News | USA allgemein | 07.06.2024
Insolvency FTI
Since Monday, June 3, 2024, Germany's third-largest tour operator has been in preliminary insolvency. What this means for our customers who booked their trip or travel components with FTI is summarized in this article. Read here about the current situation and its implications.
This is a translation from German and was done with ChatGPT. We apologize for any misunderstandings and incorrect translations.
As of: Friday, June 14, 2024, 18:29 CEST
Dear customers,
please read all contents carefully and thoroughly. The provided information corresponds to our current knowledge. Please note that not all points mentioned here may apply to your booking with us; you may only be affected by individual topics or aspects.
If you have any further questions beyond the information published here, our team is happy to assist you at info@flamingocompany.de or +49 30 7079340 (Monday-Friday 12-18 hours). Please always refer to your booking number (25xxxx or 26xxxx) when contacting us, so we can quickly assign your inquiry. You can find this number in your travel registration or in the subject line of our emails regarding your booking.
FTI-TOURISTIK SITUATION
Since June 3, 2024, several companies within the FTI-Group have filed for bankruptcy due to insolvency. This also affects FTI Touristik GmbH with the brands driveFTI and FTI Cars&Camper. Since then, only the provisional insolvency administrator appointed by the court has the authority to make business decisions. For example, payments can only be made or trips canceled with his approval. The intended insolvency proceedings do not initially provide any information about the future of the company, its possible continuation, or a potential sale. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that booked travel services might still be provided as planned.
www.fti-group.com/de/insolvenz
STATUS OF YOUR BOOKING(S)
Quote from the current FTI press release dated June 14, 2024: "FTI Touristik GmbH will [...] immediately cancel all trips with a departure date from Saturday, July 6, 2024. [...] This affects all package tours and certain individual services booked by customers for departures from July 6, 2024, through [...] FTI Touristik GmbH [...]" Unfortunately, FTI has not specified what is meant by "certain individual services." Unfortunately, no further information is available at this time. If you have not yet received a cancellation notice from your contractual partner (e.g., FTI Touristik, driveFTI, etc.), your booking is still active, and the contract between you and the FTI-Group continues to exist.
+++ SERVICES WITH A START DATE UNTIL JULY 5, 2024 +++
FLIGHT
You have already received a trip cancellation/cancellation notice from FTI Touristik for the above reasons. Consequently, your flights will be canceled by FTI with the airline. Therefore, utilizing bookings currently shown as active by the airline but already canceled by FTI is done at your own risk.
MOTORHOME
Your motorhome booking has already been canceled by FTI Touristik for the above reasons. However, your vehicle rental company is maintaining your reservation. On this basis, we can offer you a replacement booking under almost identical conditions (vehicle, date, price, services). We have already communicated all details to you, and we are very pleased that most of our affected customers have made use of this.
CAR RENTAL
All car rental bookings with a service start date until July 5, 2024, have been canceled by FTI Touristik (also: driveFTI, FTI Cars&Camper) for the above reasons. You have already received a cancellation from your contractual partner. As a short-term alternative, we are offering replacement bookings. On our websites
www.usareisen.de/mietwagen or
www.drive-canada.de/mietwagen
you can independently make a new booking for your travel dates. You will now also find offers from Sunny Cars, our new car rental partner, on both websites, where you can not only book the TOP services of the most popular rental companies Alamo, National, and Enterprise, but also receive an exclusive discount if you book by June 30, 2024. (All our car rental customers have already been informed about the details.) Double bookings resulting from the replacement booking will be automatically cleaned up by the car rental companies.
ACCOMMODATION / TOUR HOTELS
FTI Touristik has already sent cancellations to all affected customers for all accommodation bookings starting by July 5, 2024, for the above reasons. Customers have the option to either look for alternatives themselves or request a replacement offer from us. In most cases, we can still arrange accommodations for you at short notice, or even create a hotel offer similar to your previous tour itinerary.
+++ SERVICES WITH A START DATE FROM JULY 6, 2024 +++
Please make sure to first check the current information in the "STATUS OF YOUR BOOKING(S)" section (see above)
FLIGHT
Your flight booking has not been canceled and is still being held by your airline(s). Your trip has also not yet been canceled by FTI Touristik. Only after the tour operator has terminated your travel contract and the existing flight booking has also been canceled by the airline(s) will rebooking on the same connection or with the same airlines be possible again.
If you want to make a rebooking yourself, selecting the same airline(s) will result in a double booking and consequently an automatic cancellation of the new reservation.
MOTORHOME
FTI Touristik has not yet canceled your motorhome booking. Your vehicle rental company is still keeping your reservation active. As soon as your travel date is also canceled by FTI Touristik and your booking is thereby canceled, we will offer you a rebooking with another German tour operator. This rebooking will then be under almost identical conditions regarding vehicle, date, price, and service(s). This procedure has already been applied to all previously canceled bookings and has worked excellently. We will inform you by email about the details as soon as your booking is canceled by FTI Touristik.
If you are considering a direct booking with the renters in the USA/Canada: Please note that the additional third-party liability insurance of 10 million euros previously included is not available there, and you can only secure the exclusion of the deductible through additional costs. Additionally, Germany will no longer be the jurisdiction for the travel contract!
CAR RENTAL
Your car rental booking has not yet been canceled by FTI Touristik (also: driveFTI, FTI Cars&Camper). Your booking is therefore not affected, and the reservation with your car rental company remains active. However, we still recommend making a rebooking now. We are happy to assist with this process through our websites. At
www.usareisen.de/mietwagen or
www.drive-canada.de/mietwagen
you can independently make a new booking for your travel dates. Double bookings resulting from the replacement booking will be automatically cleaned up by the car rental companies.
On both websites, you will now also find offers from Sunny Cars, our new car rental partner, where you can not only book the TOP services of the most popular rental companies Alamo, National, and Enterprise, but also receive an exclusive discount if you book by June 30, 2024. (All car rental customers have already been informed about the details.)
ACCOMMODATION / TOUR HOTELS
Accommodation bookings with a start date after July 5, 2024, have not yet been canceled by FTI Touristik. To avoid double bookings, we are currently not making new reservations ourselves. We know from customer reports that hoteliers themselves have sometimes carried out cancellations, but we have not been informed about this by either the accommodation or FTI. Unfortunately, we cannot provide specific information about this.
As soon as your booking is canceled by FTI Touristik, we will contact you by email to agree on further procedures.
+++ GENERAL INFORMATION +++ GENERAL INFORMATION +++
CANCELLATION AND REBOOKING
Since the booking systems of FTI Touristik have been shut down since the beginning of the insolvency proceedings, neither bookings nor rebookings or cancellations can be technically carried out since then. If you have already submitted a cancellation request to us, it is automatically registered with the date and time with us, but cannot currently be executed by us or FTI Touristik for the above reasons. As soon as this issue is resolved, we will automatically forward your request to your contractual partner.
Please note that cancellations or rebookings are still possible under the conditions agreed with you on the day of booking. Thus, the free cancellation options for certain services (e.g., car rentals)
assured by FTI Touristik (also: driveFTI, FTI Cars&Camper) remain valid; all contractual travel conditions (terms and conditions and payment terms) continue to apply unrestrictedly to customers and contractual partners until a cancellation is made. As your travel agency (travel intermediary), we cannot override these regulations.
PAYMENT, REFUND, AND INSOLVENCY INSURANCE
"As long as it is not clarified whether trips from July 6, 2024, will take place, FTI does not collect payments from customers nor do customers need to make payments." This is how the FTI Group currently informs its customers.
A refund of the amounts you have already paid to your FTI contractual partner in connection with your cancellation request is currently not taking place. Changes to this procedure can only be made by the insolvency administrator.
Since the payment page ('Paylink') of the FTI-Group is currently offline, we cannot check whether your payments have been received there or if there are still outstanding (partial) claims.
As the booking (intermediating) travel agency, we naturally do not have access to the accounting or bank data of the FTI-Group or the service providers. Therefore, we cannot confirm payments between FTI and the service providers (e.g., vehicle rentals).
If you have booked a package tour (see below) through FTI Touristik, all payments you have already made are automatically secured by the insolvency insurance of the German Travel Security Fund (DRSF). Damages caused by after-payments or double payments in the travel country should be reported directly there and reimbursement requested:
https://drsf.reise/
https://drsf.reise/schadenmeldung/
DRSF Service phone ++49 (0)30 78954770
In the case that you have booked individual travel services instead of a package tour, you have the option to enter your claim directly with the insolvency administrator in the so-called 'Insolvency List' (the list of all claims against the company) after the opening of insolvency proceedings.
You are always free to attempt to recall any (partial) payments already made. Depending on the payment method you chose on the FTI-Group's payment page (e.g., credit card, bank transfer, PayPal), there might be procedures available (e.g., 'Charge-Back', 'Bank Transfer Recall', 'Buyer Protection') that you can use.
PACKAGE TOUR
According to the German Civil Code (BGB) ยง651, a package tour is created by the simultaneous booking of different travel services (e.g., flight, car rental, accommodation, etc.) with one contractual partner (e.g., FTI Touristik) for the purpose of the same trip. This will be made apparent to you through the delivery of pre-contractual information and the handing over of a security certificate, documenting the security of your payments through insolvency insurance.
The travel registration/receipt or the booking confirmation/receipt from your contractual partner will provide information about the type of trip (e.g., package tour) of your booking.
We hope that we have been able to answer your most important questions with all the information gathered here. We continue to do our best for you, our customers, to save your booking(s) and thus your trip and vacation. We remain committed and continue to take care of you.
Your team at Flamingo Company Long-Distance Travel
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