Travel question: Will my Thomas Cook wedding get off the ground?

Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder

People’s holiday plans have hit the skids due to the company’s financial problems (Reuters)

Q We have organised our wedding around a Thomas Cook holiday, with friends and family joining us. We are very concerned with what we are hearing about the financial state of this company. Surely we should have the chance to cancel without penalty so we can book with someone else to avoid all this uncertainty?

Name supplied

A Yours is one of many questions I have received from worried customers of Thomas Cook. The firm has been going through a very difficult time financially. It is heavily in debt and its share price is currently less than a 10th of the level a year ago. Shares lost value significantly at the end of last week after Thomas Cook announced more bad news on Thursday: summer bookings had not picked up as the firm had hoped, due to continuing Brexit uncertainty.

For the holidaymaker, it’s a great time to book Thomas Cook package holidays. Some lucky people travelling to Greece from Gatwick today have paid only £123 per person for a one-week package holiday. One analyst has even estimated the firm’s value as zero. Anyone with an advance booking for a Thomas Cook holiday may be understandably concerned about whether they will get what they paid for. As the company is operating normally, standard conditions apply for cancellations. So if you choose to abandon your Thomas Cook plans and travel with a different operator, you will lose a minimum of the deposit for the trip (at least £200). If your departure date is closer than 12 weeks, then the cancellation fee increases sharply.

I realise the last thing you need right now is any kind of cloud hovering over your wedding plans, but I urge you to wait and see. That is mainly because I believe the company will weather the latest bout of financial upset, just as it survived in 2011-12 when the share price fell even more sharply. But if I am wrong, and Thomas Cook were to fail, you will have financial protection of the amount you and your wedding guests have paid so far. I agree it would be awful to have to rearrange a marriage at short notice, but watching developments is, at present, the least bad option.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder