Always a bit of a dificult situation to be in.

If i understand it right from what you have said this is what has happened.
Flights booked and paid through Kunapark whereby the tour operator is Teleticket.
Kunapark ceases trading and teleticket then cancells your flight booking because of this.

I would say that teleticket have cancelled your booking because they had not been paid by the agent.
Normally the tour operator would say that you can repay again for the flights and make a claim through ABTA or similar.
I would make sure that you have a copy of your invoice from kunapark that states that you have paid in full and persue abta or speak to teleticket to see if they will honour the booking with this information and that they will make the claim. Unfortunately the latter i doubt would happen.

There is a big dispute going on at the moment within the travel industry with situations like yours as ABTA does not protect "pipeline monies" before it is passed to the tour operator.

Let us know how you get on but i would stand your ground with ABTA as like you, many of their members are now questioning their membership with the organisation !!

Thanks for the reply,
we have a copy of the teleticket confirmation, showing that they had received the money,
They sent us a copy of the electronic refund notification to kunapark, to prove that they had not refunded us..so we could claim against ABTA..
So the money was refunded to Kuna park "¦..and as they are reselling the flight
Abta are not impressed
in theory, we should have been all right....but seem to fallen in between systems.
We are going to put in a Atol claim , as thats what abta say we should do"¦and go from there"¦.but as the atol member is still trading ..i have my doubts we will get anything.

We have purchased new flights..

thanks

Hi Tomhen, we are in exactly the same position as you. Did you buy your tickets on a credit card. We did and our credit card co have asked for a letter of non cooperation from either ATOL or ABTA. Neither would give me one!! I agree that both are a waste of time and I don't really know what the point of them is. When the phone is eventually answered robotic sounding people on the other end read of a sheet of paper saying they are still in talks with Teleticket. When I asked to speak to a manager, he was not available; funny that. I phoned the credit card co again and she was very sympathetic and said she would put in a claim for me as we had proof we had not received the goods purchased (the screenshot). I am hoping to hear within the next few days. I know I have no hope from Teleticket and can't believe you are the first person I have come across with this problem. I too have booked flights as we go in October, but have had to paid quite a bit more for the tickets and am obviously wanting the money back from the other flight. When I received my original letter, telling me my tickets had been cancelled, I rang teleticket and they had the cheek to try to sell me tickets on the flight; they said people had cancelled so seats were now available - yes there were seats available, my bloody seats!! - what a cheek. Something should be done about teleticket and they should not be able to carry on trading when they use such disgraceful tactics.

If you booked with your credit card, give them a go. Good luck, I'll let you know how I get on.

If the ABTA member fails and has your money (in this instance the ABTA member was refunded your money, so they have it) you should seek a refund from ABTA - the Association of British Travel Agents.

All we hear from ABTA is "it nothing to do with ABTA or our members (even if they have your money and fail) you should go to ATOL or your credit card for a refund"

So if only ATOL and the credit card companies provide consumers with any financial protection, please remind me, what do ABTA do?

As I said before, ATOL are as useless as ABTA. ATOL will not give a refund as they say Kunapark were not ATOL protected they were ABTA. Teletickets are ATOL but this means nothing. If you look on the ATOL website, advice given to customers of other failed travel companies is that if you have booked by credit card go through the credit card company, but this is no good without a letter from ATOL! An infuriating vicious circle. I think they string you along with the hope you'll give up.

It is obvioius someone is acting illegally, but god knows who. Obviously teleticket and Kunapark have acted illegally as I can't believe teleticket didn't know about kunapark when they sent them the money back. I just hope my credit card company help me. They are not obliged to without the correct paperwork from ATOL but my last email 2 days ago from ATOL told me to deal with Teleticket - ha ha good sense of humour at ATOL!! I'm sticking with waiting for credit card at the moment and will go bac to teleticket as last resort.

If I get no joy, I shall be contacting Martin the Moneyman on GMTV. He has a website that you can contact and a researcher gets back to you with advice. Martin only gets involved if its really juicy as he's a busy man!!

Will update soon

I can understand you are upset. I was only trying to help.

You say 'Teletickets are ATOL but this means nothing'. Do you think because Teletickets have an ATOL they should refund you? They have shown you they haven't got your money and refunded Kunapark, now this bit I don't understand, why they refunded them the money and cancelled your flight. You'd have to ask Teleticket why they did that and just to be sure, have they clearly proven to you they haven't got your money.

If you had booked direct with Teletickets (who have an ATOL) and they failed/went bust, ATOL would refund you. But you booked with an ABTA member who failed so I think ABTA should refund you.

Hi Tomhen

Just wondering whether you have recieved any money back with regards the Kunapark/Teleticket flight cancellation. I have had an email from Teleticket saying they are paying me back today. I have waited forever for a straight answer from this company so I shan't hold my breath.