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> Customers at a hotel in Tunisia reported being locked in by security guards as the hotel demanded extra money, fearing it would not be paid by Thomas Cook. This is quite bad behaviour from the hotel. Presumably their business relationship is with Thomas Cook, not the people on holidays? They went as far as grabbing people who jumped a wall in an attempt to get out! More details here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-4…
It's always blown my mind that companies like this will operate not having enough cash on hand to actually provide the services they've sold. Maybe that's why they're in business and I'm not.
The ideal situation for a company is that if it receives payment for it services in advance (i.e. a consumer paying for a holiday) and has to pay its suppliers (i.e. hotels) much later. This can result in a situation called negative working capital where a company has received more cash from customers than it has paid to-date. This is effectively interest free financing.
Companies getting into financial difficulty will try to accelerate payment of monies they are owned and delay payment to supplies...as we see here.
I was always wondering about the profit margins of these companies. From their prices I always felt that I am paying a portion of the previous guy's vacations. I'd call it a pyramid scheme, only everybody loses.
Taking less money now for higher expenses in the future isn’t that unusual. It’s basically the cornerstone of insurance companies (especially life insurance).
> Customers at a hotel in Tunisia reported being locked in by security guards as the hotel demanded extra money, fearing it would not be paid by Thomas Cook. This is quite bad behaviour from the hotel. Presumably their business relationship is with Thomas Cook, not the people on holidays? They went as far as grabbing people who jumped a wall in an attempt to get out! More details here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-4…
> Customers at a hotel in Tunisia reported being locked in by security guards as the hotel demanded extra money, fearing it would not be paid by Thomas Cook. This is quite bad behaviour from the hotel. Presumably their business relationship is with Thomas Cook, not the people on holidays? They went as far as grabbing people who jumped a wall in an attempt to get out! More details here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-4…
Does this mean Condor Airlines is shutting down as well? Their website[1] says they're continuing to fly, but I'm wondering if there any sort of precedent for what happens to child companies when the parent becomes insolvent. Having just returned just last week from Europe via Condor Airlines, I'm glad I don't have to worry about this mess. [1]: https://www.condor.com/us
Same issue here in the Nordics with Tjärebörg. At least the Finnish version is claiming this won’t affect them, and has been saying this for weeks. I’d call this bullshit, as far as being irresponsible. It sounds to me like a CEO trying not to spook potential customers rather than being honest with existing ones. My partner has a holiday with them booked for November. I don’t have high hopes for that.
I agree with you this is strange and very non beneficial to the customers who book late in the process but it would be even worse for those who already had booked and would then be left hanging since no money was coming in anymore.
Though quite obviously the only people benefiting from this are lawyers and the executor.
One interesting part of the news coverage is that there are 600k customers involved, and only 150k of them are UK holidaymakers. Notice the lack of coverage of the other 450k?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what happens if they declare bankruptcy on you way back ? and what about hotel reservations or the more expensive flight you'll have to take ? BTW Norwegian are fine for a while https://simpleflying.com/norwegian-bond-payments-deferrednor...
The hotel reservation problem actually happened to me. I booked the hotel via a company called AMOMA, which Google recommended me when I entered the hotel name (it was the cheapest so I took it). They recently sent me an email saying that they immediately ceased service and our booking will probably be cancelled. I checked with the hotel the same day and got a confirmation that the booking is all good (via phone and…
One interesting part of the news coverage is that there are 600k customers involved, and only 150k of them are UK holidaymakers. Notice the lack of coverage of the other 450k?
> Customers at a hotel in Tunisia reported being locked in by security guards as the hotel demanded extra money, fearing it would not be paid by Thomas Cook. This is quite bad behaviour from the hotel. Presumably their business relationship is with Thomas Cook, not the people on holidays? They went as far as grabbing people who jumped a wall in an attempt to get out! More details here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-4…
In general just avoid going to such countries lol