Victims want to know whether their money can be recovered. Photo credit: neme_jimenez/shutterstock
Some Spanish families are currently living a nightmare after realising they have been scammed out of their holiday and are now facing the possibility of telling their children that their dream Disneyland trip is not happening after paying thousands of euros for holidays they say were never properly booked.
More than 400 customers have now joined together after claiming they were left without their trips and without the money they had paid to a travel agency in L’Escala, Girona. Some families say they handed over more than €9,000 for their holidays, others had been saving for months, even years or had bought trips as Christmas or Three Kings presents for their children, only to discover that the flights, hotels or attraction tickets they believed they had paid for were never made and were nonexistent.
Families arrive at departure date without bookings
Several customers say they only realised something was wrong when their travel dates approached, one of the most painful parts of the situation has been the effect on children who had been promised a special family holiday. For some parents, the Disneyland Paris trip was intended as a Christmas present. Their children were expecting to visit the theme park, stay away from home and enjoy a holiday that their parents had carefully planned and paid for.
Instead, families were left trying to establish whether their reservations actually existed. One customer contacted the airline directly to check her booking and was reportedly told that she was not the airline’s customer, the travel agency was. That left her with a simple question: if she had paid the agency for the trip, where were her tickets?
Some families paid more than €9,000
The amounts involved vary between customers, but some families say they paid several thousand euros for their holidays. One family had paid around €3,070 for a Disneyland Paris trip, others say they paid more than €9,000.
For most families paying these amounts, replacing a cancelled holiday at short notice may be impossible, particularly during school holidays when flights and hotels can cost considerably more. The money may also represent months of savings, parents who had organised trips around their children’s birthdays or Christmas presents are now having to deal with a situation they never expected when they made the booking.
More than 400 customers join forces
As complaints mounted, more than 400 people affected by the situation connected through social media. The groups have allowed customers to compare what happened with their own bookings and discuss how much they paid. Some say they received explanations or assurances before eventually discovering that their travel arrangements were not in place.
The customers are also trying to establish how many bookings were affected and how much money was handed over in total. The number of people involved means the dispute extends far beyond one family’s cancelled holiday.
Customers paid before receiving their travel documents
According to customers affected by the case, they were expected to pay the full cost of their holidays to the agency. Tickets and other travel documents were then supposed to arrive shortly before departure, with some customers expecting to receive them around a week before they were due to travel. That meant some people had already paid thousands of euros before discovering a problem.
By the time they began contacting airlines, hotels or other companies directly, their departure dates could be only days away. For a family travelling abroad, that leaves very little time to arrange a replacement holiday. One customer who contacted her airline directly was told that she was not its customer because the booking had been made by the travel agency. The discovery left her having to find out whether the reservation she believed she had paid for actually existed.
Disneyland dreams become a financial problem
Disneyland Paris is among the trips booked by affected families. For children, a Disneyland holiday can be one of the most anticipated presents they receive, for parents, it can involve a substantial financial commitment. One family had planned its trip as a Christmas present for the children.
Instead of preparing for the journey, the family was left trying to establish what had happened to the holiday and the money paid for it. For the affected customers, the immediate concern is no longer simply whether they will get to Disneyland or take their planned holiday. They want to know whether their money can be recovered.
Investigation into suspected fraud
The situation is being investigated as a suspected fraud, while affected customers are seeking answers and trying to recover the money they paid. The full financial value of the bookings has not yet been established. More than 400 people have now connected over the case, with individual losses ranging from thousands of euros to more than €9,000 for some families.
For parents who had promised their children a few days at Disneyland Paris, the disappointment is heartbreaking, for those who handed over thousands of euros that they had spent years saving, there is another concern that is harder to put aside: whether the holiday money they gave for will ever come back.
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