This company does not care about customers!!Booked for turkey in Aug, unfortunatly goldtrail went bust, I have sent my forms off 3 times to this company to sign off and send to atol, last lot was 22/8/10, just got a email 28/10/10 and they have informed me that as soon as their bank signs it off the form(MY) will go then to atol.
A friend who was going on the same holiday but booked through travelrepublic, and sent the same info to their company on the same day as me has recieved a letter from atol that their form has been received. mine is 8 weeks from now. how can they play with peoples lives like this, money intrest, not customer care.
janette
Yes I agree with you A1Travel are a joke been waiting since August to get my £1200 back from them for the Goldtrail fiasco.They don't answer emails and it's very hard to get through on the phone and when you do they are next to useless.
not my experience I'm afraid.. i use A1 frequently and never had a problem, those suffering from the outfall of last years failures have as yet not all received their due, not only from this company but others also,and some will have a while to wait yet if their claims were not in order,
It's not really the fact I haven't got my money back it the lack of communication and the indiffrence this company treats you with.I have used A1Travel many times before and it seems they are wonderful when things are going right but when they go wrong 
if you read through other complaints and the TO forum you will find the same complaint made against many travel agents/tour operators including the big 3, and frequently made against the smaller independents, having been in sales and marketing before retirement [building industry] i can understand peoples frustrations, but from a commercial point of view the independents work on a much smaller profit margin than the big boys [if they didn't you would not get your cheap holidays], and with the number of companies going under in the last 12/18 months have had their hands full, and as they work on lower margins do not have the cash to employ [even on a temporary basis] extra staff
I can only advise people to never ever EVER use A1Travel again.
I have learned an expensive lesson. In future I will always book flights direct with the airline and NOT via A1Travel.
This has the advantage that you can claim from a Credit-Card company if anything goes wrong with the airline.
I understand that its not their fault, in that they cant afford to employ hundreds of admin people to process claims.
But I can imagine they will be losing 1000's of repeat business, the cost of which is not being fully accounted for.
If they posted information somewhere about WHY it takes so long to pass on a form to CAA, then we would perhaps understand. As it is, it looks suspicious.
I have learned an expensive lesson. In future I will always book flights direct with the airline and NOT via A1Travel.
This has the advantage that you can claim from a Credit-Card company if anything goes wrong with the airline.
I understand that its not their fault, in that they cant afford to employ hundreds of admin people to process claims.
But I can imagine they will be losing 1000's of repeat business, the cost of which is not being fully accounted for.
If they posted information somewhere about WHY it takes so long to pass on a form to CAA, then we would perhaps understand. As it is, it looks suspicious.
dmx555
Your exactly right the lack of communication is the key point.Keep your customers informed good or bad news.
Your exactly right the lack of communication is the key point.Keep your customers informed good or bad news.
Just rang A1Travel and have been told they have not even started to refund people.That won't start until March 2011.When they said it will take about up to a year that year starts from November 2010
Yes I agree with the majority of you, I would never ever use them again. I am at the end of my tether with them like all of you guys waiting for a refund from last August and they (when you can get through) have nothing to add except it is a "process". Has anyone else heard if they will begin the "process" from March this year?
As we have now entered March, I would be interested if anyone starts to receive their Goldtrail refunds from A1 Travel. I was told to ring again at the END of March to get a clearer picture of when our travel date (19 Aug 2010) would be refunded. This could be a long month!
I know that other Goldtrail victims have been paid refunds but I havent heard of anyone from A1 Travel getting anything yet.
I also dont want to panic anyone as I also have not heard of anyone begin refused as yet either.
How did you hear about an END March date ?
I also dont want to panic anyone as I also have not heard of anyone begin refused as yet either.
How did you hear about an END March date ?
I sent an almost begging email about a month ago and they must have felt sorry for me and said they couldn't say then when my travel date would be refunded, but, if I were to ring at the end of March they would be able to give a better indication! Could have just been yet another brush off, but I will call them next week and see if they have started refunding ANYONE!
Stop calling A1 and call the CAA administrators. They are the people processing the claims and you should have a reference number of the claim. 90% of claims have been settled but a good number of agents, and I do not know whether A1 fall into this category, only put claims into the CAA in January, and Goldtrail failed on 16th July if I remember correctly, so naturally the claims haven't been processed yet. My fear is that you have no CAA reference because there isn't one.... demand the truth from A1 and if they won't tell you call the CAA Consumer Advice line on 020 7453 6424 and find out whether they have ever received any claims from A1. If the answer is 'no' then complain to ABTA as there is simply no excuse to be waiting 9 months for your money.
with my son's complaint about refunds, its waiting for a refund from his credit card company for the deposit he paid (£300+) he sent in the claim form last september and their excuse is that there were many claims and it will be settled ???? 
Just out of interest, what was your travel date for last year? They have said to us they had written chq's upto the 15th August departure dates (that was last week) and that ours for the 19th August departure date would be written in the next few days - yeh right!!! Will try and contact them again this week. Although I am very reluctant to do so!
Are travel date was 7th August 2010
If what A1 travel has told you about cheques being made out for all departures up to 15th of August is true then why have I not had my cheque yet ?
Going to ring tomorrow and see if I can get some answers.
Have the CAA paid out all other customers ?
If what A1 travel has told you about cheques being made out for all departures up to 15th of August is true then why have I not had my cheque yet ?
Going to ring tomorrow and see if I can get some answers.
Have the CAA paid out all other customers ?
I would imagine they will say it has gone to their accounts department for "Authorisation" and could take upto 5 weeks - that is the line they are using at the moment to us! Yes i am pretty sure the CAA has refunded plenty of people . A1 must have no cash flow whatsoever, so waiting for this years holidays to be booked before they can trickle our money back out to us.
Just rang A1travel and have been told that my cheque will be sent out middle of July.So like you said Liggers1 that's about 5 weeks.The only trouble is I don't believe them every time I ring they have a different deadline.
So it looks like I won't get my money back until I have head my
next summer holiday
So it looks like I won't get my money back until I have head my
next summer holiday
Just had an email from XXXXXX and she has said they had written chqs for refunds upto 16th August, crikey how long can it take to wrte a chq - last week they had reached 15th August departures!! Must be some sort of snail writing they use. She also said they hoped to have all chqs for August to be written by the end of June, but there were so many to write!!!! I don't expect anything before the end of July.
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