The Mail on Sunday

Why a journey with Jetline is not to be trusted

- Tony Hetheringt­on

Ms S. R. writes: My partner and I booked a combined cruise and train holiday to the United States, which should have commenced in May. Jetline Travel Limited cancelled the trip due to the lockdown, so I requested a refund of the £9,598 we had paid. I was told that £2,000 was ‘irrecovera­ble’, which I disputed. When Jetline would not relent, I approached my card company. Jetline then offered an immediate £2,503, with a credit note for £7,095 to be cashed by September 30. I agreed and received the £2,503, but Jetline failed to pay the balance and says it is extending its credit voucher to the end of next March, which is unacceptab­le.

JETLINE is not to be trusted. Its ornate credit note says clearly that it can be redeemed for cash ‘by the expiry date shown’, which is September 30. Yet without your consent and without any explanatio­n, Jetline has unilateral­ly announced that September 30 this year now means March 31 next year. In short, it has defaulted on its own IOU.

This is bad, but it gets worse. Not that long ago, on August 20, Jetline director Irina Lazar signed a report to Companies House saying: ‘We applied for and received a CBILS [Coronaviru­s Business Interrupti­on Loan Scheme] loan which is stabilisin­g our cash flow position. The loan is more than sufficient to cover our anticipate­d deficit in 2020 due to Covid cancellati­ons.’

The same report says: ‘ The directors have prepared forecasts...of the potential reduction in sales and are confident that the company will be able to continue to meet their liabilitie­s as they fall due for a period of not less than 12 months from the date these accounts are signed.’

Well, that was a very short 12 months. Those accounts were signed on August 20, yet just six weeks later Jetline was not able to meet its debt to you. On October 1, Paul Marchant, of Jetline, told you: ‘We have one staff member dedicated to dealing with a very large volume of refunds and this is being done as quickly as possible.’ I called Marchant to get his comments, but after asking, ‘Where did you get my private number?’, he hung up.

According to its website, Jetline claims to be ‘issuing credit notes to customers in line with ABTA guidance’. Wrong. A spokesman for the Associatio­n of British Travel Agents told me: ‘We would not have agreed that Jetline could arbitraril­y change the date and refuse a refund.’

Disgracefu­lly, Jetline is still in business, failing to repay existing customers but taking money from new ones. It advertises: ‘Book with confidence. We are a Member of ABTA which means you have the benefit of ABTA’s assistance and code of conduct.’

This is completely untrue. ABTA told me: ‘Jetline was being investigat­ed under our code of conduct due to its practices on refund credit notes, and it resigned its membership of ABTA on November 25.’ ABTA is demanding that Jetline stop misusing its name and logo.

After it failed to reply to invitation­s to comment, I rang Jetline last Thursday to give it a final opportunit­y to explain itself. The speaker refused to identify himself but offered to take a booking from me. When I asked why Jetline is lying about giving customers the protection of ABTA, he refused to answer.

So what we have is a travel company that says it can pay its debts when it can’t; that has borrowed Government-backed loans to stay afloat but failed to pass the benefit on to customers; that is doing business with false claims about consumer protection; and that rides roughshod over its creditors.

All that remains is the nuclear option. Tell the company you are considerin­g applying to court to have it put into compulsory liquidatio­n. It might concentrat­e minds. Anyone thinking of making a new booking with Jetline should change their mind at once.

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 ??  ?? HOT AIR: Jetline would not cover its own credit note for the trip to the US
HOT AIR: Jetline would not cover its own credit note for the trip to the US

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