Hi all,

May i remind you all that sunescapes were also trading with a partner/sister but unrelated company flair holidays and were acting as an agent on their behalf.

your claim may be against flair holidays not sunescapes, this was the information that i could not really release earlier due to the dispute of who it was booked with.

The thing is though they knew they were going bust,must have,i booked on 2/5/08 and they ceased trading 8/5/08,but took my money!!!
Trading insolvently that is called

The thing is though they knew they were going bust,must have,i booked on 2/5/08 and they ceased trading 8/5/08,but took my money!!!
Trading insolvently that is called

That is not Uncommon. Most insolvencies that I have been involved with over the years could/should have taken place long before they did. Companies spend a great deal of time endeavouring to refinance or trade out of their problems.

The travel industry traditionally suffers from a shortage of money in the first half of the year and only comes into profit in the second half.

It is when the bank decides to say no that they go down. Many years ago I worked for a PLC where the bank pulled the plug at 1.30pm on a Friday afternoon. Everything had seemed OK until that point.

I have also come across cases where companies have jumped too soon when with proper advice/management they would not have needed to do so.

I have recently been working with one where they have avoided going bust after professional help saved them, and ensured jobs for twenty people.

fwh

My biggest grouse about all of this, is the fact that no-one from Sunescapes bothered to contact customers who had paid their money over in good faith. As a consequence, we and many other people incurred additional costs and wasted time by travelling to the airport completely pointlessly. Most customers could have been contacted via email, at no cost to the company, in good time to prevent the situation we found ourselves in. Instead, most people have been left to find this out the hard way.

The problem is who would be there in the offices to inform you that the company was going bust? Presumably all the staff, ie the people at the bottom of the chain who man the telephones would be in the process of losing their jobs, they may not even get redundancy pay.

Some might not even know.They may literally turn up for work one day and find the doors locked and not be able to enter the premises. (this happened to me years ago, but not in the travel industry). I think I read at the begining of the thread that the MD or Chairman had done a moonlight flit.

It's a dire situation and I hope all of you involved manage to get some redress from the various appropriate bodies so that you can get your monies back and rebook.

When that famous coach tour company went bust last Christmas it was pointed out that the phone lines were cut off as soon as BT realsied the bill wasn't going to be paid. So to notify all the customers would require the staff who had lost heir jobs to use their own phones as well! There's no happy answer to this.

My biggest grouse about all of this, is the fact that no-one from Sunescapes bothered to contact customers who had paid their money over in good faith.

Whilst I may agree with this comment having been involved in a company receivership I know from first hand experience it is not as simple as it may appear.

When the receiver walks in the door everything stops. He tells you what you can or cannot do or say.

He is the person who decides if you may contact customers and tell them what has happened. Yes in these days of email then a few hours at a keyboard or on the telephone whilst not changing things, would at least have given the impression that someone actually cared.

The employees may wish to contact customers and tell them the bad news - in the case of Hellenic I know some of the staff had a very good relationship with repeat customers.

I have no doubt they will feel upset that they are letting people down, but there is simply nothing they can do about it.

Strange how all these high power business people do not understand that saying sorry can be so effective.

fwh

Hi there all.
My browser directed me to this site after googling for the Sunescapes telephone number to pay my final installment on a holiday booked for the end of August to Cyprus.
Sunescapes have had £1,000 from me so far for this holiday.
Luckily i have the Customer invoice (showing flights and £500 deposit paid) and customer reciept (showing initial £500 deposit) documentation and also my bank statements show the two £500 payments made (by debit card) to HELLENIC VOYAGES , WAKEFIELD.
I spoke to a rather disconcerning gentleman at ATOL today who informed me i would be looking at a 6-10 week wait for re-imbursement 'if i have a valid claim'. ??
After printing the claim form i have a question if anyone could be so kind as to answer it for me.
Page 3 of the claim form, Documentation and Proof of Contract, asks how the booking was made.
Are sunescapes classed as 'directly with the tour operator' ? OR 'Through a travel agent' ?
Thank you very much for your time and good luck to those of you who, like me, may be facing the possibility of not having a family holiday this year.

Regards.

Dazza.

They were trading as a Tour Operator.

You do not say which bank/debit card. I believe that those with Barclays may actually have some protection through their card system.

I would contact the bank anyway - you never know.

fwh

Hi Dazza

It's directly with the tour operator, I think. At least that's what I put and my claim has been accepted.

All this is beginning to make me wonder if £1.2 million is going to be enough to pay out all the claims. I wonder how much these guys owe people?

Cheers

Paul

Thanks Paul, i just hope my claim is successfull and re-imbursed in time to book a last minute package for the week the family have booked off work.

Thought everything was going swimmingly today, passed bike test this morning then came home to find this mess !!

Oh well !!

Janepaul - My understanding is the the CAA will refund everyone, irrespective of whether the bond is sufficient to cover everyone. It's the CAA's job to ensure that companies have an ATOL that very closely reflects their forward bookings, and they actually are very stringent about this, and in return the CAA have an additional fund for covering shortfalls.

We booked and thought had a great deal with apartment at piskopiano village from tomorrow (30th May) till 6th June. Im a bit annoyed now that may have to find somewhere to stay the day before we leave.

I called Piskopiano village to confirm the booking and he confirmed it would be and that as we are a late arrival there would be a note on the door with directions to the room and keys would be in the room.

After a day of travelling and arriving late i dont know whether just to forget about this and book somewhere else now in case we get there to find no room waiting for us..

Does anyone know if we would still be able to stay where we booked ? if they will charge us more money? etc

You haven't mentioned the flight - did you get this from someone else? Because if that was also booked through Sunescapes you'd better scroll backwards 4 days to the case of Jane & Paul.

If Piskopiano has been paid in advance they there shouldn't be a problem, but if they haven't they will obviously want money off somebody.

I have a question regarding the sunescapes saga...

Me and my wife managed to travel to cyprus on the 07/05/2008 after being told that the CAA had revoked sunescapes licence - us and a number of other couples were asked to cough up £80 cash each to be able to fly from Manchester. On arrival the hotel was paid for and ATOl flew us back at no extra cost.

Does anyone know where we stand in relation to claiming the £160 back (we have receipts for this). I have the ATOL claim form but am unsure as to whether we are covered. ATOL just say to fill in the form and see what happens.

Can anyone help or is anyone in the same boat?

Who asked you for the £160? When did they ask and what exactly was it for? What does it say on the receipt?

Airport Agencies a servisair company flight tickets for XL airways. It was on the morning of 07/05/08 after we had been initially told we couldn't fly, we were then sold these tickets. They are both proper flight tickets

Assuming you were on the flight you went to catch it sounds like sunescapes had made your reservation but not paid for the tickets. I suppose what happens next depends on whether Servisair had been in contact with CAA, how would they know your accomodation was secure before they sent you? If this was agreed with CAA you ought to be in with a chance for our claim but if it was just Servisair seeing a chance to make some money then CAA may say it was unauthorised spending which isn't covered.

Hi, just found out about sun escapes (hellenic voyages). Was due to travel in 3 weeks time. Found out through your website. I have contacted ATOL and have printed of the claim form, but payed the deposit by debit card half credit card which has since been transfered and the rest cheque. ATOL will cover everthing but the credit card. Why do they not cover this? Does anyone know how long it takes to get your money back assuming i will get it back.