Kiss Flights Ceased Trading

[united4eva]

Hi all,

Well I think I am giving up on this one. I booked another flight online last night with beach.co.uk and was waiting for my confirmation email. I received an email this morning that wasnt a confirmation but a cancellation. They have said that due to the massive rise last night the price I booked it at could not be kept and that they have cancelled my flight.
As a 'goodwill' gesture they havent taken the cash from the card so i wont have to go through a second refund procedure!
Arent they kind??

So think its another week at work for me! Good luck to anyone keeps trying but I cant be paying £400 for a flight only! Ridiculous!

[dulux]

Thats out of order and they are blatantly telling you that they can more or less cancel anyones flight because they want to charge them more money. Surely thats illegal.The more you hear about things like this the more you want to say stuff your flights we will stay at home. Just like more and more people are now doing as the cost of going abroad for a couple of weeks is getting far too expensive.

[stoop]

That's very bad Heather and I feel for you. The swines appear to be able to do what they want and you can bet the small print will make it legal.

Sorry you've lost your holiday at the last minute - I know how much you were looking forward to going back to Calis after so many years away.

[julietaylor]

Im a manager of a very large travel agents with one of the big companies, I really feel for all the people affected with kiss and goldtrail,however the amount of clients who we quote and then go and book with one of these companies sometimes to save as little as £10 each is amazing! One customer in particular stands out, priced her 2 weeks in Icemeler 28 aug 10 2 people self catering 4 * £790 with Thomson she said she could get a better deal with goldtrail, 2* self catering £770, after the collapse she rebooked herself with kiss for £800 including accomodation then came into my shop on monday wanting my help, £1570 paid out and no holiday wanting to book the 4* icemeler deal I found back in april needless to say now fully booked!Im sure there will be more companies in the near future in difficluties so sometimes its worth the extra for peace of mind and then face to face service .

[dulux]

Surely thats not always the case.Just because you pay more for a flight does'nt mean the company you booked with wont go down the pan.Look at XL a massive company whose prices were not the cheapest and what happened to them.I dont think it really matters who you book with these days you are always at risk of some disaster happening.We booked through Travel Republic for hotel and flights.They are not a small company yet Kiss was one of the main companies they used for flights.When Kiss went down the first thing Travel Republic were urging us to do was to contact them to arrange new flights.We did'nt though needless to say.

[stoop]

Not sure I agree fully with dulux. I would feel safer booking with the likes of Thomson and TC than through one of the companies that sell seats on other people's flights such as Kiss and H4U etc. OK there is no guarantee they won't go bust but they are much larger and have a business model which has worked for them for years.

As for XL - well they were put in debt for a huge amount when Phil Wyatt bought them with borrowed money in 2006. He had to take on massive loans to buy them and knew it would only work if the business stood up to it and was able to service the debt ---- it didn't and the rest is history.

Nothing is 100% safe I agree and it worries me a little when I see the likes of Monarch releasing flights over 12 months in advance. This is an obvious attempt to get money in their bank account for as long a period as possible by selling the flights a little cheaper than you might expect to pay in 12 or 13 months time. However what happens if the price of fuel rockets in the meantime? Are they buying the fuel now for a flight in 12 months time? My guess is they are not.

[june]

I agree with you stoop and have to say in the light of what has happened it has deninately made me reconsider how I book, the likes of A1 Travel, Airflights, Flightline I have booked with many times in the past and dont have a gripe with them other than you dont know who they have placed your booking via, so it would appear that there us always more chance of a problem.....whilst it may be more expensive i am booking direct at the mo...Monarch for October, Not saying as you have said Stoop that this is 100% but I feel more comfortable at the moment doing this, at the end of the day we all work hard for our hols and whilst we know we will get our money back if anything happens, we still have to wait for that and pay again, or not go....and thats hassle I can just do with out having been caught up with Goldtrail, ironically when we came over in May our flights were via Kiss!!! lucky escape...

[stoop]

Well I won't use A1 again as I ended up flying Onur this year and to be honest the saving just wasn't worth it.

We'll pay a bit more not to use them again.

[hillside]

I wont use A1 again! When I contacted them the morning after the Goldtrail collapse they told me I could rebook my own flights with Tompson (because they couldn't offer Tompsons) and get my money back ..... they omitted to tell me it would take 6-8 months to get my money back - from the CAA . Disgusting mis information. Its only the big boys for me from now on (only one risk not three) and even then it will always be on Visa!

[dulux]

I can't help agree with most that has been said.I just feel that if everyone was to only book with the big boys as also has been said it will just push up the prices of flights.Lets face it the big boys are the ones that are pushing up the cost of flights as soon as one of the little ones go bust.It will just do away with competition and they will charge as much as they can, Its a no win situation for us that need to buy a flight.We already have extras on top of the cost of the flight.Meals/Seats/Leg room/Baggage etc all to add on.