First massive Brexit cock up - Low Cost Holidays have gone bust!

[catbasilio]

See here
I have a booking with them for £1400.
I am not looking forward to losing my holidays and claiming Section 75 with my credit card company and probably encountering losses anyway among 110,000+ other travellers.
What have you done, Leavers??

I don't think you can blame your foolishness in booking a holiday with a company that isn't ATOL protected on Brexit.

Again. Not OPs fault. Lowcostholidays have advertised themselves as 'covered by the Spanish version of ATOL' which is now known to be a lie.

Quite distasteful to see an OP due to lose a lot of money lambasted rather than sympathised with.

A Spanish company with the majority of staff (approx 400) based in Poland. It has British customers and some British staff but it is not a UK company.

My toaster broke yesterday. It was old and a bit knackered but I think I'll blame Brexit.

The official company website cites currency fluctuations as a factor, and it isn't hard to see how a company taking income from customers in sterling, which has fallen but paying for hotels for those customers in Euros would hit s company badly.

I booked a LCH break last Feb half term and asked about ATOL protection, and was told, in writing, that they were protected by an equivalent Spanish system.

The pound has fallen not because of 'whining ' but because investors do not yet know what the long term prospect is in terms of Britain's overall trade health in terms of new trade deals etc.

OP, so sorry this has happened. Whatever the reasons, supposed or not, it is a shitty and upsetting thing to happen

Lindy: there is no comparison at a between the collapse of a holiday company, dealing every day in different currencies, and the mechanical failure of a toaster.

What does the location of the workforce have to do with it? You Plenty of reputable UK companies have a workforce not in the UK.

It's not a "Spanish company" it's a British-managed company with mainly British clients, registered in the Balearic Islands.

Obviously Brexit is an issue, although of course not the only one; it's widely recognised that leisure travel will be one of the worst hit areas.

It's not uncommon for a holiday company to go bust - happens most years.

Confirmation bias?

I'm sorry to hear this OP and I hope that you can get it resolved.

This company must have been on thin ice for a while to go under after just 3 weeks of currency woes. If it wasn't Brexit then some other crisis would have tipped it over the edge sooner or later.

Can't believe anyone would of booked a holiday with the anyway when not protected by ATOL. If people lose money they really can only blame themselves for not researching the company better.

The company have been asserting that Spanish protection equivalent to ATOL is in place.
LCH is widely advertised, used, people are not lawyers, people look for an affordable holiday. Many companies and businesses in the budget market work on low profit margins. Is that the fault of the customer who needs to shop on a budget?

"FIRST" massive Brexit cock up? I you will find we are well into 3 figures, with many many more tottering on the brink.

I have friends in the travel industry and they told me bookings started dropping off after the Paris attacks in November. The terrorist threat always deters holidaymakers.
Normally with a falling pound you wouldsee more tourists coming as it makes travel cheaper but due to terrorism this is not going to happen.
Just so Leavers know : it is travellers outside the Eu who have cancelled
most as people do not want to be stuck in shit far from home so its
terrorism not Brexit. In the longer term however holidays for Brits will
become more expensive, due to Brexit.

This was my first holiday booked via travel agency. I haven't had holiday for years. Yes LCH said it has equivalent of Spanish ATOL and I am not an expert to understand the difference.
LHC blames Brexit. That's BBC headline too. This was a direct trigger for a travel co.that operates on very low margins. Some articles already said that an average holidayer will lose about £200 because of Brexit. Take 110,000 bookings that LCH had x £200 which they would have had to pay extra due to weaker pound. It will be rare for any company to prepare for such.
It is not exaggeration - everything's related directly!!

It will be rare for any company to prepare for such.

Why? It's not like the referendum came as a huge surprise, most companies would have had a contingency plan - apart from those who were already so close to going bust they couldn't afford to. Hence = weak companies, not Brexit

Preparation for a falling pound would presumably involve charging customers more to allow for the change in exchange rate.

LCH sells holidays abroad to British holiday makers. In the Spring the press were reporting huge increases of numbers booking for popular Spanish etc resorts as an alternative to Turkey.

Of course there will be many factors at play, but it is disingenuous to claim that there is no relationship between Brexit, the falling pound, and the economy of a company that charged customers in pounds for services paid for in Euros.

Over 110,000 UK customers may have lost their summer holiday.

Ironically, of course, the demographics of voting Brexit and the demographics of booking cheap holidays with sketchy companies are hardly disjoint. I wonder what proportion of lch's customers voted remain? 20%?

Op I was Remain but I do not agree. Terrorism is the MAIN factor.
Brexit did not help, however.
I Imagine there will be some advice for you somewhere on the media.
The BBC have a web based travel site and they usually bring in "an expert"
so keep watching

I feel other holiday companies may well suffer due to the situation in Turkey and the terror threat all around the world.
Not Brexit issues but no doubt it will be blamed.

I'm sorry you lost your holiday op, thats a real bummer. TBH if I was told that the company had similar ATOL protection in Spain I'd have believed them, we dont go abroad that much that I'm wise about these things.

What are the company saying, will you lose all your money or will you be able to get a little bit back?

I only have limited knowledge from dh working for a company that went in to liquidation and also a friend's company. In those cases, it took a couple of weeks to sort out appointing receivers and getting permission to start the process of liquidation.

I think that the company was in trouble for a while and agree with the previous poster that it's possibly more about terrorism and general uncertainty.

I am in the stay camp but getting a bit suspicious of all these previously very successful companies going down within a week of Brexit.
There is a restaurant near us which claimed that it was Brexit that forced it into administration. It wasn't, it was just a crap restaurant that had been in trouble for over a year.

The hysteria on FB and in the media is going to make a self fulfilling prophecy.

Can someone explain how terrorism is mainly to blame for the collapse of a mass market holiday company largely offering holidays in non-terrorist affected countries / resorts? And be precise about the countries or resorts that have seen a downturn in bookings against those that have seen a huge surge?

So some companies have seen a huge surge? So it's not the Brexit affect then if other companies have got more custom.

Afaik, the companies reporting a surge are those proposing flights and holidays to/in the UK, which have become distinctly cheaper in the last month.

We've changed our travel plans to benefit from the cheap pound - for us (we live in France and our income is in € and $) this year's UK trip will be at least 25% cheaper than last year. We will probably do some shopping while we're over, too, before inflation cancels out our gains.

So tourism to the UK has benefitted. I am a remainer but Brexit seems to be being blamed for everything from crap cafes closing to companies folding who clearly were already in trouble.

Travel weekly (industry publication) doesn't think that it should affect companies this year as 'any sensible company will have hedged their bets',

www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/62365/opinion-after-brexit-the-industry-is-looking-to-government-to-restore-confidence