A Melbourne woman who booked $24,082 worth of flights and accommodation is among the many customers whose overseas trips were cancelled in the early days of the pandemic who may never get any money back
Customers whose overseas trips were cancelled in the early days of the pandemic are still struggling to get tens of thousands of dollars in airfares and accommodation refunded by major travel brands.
It went out of business with $1.2 million debt, including $635,468 in refunds owed to customers, $104,339 to the Helloworld franchise parent company, and $49,621 to business loan specialist Prospa. Adam Glezer from Consumer Champion, who has contacted Helloworld on Bouronikos’ behalf, said: “I’m of the strong belief that if a customer books through a Helloworld franchise that goes bust, Helloworld head office should be taking some responsibility for it, but they just direct customers to the administrator.”
Bowman said it was not disclosed at any time that the booking would actually be held by Helloworld, let alone a Helloworld franchise in suburban Melbourne, and he would not have booked if he had known that to be the case.have copies of email correspondence between Bowman and his travel agency representatives who were using a Member Benefits Australia email address. In one case the email was from [email protected].