AFTA revokes ATAS status of Victorian business
This just in – the Australian Federation of Travel Agents has taken action to terminate the ATAS travel accredited status of Reed Holidays Pty Ltd, which was trading as Young at Heart Travel.
The Victorian based travel business is reportedly entering liquidation, with AFTA making the call after being contacted by the appointed liquidator, Cor Cordis, who has started the process of winding up the business.
In a statement, AFTA said they had “been made aware that there are a number of consumers impacted by this situation and it would appear that the industry is doing what it can to assist under the circumstances.
“AFTA is advising consumers and travel agents who have been impacted to invoke a chargeback if payments were made by credit card and to contact the local Police to commence criminal charges against the principles where payments and deposits had been paid for future travel that will now not be able to be taken.”
At the time of publishing, the Young at Heart Travel website was still up and running, accreditation logos and all.
AFTA said it would provide more updates as new information comes to light.
It comes not long after AFTA announced its newest venture to help agents, known as the AFTA Insolvency Chargeback Scheme (AICS).
AICS is the first ever mutual fund solution to address the issues of consumer chargebacks when suppliers fail and the travel agent has passed the customer’s money onto the supplier.
AFTA also provided contact details for the liquidator, which are as follows:
Phone: 03 9875 1404
Postal: PO Box 232 Collins Street West MELBOURNE VIC 8007
Email: info@corcordis.com.au
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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Also I met a guy once who knew a guy who was a cousin of a regular consumer who had reportedly heard of ATAS but still had no idea what it was.
On the contrary it makes lot of money for those on the board of AFTA and those who work for AFTA. They all pocketed a lot from the cessation of the TCF etc (no one else benefited). Of course its entirely pointless for anyone not working for AFTA or on the board of directors. But they now get paid a lot for basically doing nothing at all.
I don’t know what the big deal is with ATAS it simply cannot do anything for consumer or agents! It will not replace TCF as good as it was before. The only way to run a successful business is to keep consumer deposits in separate client accounts. 1 for short term and one for long term turnarounds.
The last time I saw something about ATAS it already did nothing for anybody and today it still does nothing for anybody!!