Thomas Cook

[Stagger]

Bad news.

We've booked flights with them for May 2020.

Good job it was on the visa card.

[bigfella]

I really don't understand how a company that takes your money pretty much upfront and then doesn't pay the hotels until after you have left can go bust. I also can't understand how directors and other investors can take money out of a company and then let others pick up the pieces when it does go tits up.

[Witton Park]

When I've been booking recent holidays, I haven't even looked at Thomas Cook. In fact I rather mistakenly thought they were part of the Tui Group, so perhaps their search engine optimisation was sub-standard along with many other internal issues.

I've looked at Tui, Jet2 and struggled to find anything that appeals. I've often booked a package holiday in the past, but somehow having a shoebox studio apartment with a balcony overlooking a pool surrounded by folks I don't know making a racket (you pay extra for that!) has lost it's lustre.

So I've ended up creating my own "package" by finding a location that suits, then booking my travel separately. I think the last 6-8 holidays have been booked this way and it seems this is much more prevalent now.

I know sometimes the way that holiday firms report their trading figures is skewed, as they can report a 6 month loss, then a final year profit due to the cycle, but the recent figures of Thomas Cook were eye-watering.
6 months to March 2019 loss of £1.5 billion.
Annual turnover £9 Billion.

With every £2000 holiday booking, a loss of £600 at that rate.

Will directors be called to account? I suspect not. They should be. The business must have been trading insolvent for some time and that is illegal. Taking bookings even on Sunday.

The directors will probably disappear off with a nice wad, lie low for a while and then pop up elsewhere.

Companies can fail of course, but somehow we have to get to grips with irresponsible and often illegal behaviour of boards.

[Derby Tup]

Witton you’re spot on - Thomas Cook must have been running as an untenable business for weeks if not months

[JohnK]

Try years

[JohnK]

[QUOTE=Derby Tup;654444]Witton you’re spot on - Thomas Cook must have been running as an untenable business for weeks if not months[/QUOTE

Try years

[CalFerguson]

Like Witton said, I always book my own holiday's with everything separate. I think the "high street" firms like Thomas Cook (aside from being poorly ran), are a dying thing. Don't see many people in travel agents these days when out and about in town...

Skyscanner for flights and then various other sites such as booking.com, Air BnB etc for accommodation...got some bargains in Venice last Summer and this method seems to be the way forward. If not, always the Megabus! ha ha.

[Richard Head]

We went to Canada last year, I priced everything up myself then went into Lancaster TUI and they matched it so I booked with them.

This came in handy when we needed to change the dates after booking. We had booked 4 flights, 4 hotels and car hire, TUI changed all the dates for us, I can imagine that would have been a bit of a ballache to do myself,

[noel]

The responsibility clearly lies with the board. I can only assume the company weren't paying enough to get the right sort of talent in place.

A mere £8M over the last 5 years for the chief exec alone.

[Wheeze]

They backed the wrong horses...simples. The law of the jungle applies. They erred in taking on too much debt, not divesting of bricks and mortar and not embracing digital platforms as effectively as competitors. They are not the first and will not be the last company to fail as a consequence of decisions made to maintain a difference that turn out to be millstones.