The UK Thomas Cook Travel Agent Collapse

[msmoby]

The oldest name in thew travel industry is no more ...

Why is this relevant here ?

Intourist is part of the Thomas Cook group

https://www.intourist.com/main.aspx?currency=GBP

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49768687

Mainly affecting Brits and Germans

[Manny]

The Russian tour operator subsidiary, Intourist said the bankruptcy of Thomas Cook will have no impact on clients, Russian Executive Director Sergei Tolchin told Interfax.

From here: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-thomas-cook-grp-factbox/countries-different-reactions-to-thomas-cook-bankruptcy-idUKKBN1W80VN

One assumes like Condor Airlines, they are ran as a different company and ring fenced.

[andrewfi]

Thomas Cook and its affiliates and subsidiaries represent some big names in tourism.

In the UK at least, the closure represents the end of the old-style travel agent. Their days were numbered when the Internet became widely available. I know of one large independent travel agency chain that saw selling out to Thomas Cook as being the best escape from the inevitable. It was a surprise to some that they lasted as long as they did. They had been in difficulties for some time as those who were the leaseholders for their high street agencies knew.

The retail business was one of those unnecessary businesses doomed to fail. I wonder what would've happened if they had pulled out of the high street a few years ago. Some huge cost savings to be made from doing so.

[rosco]

It wasn’t exactly a shock.

We’re away on our holibobs tomorrow, a road trip followed by 4 days lounging in luxury. All booked via sky scanner, trip advisor, booking.com, hotel websites and Airbnb.

A package holiday ain’t our thing and even if it were, you could cut out the middle man. Time waits for nobody!

[msmoby]

Indeed many shy from Package tours ( myself included -  but when things go tits up ...having it all booked through one firm with bnded protection to get you home - ain't such a bad idea ..

[rosco]

Indeed many shy from Package tours ( myself included -  but when things go tits up ...having it all booked through one firm with bnded protection to get you home - ain't such a bad idea ..

Yea possibly.

Good travel insurance covers each leg of a holiday such as ours so it doesn’t really bother me. If something happens to my booking i’ll just go somewhere else and claim back.

Also with a package holiday all your eggs are in one basket, if it goes tits up the whole games a bogey.

[Manny]

I usually do similar to Rosco: Expedia, hotels.com and similar sites, usually done through Quidco so there is a few quid back sometime in the future. I do all my China stuff for example that way with loads of windows open on various sites and book the best deal. I'm sure we all do the same.

Yes, if a wheel falls off you end up paying more. I needed to change an internal China flight recently from China Southern to China Eastern (or some such) for an hour or two later to allow for a change in another flight I had booked that is now arriving later. It ended up costing me £500 to take a leg out of an Expedia multi stop booking and add another single one way flight in that I wanted. Ouch! With a travel agent that would have cost less.

Wifey booked a flight to Europe to jolly with some pals in Belgium on some cheap arse website recently, that then cancelled the outgoing flight so the trip was kiboshed. Months later we are still fighting the credit card company to do a Section 75 refund as the airline only refunded the outgoing, and Bott & Co (who do our airline compo claims) have yet to get the compensation from them. It's a long and tedious process to save a few bob......

That said, I still did the odd holiday through Thomas Cook. We did a family holiday with Croatia with them not long ago. I'd not been before and didn't want to do the research - we just wanted an easy week or so in the sun. We booked a package with them, decent price, alright hotel, transfers, small details done at not much money and no thinking. Suited what we wanted to do. Maybe it was £100 more than I could have done it myself but time +/- money, etc., it's about the same.

In the past I've done trips to Florida with them. Prices were quite keen, car hire options were good (with no rip offs), hotels were keenly priced, but what I found useful is you were doing an £Xk trip, you can pay £Xk deposit, and drop in with £500 occasionally over a few months and before you know it, its paid and you didn't feel it.

Like Moby says, the ATOL protection (that is bringing all these people home) has a value, but people dont see it till they need it.

I'm sorry they are gone, but I dont think the government should have rescued them as some suggest. Yes it's a lot of jobs and capacity at Manchester Airport but the market will adapt. At the end of the day, an insolvent business is an insolvent business.

[cufflinks]

Keeeyrikee Fox news reporting 600,000 Cooketeers stranded....that's a lot of folks... Courious if Virgin still has all their high st shops for travel or if all on line?

[andrewfi]

There's no real loss of jobs or capacity except on the retail side. All of the people will still go on holiday next year. All that'll happen is that people will move around a bit, from one company to another.

The retail side has been dying for 20 years. Those jobs are lost. Everything else will continue. My guess is that the name will be bought up and there will be a resurrected online presence. Probably not as an operator but as a retail site. A sub brand of an existing business.

[dcguyusa]

I still remember the Thomas Cook travelers cheques that I purchased when traveling outside of my area.  Got them from the foreign exchange shop in the downtown area.  Travelers cheques have gone the way of bank paper checks.  Very few still use them.  I also saw a TV program about Captain Cook and his three around the world voyages.  He got killed for trying to get the Hawaiian king to go with him and possibly use as ransom to get back boats that were supposedly stolen by the natives.  They ended up eviscerating his corpse which was their way of honoring the dead.  Looks like the Cook name was kaput for this weekend.