Raw Deal: Family of 15 got to hotel to find only three were booked to stay there

THERE’S nothing like a holiday to bring a family together.

The shared experiences, taking meals together, idyllic days on the beach – it all adds up to a collection of memories that will last a lifetime. There will be few reading this who can’t think back to a holiday, weekend or day trip, in the past with family members.

Sadly, for Pam Leith and her family, what should have been a fantastic memory turned into a splintered, disjointed experience.

Pam, from Bury, went with 14 family members – including eight children, five of whom are her grandkids – to the Hotel Terramar in Calella, Spain, for what promised to be a great week.

All went well until they got to the hotel check-in. To their horror, they were told there wasn’t a booking for 15 people, there was a booking for three.

What on earth had gone wrong? Pam and the adult members of her party swiftly got on to A1 Travel, of Wigan, who had taken their booking.

Pam says the people at A1 were less than helpful and it was only after a great deal of perseverance and a lot of calls that arrangements were made to have the other 12 people booked into another hotel.

However, unbelievably, the other hotel was in Santa Susanna another resort several kilometres up the coast.

Pam and family made the best of it that they could, but the holiday was very difficult.

To get everyone together required a train journey and, of course, one group couldn’t go into the other’s hotel for meals.

Pam wasn’t happy with this. She got on to A1 Travel and also to ABTA, the Association of British Travel Agents.

But A1 didn’t want to know. It barely even acknowledged a complaint had been made.

Pam’s daughter Shannon got a letter from A1, which offered £209 refund (which wasn’t even close to the amount of money the holiday cost). Surprisingly, A1 seemed to think it had done well by sending 12 of the party to a good hotel.

Somewhat confused by the response from A1, Pam wrote to Raw Deal. We attempted to get in touch with the travel firm but had difficulty getting an answer – and that’s never a good sign.

Sure enough, on October 20 ABTA contacted the family to say that A1 Travel had gone into administration. There will be no refunds. Any money left will be distributed among A1’s creditors.

Pam says she has heard of other large groups, booked with A1, who were wrongly booked.

She is suspicious of the timing of all these events, wondering if there were already problems with A1 behind the scenes at the time she paid for the holiday.

There is, sadly, little Raw Deal can do when a firm goes into administration.

When booking a holiday, check, as far as you can, that you are dealing with a well established travel agent.

This is not to say that all smaller firms are likely to go bust, of course, but you have to take as many precautions as possible to ensure your holiday goes smoothly.

Make sure the firm you book with are ATOL protected (that’s Air Travel Organisers licence). They give financial protection to people who have purchased package holidays.

They will, at least, make sure you get home if your travel agent goes under when you are away.

Most holiday insurance providers won’t pay out unless your policy has specific travel firm failure cover.

Pam, unfortunately, falls outside all of these areas. She had a holiday that wasn’t what she’d paid for or expected after saving up for a whole year to go.

Take every precaution you can to ensure this doesn’t happen to you.