Will I ever get a refund for my Thomas Cook holiday? I’ve waited three years

I am writing to you for your advice in desperation, as I have found a blank everywhere else.

I booked a cruise vacation with Thomas Cook shortly before it collapsed in 2019.

I paid an initial amount using some Thomas Cook vouchers, as well as a deposit on my credit card. I set up a prepayment plan to pay the rest, paying three amounts of about £360 from my Santander checking account before the company went bankrupt.

When Thomas Cook failed, my deposit was safely transferred to another cruise company. However, they did not receive the £1,100 I paid in those three payments.

In October 2019 I tried to recover the money from Santander to no avail. I also filed a claim online with the Thomas Cook administrators but it was denied. Atoll and Abta also rejected my claims.

I recently tried again with Santander, and the branch staff told me it could be easily refunded by them under the direct debit scheme as these were payments for goods or services not received.

But when I heard back from Santander headquarters, they rejected the claim again. They said that although I was entitled to a refund from them they couldn’t do it as they needed an email from the creator who is of course the now non-existent Thomas Cook.

I asked the administrators if they could provide this, but there was no answer. I can’t understand why I closed all the doors on me. What on earth should I do to try and secure my refund? Anonymously, by email.

Helen Crane of This is Money replies: In this column, I regularly cover stories about the hell of the holidays, whether it’s fighting to get compensation for readers who follow delayed flights, or chasing refunds for travel that never happened because of Covid.

I regularly hear stories of travel agents and banks evading their obligations and refunding money, but the fact that you’ve been trying to get your money back for over three years is a shock even to me.

With Thomas Cook going bankrupt in 2019, it was clear that you needed a refund of payments you made before your vacation. But figuring out who should give it to you turned out to be nearly impossible.

Although you managed to transfer some of the money to another cruise company, you’re left with over £1,000.

I’ve been researching this for you for several months and have come across several dead ends myself, so I understand your frustration.

First I approached Santander. Could it really be an email from a company that no longer exists?

It told me this wasn’t right. The branch staff were wrong when they told you you could get a refund, and Santander paid you £20 as a goodwill gesture.

The real reason it won’t refund you is that it has a policy of not refunding payments for undelivered goods and services, if those payments were made by direct debit. I don’t think it’s fair policy, but those are the rules, so I moved on.

Then I turned to Atoll and Abta, the protection schemes for those who book vacations that don’t go according to plan. Atoll only covers bookings with flights, so that was a dead end. I also confirmed that a previous claim you made to Abta had been denied.

The rules are complicated but I think this was because you had transferred part of your deposit to another cruise provider meaning that under the rules you had ‘accepted an alternative booking’.

Another way to get your money back is by claiming travel insurance, but because you booked the holiday way before departure, you hadn’t taken out yet.

Getting insurance as soon as you book is a good idea because – provided you get the right policy – you can cover for money lost before the holiday happens, for example if it gets cancelled.

The key to arranging this, as it turned out, was that you had paid part of the initial deposit on your credit card.

You did not lose the deposit you initially paid with your credit card when it was passed on to the new cruise line.

But one of the benefits of using a credit card to book a vacation is that the lender may have to refund you more money than the total you paid with that card.

This is due to a legal protection called Article 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

To activate this protection, you only need to pay a penny of the total amount to your credit card, but the product or service you buy should cost between £100 and £30,000.

So even though it was the deposit you paid on your credit card and it was already paid for your new vacation, subsequent direct debits paid from your checking account were considered part of the same total payment and you were eligible to have them back. to claim.

The credit card company will ask you to prove that you have first explored all other options for getting the money back, and fortunately you have carefully kept all the documents you received from Thomas Cook, its administrators, Atoll, Abta, and Santander to pass on to you. to show that this was the case.

I am pleased to say that the relevant credit card company has assured me that a check for the full £1,100 is now on its way to you.

It asked me not to mention it in this article, and you were afraid I would, your ability to get your money back, so I agreed.

You told me that after three years you never expected to receive the money, so I’m glad we found a solution.

I hope your story reminds others that it really pays to use your credit card when paying for things like vacations, where there’s a chance you’ll get into trouble in the future.

Hit and miss: this week’s naughty and fun list

Every week I look at the companies that have fallen short when it comes to customer service, and the companies that have done their best.

Touch: There is currently enough to make customers angry when it comes to their utility bills, so I was pleased to hear that at least one person was happy with their suppliers’ service.

David emailed to shed some light on his experience with Eon Nexta supplier he involuntarily switched to when his previous energy company Symbio collapsed last year.

While he’s not happy about his bills going up (who is?), he says Eon’s customer service helped soften the blow.

He said: ‘Communication about the switch was clear and gave me all the information I needed. Excellent service overall and a few email inquiries were dealt with promptly and satisfactorily.

‘Symbio’s surplus was deposited into my account within a reasonable time. I’ve been reporting meter readings every month since then and never had a problem with this.

‘Recently, Eon estimated my energy consumption after October 1 and then withheld the government subsidy, so my direct debit is now £17 less than before.

“Of course I’m not happy to have to pay more for my electricity, but I’m glad I moved to Eon-Next and I praise their service.”

I’m glad to hear that the switch didn’t cost Eons and everything is going smoothly – even if you’re paying through the nose.

To miss: Reader Liz emailed me to tell me how upset she was about her experience with being fined for using the Dartford crossing.

In July she made a return trip across the bridge and failed to pay the toll on time, resulting in two PCNs of £37.50 each due to be paid within 14 days.

She accepted she was wrong and set up an online Dart Charge account to settle but the total amount payable was shown on the website as just £5.00 – what would have been the cost of getting the two crossing charges on time to pay.

The ‘penalty levy’ section had a charge of £0 meaning she couldn’t pay anything other than the £5.00 shown, which she did.

But in September, she received another charge of £107.50, saying she had failed to pay the fine on time, and threatened with a court order if it wasn’t paid on time.

This seemed wrong, so I contacted National Highways, the organization in charge.

It told me the problem was due to a technical error. As this was the first time the vehicle was detected at the crosswalk at midnight the next day without paying, a warning message was recorded in the PCN.

This gives the road user an extra 14 days to pay the road user charge without further fines.

Dart Charge says the system will prevent road users from being unfairly penalized, and help raise awareness of the scheme – which seems a remarkably reasonable policy.

So the £5.00 payment was correct – but due to the technical issue it was not assigned to the correct PCN message resulting in the subsequent fine.

The matter is now settled, Liz is no longer owed money and Dart Charge has apologized for the mistake. Result.