A very unhappy vacation: couple charged twice for Sandals getaway

luciaMari Ann Chaney paid for her vacation at Sandals in St. Lucia twice: once to her travel agent, which paid Watsonville, Calif.-based Happy Vacations, and again when she checked in.

Why did she and her husband, Tom, get billed twice? Turns out Happy Vacations suddenly went out of business, taking the Chaney’s money with them. When they arrived at Sandals, no one had heard of them.

This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with a double-billing scenario and a bankruptcy. But this time, there’s no happy ending.

Here’s what happened to Chaney:

I booked a vacation through a travel agent, the deposit was paid with my credit card and the two other payments were paid by cashier’s check.

The travel agent paid Happy Vacations who in turn was supposed to pay Sandals. The original deposit was made in Oct 08. We received all of our travel documents for the flights and the Sandals stay.

When we arrived in St Lucia, we were told the vacation at the resort was not paid for and we would have to pay again. We were in a bad situation, traveled all night and part of the day as we flew from Oregon where we live, what choice did we have?

We paid again using our credit card.

I have been dealing with our credit card company for three months and have provided them with everything they have asked for and were denied. I have been dealing with a customer service dept in India who, I don’t think really has any idea what is going on.

I am wondering how it was our problem Happy Vacations didn’t send the money to Sandals and Sandals has allowed vacation companies to pay them after the fact as a way of doing business.

What other recourse do I have?

I followed up with the Chaneys. Didn’t they have any warning from their travel agent or Sandals that there was a problem?

I had an itinerary from Happy Vacations which indicated everything was paid and I had my travel documents.

I believe Sandals knew prior to my arriving that this was happening and thought if they had us there already, what choice would we have?

I will never use a travel agent again or go to a Sandals resort because of this. I have all of my proof I paid for this vacation and to pay for it twice is totally unethical and I can’t believe Sandals would do such a thing.

I contacted Sandals on behalf of the Chaneys. Here’s their response:

The Chaneys booked their vacation through Travel Leaders of Medford, Ore., who accepted payment and in turn, placed the booking with tour operator, Happy Vacations.

Happy Vacations subsequently went out of business without making the booking or paying Sandals Resorts.

In fact, until the Chaneys arrived at the resort, Sandals Resorts had no record of their reservation, which is why they were asked to pay for their stay upon arrival at the resort.

And regarding Ms. Chaney’s comment: “I am wondering how it was our problem Happy Vacations didn’t send the money to Sandals and Sandals has allowed Vacation companies to pay them after the fact as a way of doing business.” Sandals Resorts doesn’t allow companies to operate this way. Full payment is required prior to arrival.

The bottom line is that this is an unusual and unfortunate situation where the customer did end up paying twice, but their recourse is not with Sandals Resorts. The hotel got paid only once and that was by the customer when they arrived at the resort.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention and giving us the opportunity to respond.

That’s all Sandals will say on the record. I’m left with the impression that Sandals may try to make the Chaneys happy again, which would make me happy.

So what went wrong here?

The first red flags were the cashier’s checks. If your travel agent or tour operator asks you to pay by cashier’s check, don’t walk — run. Handing a company cash is a bad, bad, bad idea for a number of reasons. Don’t do it.

(In a follow-up email, Tom Chaney said he asked to pay by cashier’s check.)

Second, the credit card dispute may not have worked because a) the merchant was more than 100 miles from the Chaney’s home address (under the Fair Credit Billing Act, the card company isn’t required to accept a dispute). Or, b) because the card was used to book the plane tickets, which the Chaneys were able to use.

Finally, a word about the Chaneys’ agent: When they were standing at the front desk in St. Lucia, a call to their agent may have been helpful. The agency could have contacted a Sandals representative in their area, and made special arrangements for the family — either a reduced-rate room or even a comp. Instead, they accepted the room charges.

Chaney says he contacted his agent, but it was unable to help him.

I contacted Travel Leaders. Here’s its side:

Happy Vacations provided the necessary travel documents for the reservation back to the booking agent, who in turn provided them to her client in person. Additionally, the client purchased travel insurance for the trip, but unfortunately, the insurance was directly through Happy Vacations. Happy Vacations was in business for over 40 years and this agency, which had a good relationship with them had no reason to suspect that it would go out of business so abruptly two months after the booking were paid for.

The agency appears to have done everything appropriate. However, it is our understanding that the agency, which is independently owned and operated, is going above and beyond in currently working directly with the client to reach an additional remedy for the situation.

Finally, we agree wholeheartedly with you that travelers should pay for their travel bookings with a credit card for the added peace-of-mind it provides.

Will there be a happy ending to this story, after all? I’ll let you know.

Update (6 p.m.): An early version of this story didn’t contain Travel Leaders’ side of this story. On reflection, I should have sought its comment before publishing this post.

  • SirWired

    Ouch. Would trip insurance have helped here? Many policies provide coverage against provider default.

    BTW Chris, why haven’t you called the travel agent to find out what happened? Why did the agency demand cash? Why did they not know of the bankruptcy of the tour operator? This is another instance (like the one with the mis-booked cruise residency discount) where you calling the agent could have filled in a lot of details in the story.

  • Susan

    I believe the former owner of Happy Vacations is still in the travel business, operating under a different/new name. Maybe someone should contact him since he accepted the payment and didn’t make the reservation with Sandals. Also, why book with someone who is not a member of USTOA where at least you have some recourse if an operator goes out of business. It seems irresponsible to me that the travel agent was doing business with a company that had no protection and had clearly been having difficulties for quite some time before they closed.

  • Bill

    I’m surprised that the travel agency wasn’t able to warn the Chaneys before they went on the trip.

    However, bankruptcy is an unpleasant thing and it means that a company is unable to meet the obligations that it has – which in this case happens. Whenever you pay in advance for anything, with any company, you run this risk.

    When there’s an issue like this, someone is out the money – because the bankrupt entity simply does not have it.

  • http://www.cruiseman.com Jim Antista

    I sell Cruise Vacations. As an added level of protection for my clients I do not even have a CC merchants account. Every CC transaction is run by the cruise line itself. This way my clients can clearly see on their CC bill that their trip is, indeed, paid for, and the cruise line has the money, not me. This gives my clients protection in case something were to happen to me, and it gives them assurance that I have not pocketed their money.

    Also … most cruise lines provide us with an invoice that we can give to the client that shows that their money has been received and their cruise is paid in full.

    This is the way I operate. Everything out in the open, and “up front” for my clients. If I were to cease operations or drop dead – they are still going to get their vacation.

    Yes, I do recommend Travel Insurance to every client. About 50% actually purchase it. I tell them in writing that I assume no responsibility for anything that arises due to their declining the insurance.

  • http://www.planetamex.com Blake Fleetwood

    Pay with a credit card… If you had paid with American Express first, there would be no problem. You would have gotten your money back..

    I know Amex does some strange things, but in this regard they are great. Visa and MC might do this also. Amex won’t let you pay for something you didn’t get.

    You should be able to get the first deposit, you paid with a credit card, back.

    Small claims court might work. But legally Travel Leaders is just an agent for the tour operator.

    Travel Leaders is a big company. Maybe you could write/call Barry Lieben at Tzell, which owns them in NYC.

    You could argue that Travel Leaders should have known that they was some kind of trouble with the tour operator.

    Blake Fleetwood
    Cook — American Express Travel Representative
    800 435 8776

  • http://www.singleparenttravel.net John F

    Happy is not a preferred vendor for Travel Leaders so you cannot assume they knew anything.

    Why were the final 2 payments by cashiers check? Do we know if the agency asked for it like that or was it on the request of the client? Some clients do prefer to pay that way that way it is “in full and they don;t owe any more”.

    When Happy went under, there were rumors circulating for slightly more than a week and in fact two days prior to them closing the door one of their reps was essentially clueless. Chris, go to the forums and search for Happy Vacations and yo can get a timeline.

    And as far as the agent and client are concerned, all seemed to be ok. Happy said they were paid to the agent, the agent said they were paid to the customer.

    However, I am curious as to what “documents” the client had from Sandals. They never send docs out without being paid in full. So it seems that Happy may have fabricated their own documents. Fraudulently? Who knows.

    Sandals really has no place in this. How many hotels, car rental places, airline ticket counters can you walk up to and tell them that you were told your stay, car, or ticket was paid for and they let you go? The client could have just as easily walked up to the Four Seasons in Georgetown and made the same claim. Had Sandals received the booking information and not the money it might be one thing, but they were blindsided and the client was lucky they had a room!

  • Sara

    I just don’t understand how so many people will book a vacation and then either (a) try to get on the plane or check into a hotel without having called to confirm all reservations at least once or (b) allow the operator to charge them on the spot without a call to their travel agent or the booking number. This is Travel 101, people.

  • Carver Farrow

    @Sara

    I have to respectfully disagree. You and Chris believe that the traveler bears responsibility for confirming travel. However, math is against both of you. Consider that approximately 2 million people fly worldwide each day. That would be an awful lot of phone calls to the travel providers.

  • http://www.cruiseman.com Jim Antista

    Another thought on this. It says the deposit was made on a credit card. I would like to know what it said on their credit card bill. It had to say something! Who ran the credit card?

  • guy

    I think this sucked, especially since I just got done reading from Chris that we should use a travel agent when we are planning a big trip. Most people don’t have a trusted travel agent. I personally don’t travel enough to have one, and the one that I used to have would make plane reservations for me and charge me $20 for the service. So I now just book online.

    At least if they had used expedia or travelocity those companies don’t go out of business.

  • http://www.roamingtales.com Caitlin (Roaming Tales)

    @Sara That was Travel 101 30 years ago. Airlines these days neither require, nor desire, passengers to call to confirm their reservations.

  • Josh

    I too am confused how this fits in with common advice here to use a travel agent. In this case there were 3 separate companies involved in handling the money (or should have been). Wouldn’t I be better off paying Sandals directly? In any case, I agree that it’s best to confirm with the final provider that your reservation and money have been received.

    Personally, I think there’s criminal fraud going on in some of these cases. I don’t care if “Happy Vacations” goes out of business suddenly or not — there’s no excuse for the money not to have been sent immediately to Sandals. It’s not like ordering, say, custom cabinets, where the money is paying for workers to build them, etc. There’s no justifiable reason for a travel company to “store” your money instead of forwarding it immediately; travel agencies aren’t supposed to be a Ponzi scheme. If the owners have really opened another business, I’d consider hunting them down at work and home and threatening to press both criminal and civil charges unless they personally reimburse the money they stole.

  • Keith

    This seems pretty simple to me. The money way paid to the travel agent and when the customer got to the resort they were told that the money was not paid for the reservation. The customer should be going after the travel agent not the resort. It shouldn’t matter if the agent booked through a third party (happy vacations) or somewhere else. Why else would someone use an agent. If they could have booked through happy vacations or sandals directly without an agent then why wouldn’t they have? The check was given to the travel agent and nothing was recieved in return. It should be the agent being held financially responsible for the refund.

  • MORT HERMAN

    It happened several years ago when I booked avacation in Mexico through a travel agent (Platinum American Express). I received a written confirmation from AMEX who received one from the hotel. Since I have been a journalist for many years, I am suspicious by nature – (my motto is never trust an airline, travel agency, insurance company, etc.) so a few days before my trip I called the hotel directly to re-confirm. SURPRISE! They never heard of me or my reservation. I called Platinum AMEX Travel and the agent there was terrific. He called the hotel and although he and I both had written confirmation, the hotel denied it. He rebooked me at once to another (and more costly) hotel, told me not to worry, and when I was billed, AMEX would credit any differences, He also advised me that he was noting the records on his computer of these facts.

    When I was billed, I called Platinum Amex Travel to inform them. They told me that that agent no longer worked there and they would not honor what he promised. I went “up the ladder” and finally, a manager told me that it was true that it was entered in their computer, they would not honor the ex-agent’s promise.

    I then told them that I would not pay my current bill (it was over $10,000) and wait for them to sue me. [THEY NEVER DO THIS, BY THE WAY. THEY TURN IT OVER TO COLLECTION AND THREATEN YOUR CREDIT RATING - This never intimidates because my rating is extremely high]. I also know that when you “settle” with a collection agency, and you often can do this for 50 cents on the dollar, the agency gets a commission on what they settle for which could be as high as 50%.

    Final. The manager decided that discretion was the better part of valor and agreed to credit me with what their agent promised. I paid my bill within my normal time frame – about 48 hrs.

    An afterword. At credit card banks, people like me (those who always pay in full, on time, and never incur any interest, late charges, or penalties, are known in industry jargon as “A DEADHEAD”.

    MORT HERMAN, DEADHEAD

  • Joel Wechsler

    With all due respect to Keith, he is misinformed about the relationship between clients, agents and third party suppliers. Unless it can be shown that the agency kept the money rather than turning it over to Happy Vacations it is not liable. Clearly the resort is not either. There are many reasons why someone would choose to book through an agent rather than directly with the resort or the tour operator and this is not the place to go into that. If a mistake was made, it was for the agent to allow the client to purchase insurance from the tour operator rather than separately from a different company. This would have given protection against default by Happy Vacations. I have posted about this elsewhere in this forum and will say again that I almost never allow my clients to purchase insurance from suppliers.

  • Mike Y

    @Sara,

    I AGREE 100% with you to call (or go online) to confirm everything.

    Spending some time to double-check your trip itinerary is peace of mind to KNOW that everything is taken care of BEFORE your vacation starts.

    If there is a problem, you have a chance of resolving it before you get to your destination.

    Just add it to your pre-vacation checklist of checking the weather at your destination, stopping newspaper delivery, arranging for a pet sitter, etc.

    Call it Common Sense 101 :) !

    Mike

  • Ernest

    Another crooked travel agent, another reason to bypass them all and deal directly with the companies.

    I am sure there are lots of honest TA’s out there but I have not met them and don’t know how to tell them apart. Being a member of the travel agent club (ATTHA or whatever it is) is no guarentee the will be honest and not rip you off.

    I, too, have learned the hard way. I can not say I will never use a travel agent again but I just don’t see it happening. Now I make all arrangements personally and its not as hard to do as some would have you believe. Now I KNOW where the money went. Lessons learned

  • Josh

    @Joel, @Keith — While it’s possible the first agency is not 100% liable (although I’d argue they were irresponsible for selling same-company insurance and they may have a legal duty to ensure that the money they send made it to Sandals, plus I’d question why they needed to involve another third party; worth pursuing), I still think the owners of Happy Vacations should be pursued for criminal and civil recovery from their *personal* funds; it sounds like the owners misdirected funds to pay other bills instead of Sandals. I don’t believe corporate bankruptcy can protect you from personal fraud charges.

  • sue

    Joel – do I understand you right? Are you saying that if someone goes to a travel agent, who then books a tour through another agency, and that agency proves to be fraudelant/financially unstable, etc, then the only obligation that the travel agent has to the traveler is to refer him or her to their travel insurance?

    Seriously, travel insurance is perhaps the sleaziest form of insurance ever. My travel agent referred me to a shaky third party agency? Well, if you didn’t get travel insurance, too bad. I booked a trip and then a death occurred in my family and I had to cancel one month before the tour?. I didn’t get travel insurance? Too bad.

    Joel, you have definitely convinced me to NEVER go to a travel agency. If you don’t think that travel agents should take any responsibility for their referrals – well what the heck are they for?

  • Joel Wechsler

    @sue I think you misunderstood my point. Travel agents often book through tour operators like Happy because the cost to their client is lower, better rooms are available etc. This is not a referral but rather a common third party transaction. The agent’s responsibilty is to make sure that they they are dealing with a reliable, sound operator. They should be bonded, among other things, and unless there is a valid reason for doing do, their insurance should not be purchased. While there are some scam artisits selling travel insurance Access America and TravelGuard are reliable but not inexpensive. In this unfortunate situation the agent can’t do much more than make every effort to help the client recover what they can from the owners of Happy. As I said, unless the agency kept the money or knew that Hasppy had done so they have no financial responsibilty. Whether or not an agent chooses to make some restitution based on their relationship with the client or out of a sense of moral (not legal) obligation is another matter.

  • DaveInNYC

    For the life of me I cannot understand why any computer-literate person would use a TA, especially for something as simple as a Sandals booking! It is not that TAs are dishonest (though I know there are a few bad apples), it is just that (at least for things like this) they are simply no longer needed.

    Am I missing something here?

  • http://vacationforcouples.com Kim Cushman

    I do most of my travel booking directly or through hotwire, priceline or expedia. To use a travel agency in this day and age would seem odd to me.