I will give you a 'what we have done so far' example, mixed with the Total Financial Protection you have, to answer your stranded question.

Hotel/accommodation provider goes bust. The hotel gets worried they wont get paid, so starts asking you for money. In past, when Medlife went bust (part of XL Group) we took over the Medlife bookings and promised to pay the hotelier, which was accepted, and also, a couple of the other accommodation providers we work with did the same where we couldnt, and we just paid them instead of Medlife.

Linked to this and with regards to an airline or tour operator going bust, you have this protection.

For customers who are already abroad at the time of the failure only: where a replacement return flight is provided free of charge then no claim arises, alternatively, where no replacement flight is provided any claim is limited to the lower of the original price paid for the flight and the actual price paid for the replacement flight back to the UK. Maximum claim £1,500 per passenger.

The first bit is like what is currently happening with Goldtrail, the CAA organises the flight home under the ATOL/CAA protection scheme. This applies to charter flights with ATOL tour/flight operators. These are the only charter flights we sell.

If a no frills airline or scheduled airline goes bust, you are in same boat (hopefully not a boat, or even a coach in this case!) as you would be now, except you additionally have our total financial protection cover to pay for alternative flights home.

Am I getting there?

Yes, thank you so much!
It was only after watching the 6 o'clock news last night and a travel industry 'expert' delivering a piece on trying to ensure you don't get caught out by doing a tailor made hols that I gave any of this any thought!
I looked up the TR website and saw no ATOL symbol and had a bit of a wobble!

Thanks again, better to be safe than sorry!

Hi Steve,

We were one of the unfortunate customers of yours from Sept '08 who lost their holiday due to the demise of XL, I swore at the time I would never use you again as we lost the cost of our accomodation (£600ish) and we felt abandoned by your company. We have since used Thomson and Jet2 and are very happy with them.
What can you say to me to persuade me to come back to you? Has anything changed?

You are all asking hard questions! Will do my best janannbad, but am possibly on a hiding to nothing as it will probably raise more questions on wider subjets which I dont have time to do justice to!

We now have Total Financial Protection, so your £600 loss should'nt happen again.

One of the areas we have been paying attention to (dont be too hard on me!) is Customer Service, both from our CS team and our Sales Team. These have both grown rapidly as we have dealt with what seems to be a steady flow of natural disasters (Ash) or companies going bust. I wont go off on an advert for Travelrepublic. We are doing our best to continually improve our customer service.

Another reason that may tempt you to look is price. I would hope we can offer better prices than ever, and lower than our competitors.

It is tricky work getting customers back once you have put them off. I stayed at a Marriott (in Birmingham) the other weekend and it was great. The weekend after I stayed at the Hotel Du Vin in Tunbridge Wells. It cost me £50 more than the Marriott, but I would think again before staying at a HduVin again, would need to do some research. Nothing really wrong, just small room, no chairs in room. Not really a complaint, just not value for money, especially at the price. How do they get me back? If I write in and they send me a voucher, I still might not stay there again!

Challenge is to not put people like you off janannbad isnt it!

I'm sure we all appreciate Steve's help and support to TR customers. I am lucky as I have never had any problems with the company (or other consolidators I've dealt with) but when disasters strike, whether they be natural ones such as the ash cloud, or others such as companies going to the wall, customers quite naturally want immediate answers. Companies such as TR do not have a magic wand and are all in the same boat, trying to arrange alternative flights/accommodation whilst fielding calls from anxious (and often irate) customers and sometimes, with the best will in the world, the system just cannot cope. It is good to know that Total Financial Protection is now in place, so in the future customers shouldn't lose out financially.

I'd second your comments, Aslemma. The collapse of XL caused a lot of agencies and customers all sorts of problems and it's great to know that TR learnt from that and put additional financial protection into place. But it does also highlight how important it can be to ensure that we as customers have the right sort of holiday insurance in place to also protect us when these sort of things happen. Sadly, I think that we are all going to have to get used to the idea that Goldtrail is just the latest and not the last company to go bust during this recession.

SM

Hotel Miramer Beach, Marmaris

I have booked this hotel through Travel Republic and have been scared by some absolutely terrible reviews left of the trip advisor site ( and one on here too). I have contacted TR several times just trying to get some peace of mind and quite honestly they just don't seem bothered, albeit they have said if I want to change my hotel I can for a fee of £20.00 which I suppose is reasonable. My main question to them is , do I have a rep to contact if the hotel is really really rotten, someone who can take action to either get me out of there or whatever, basically that has not been answered except to say that I can call them if there is a problem but that is not the same as having someone to hand who can physically come see what the problem is.

Also my flight time has now been changed 3 times, (know thats not TR fault), I was originally flying out at 7am that was changed to 10.35 am, now it has been changed to 21.00 which means I have lost a night in the hotel which I have paid for doesn't it. to make it worse I have booked extras through the fliight provider (as advised by TR) they have me down as flying on a flight at 22.25 have asked TR to check this out but no reply

Maggie ... would you like me to add your enquiry to the Travel Republic topic, so that it may catch the attention of Steve. He is perhaps unlikely to see it in a separate topic under the hotel name.

David

Oh yes please, sorry I thought that was where I had posted to, thanks for your help.

Maggie

FAO Steve
Hi Steve
looking to book solemar in albufeira with TR next may,booked the same with you this year and everything went very smoothly and you were kind enough to answer a query of mine here on HT
Can you help me with this one,on the booking details it says half board run of house! what on earth does this mean? it conjures up all sorts of pictures but no way can I work out what it means
Regards
Jeanie

correct me if i'm wrong steve but run of house means the basic room. we booked TR last year and it didn't say run of house rooms, booked this year and it said run of house but we knew all rooms in the hotel were the same as it was the same hotel as last year.

Hi,

Run Of House generally means that you could be allocated in any room type. I think it is just the way the Operators sells it, so that they are not committing themselves to any particular type of room such as a twin/ double / pool view etc.

Would your accommodation supplier be Lowcostbeds by any chance as many of their hotels are sold as "Run of House".
Sometimes it is also refered to run of house if it is on promotion at a cheap rate, such as a promo room.

think we would be pretty save at the sol e mar then as all the rooms are all seaview,dont know if TR use lowcostbeds, have to look into that.
thanks for info
regards
jeanie

we have booked a holiday and the flight operator has gone out of buisness (Kiss) , we booked it through travel republic do we just book another flight or do we wait for travel republic to get into touch can anyone advise on this please asap

Welcome DRAYMAN151 ... there is some advice here from Travel Republic:
http://www.travelrepublic.co.uk/faq/FAQList.aspx?Id=121

David

Hi Steve

Wonder if you can help me?

We're travelling to Sofitel Pavillion Winter Palace mid next month and have noticed updates on a number of accommodation only websites and also a Luxor travel website indicating there is refurbishment being carried out to the rooms in the hotel.

We've received no notification from Travel Republic and want to ensure that 1) the 3 rooms we have booked are refurbished and 2) that we will not be put on floor where we will be inconvenienced.

(I'm also aware they've now started laying the foundations of what will be the new hotel in place of the previously demolished New Winter Palace, which is in the same grounds).

One of our party just had bad news the other week and has had to have a malignant lump removed. It all came as a bit of a shock as there had been no signs and she is really looking forward to a hard earned rest and some quality time on her very first visit to Egypt.

What's the best way we can proceed with this?

One other question - we will arrive after midnight (our rooms are reserved from the day we fly not the time we arrive). I trust the hotel will keep our rooms? I can see no way to notify or add any notes to our booking from the Manage My Booking pages.

Any advice would be much appreciated as we've had this break booked since early this year and there are 3 couples all travelling together with ages ranging from 50's - 60.

Shell
Limassol, Cyprus

Shell, make sure your friend declares her recent surgery to her travel insurance company. They will either accept it, probably at an additional premium if it was very recent, or decline to cover it in which case she would not be able to claim for anything relating to that condition.

luci

steved1 ... whenever you are back with us, there is a separate topic running which you may also like to take a look at:
http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=147674

David

we booked through travel republic and when we arrived at are hotel we were told there was a problem with are room and were being moved to there sister hotel so should of just booked a cheap allocation on arrival