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Customers of bust Dream World Travel face refund delay

Paloma Kubiak
Written By:
Paloma Kubiak
Posted:
Updated:
05/08/2022

‘Anomalies’ in the data supplied by Dream World Travel to the aviation regulator mean customers face a delay in claiming a refund.

Customers with outstanding bookings with the West London travel agent face another setback following its collapse last week.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it is currently assessing the booking data supplied by Dream World Travel which it needs to process claims for ATOL protected bookings.

However, the CAA said there have been “data anomalies” meaning there will be a delay in opening the claims process for anyone who booked an ATOL protected trip.

ATOL is managed by the CAA and is underpinned by the government. It is a protection scheme afforded to holidaymakers with flight-based bookings which refunds, repatriates and reimburses travellers if the company fails.

The CAA said it will give an update to holidaymakers once it opens its online claims portal. It will then “start to process claims as quickly as possible”. An update is expected on Monday 8 August.

However, it added: “Because of the anomalies, there may be delays with some large or complex bookings.

“We thank consumers for their patience and advise them to visit www.ATOL.org for any further updates.”

Dream World Travel also traded as Al-umrah, Biznessclassflights, Bookholidaysonline, Bookonlineflights and Detltd.

If you booked via any of these trading names and do not hold ATOL protection, you need to see if you can get a refund before turning to Opus Restructuring LLP.

One method is via Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 for transactions over £100. This allows you to raise a claim against your credit provider if:

  • You paid some (or all) of the cost by credit card.
  • The cash price of the services is more than £100 but not more than £30,000.

If the above applies, contact your credit card provider or bank to request a refund under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. You should tell your provider that the company failed to provide your service, cannot issue a refund, your booking is not ATOL protected, and the company has engaged insolvency practitioners to placing the company into liquidation.

If you can’t get a refund under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, you may be able to claim under the chargeback scheme rules.

Chargeback is a transaction reversal made to dispute a card transaction and secure a refund for the purchase made by debit card.

There is a time limit on chargeback claims – typically 120 days from the transaction processing date, or from when you expected to receive the service if it’s being delivered.

If you paid via instalments under Fly Now Pay Later (authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority), Opus said the transaction could be covered by Section 75 of the CCA. This allows you to raise a claim against Fly Now Pay Later as above.