why are people moaning that the government didn't pay to keep them afloat until people were home (and cancel outbound journeys) it's because it would have saved the taxpayer money. It's going to cost more to bring everyone back by hiring planes, paying overtime rates to pilots, etc than it would have to pay to keep TC going (in an inbound only capacity only ofc) until everyone was home.
If you mean why are people moaning that the government didn't pay to keep them in business and force debt restructuring, selling off assets to keep going, etc then it's because that again would have saved the taxpayer money. Now the taxpayer is going to have to foot the bill for all the redundancy payments and JSA for everyone who loses their job at TC.
My guess is that the government didn't want the bad press and to lose voters who didn't understand it was the right call so they just **** the bed. Understandable really as there are still people who think that bailing out the banks was a bad idea because the Sun/DM told them so >.>
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Caporegime
If they got bailed, the same would have happened in a few months time tbh
Just had the same thing happen to us, holiday for 6 next June booked through Loveholidays, been cancelled and offered a £50 voucher.
Not even that. £200m migth have lasted them 3 weeks. Heard on the radio this morning they lost £1.6bn last year and its only now they are due to pay their suppliers from the big summer rush on holidays. £200m is peanuts on that scale.
Caporegime
Fair enough
As someone else has said, the overheads of renting the stores along would have been mental, let alone paying wages
At their peak when they took over another couple of holiday companies they had 1200 stores around 8 years ago and have cut them to 544. Still way too many. Buying those other two companies were a big mistake when they had so many high street stores and the world was moving away from that model.
Personally there is no way for TC to come back from a £1.6bn loss but the damage was done years ago by the senior executives who paid themselves handsome bonuses of millions.
This is the real reason. Hedge funds blocked the rescue. Your ire should be aimed at them, not the Government.
I was saying this to a friend yesterday. There really needs to be a government entity that investigates the collapsing of very large UK companies to determine whether the board of directors were "sloppy" with their running of the business. If it can be proven that they were negligent, then a criminal case should be bought forward, and the courts given the powers to reclaim back salaries + bonuses for at least the last 5 years.
Executive leaders expect to be paid the megabucks for running these companies, some when they **** up, they should have to pay the price. So might say this idea is barbaric, but it's likely the only way that we can stop executives pocketing a boat load of cash, and then sinking the company.
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