US judge to decide if travel firms should honour 1800 bookings

A FLORIDA judge will hold an emergency hearing next Tuesday to decide on whether major travel companies should honour bookings by bankrupt online reservation company, 1800Hotels.

The Dublin-based parent of 1800, Happy Duck Ltd, claims that more than 3,600 of its customers have been left without accommodation by the travel companies’ wilful acts of interference in 1800’s business relationships.

However, in court documents, it accepts that several of the companies cancelled the reservations because of “alleged debts” 1800Hotels had accumulated.

It is seeking a temporary injunction against Gullivers Travel Associates of London; Youtravel.com of Athens, Greece; HotelConnect Ltd of London; the Mark Travel Corporation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US; Travco LLP of London; Hotelbeds of Majorca, Spain, and Tourico Holidays of Altamonte Springs, Florida.

1800 wants all of them to honour their contracts. It alleges that the companies have either breached contracts or have interfered in 1800’s business relationship with its customers.

The companies have yet to reply but are expected to deny the allegations at Tuesday’s hearings.

In its complaint, 1800Hotels alleges that, beginning on Friday, July 2nd, Tourico began cancelling 1800Hotels customer reservations “as a result of the alleged outstanding debt due to Tourico from 1800Hotels”.

This “unilateral cancellation” left approximately 200 of 1800Hotels.com’s customers without accommodation. To mitigate any harm caused, 1800 began rebooking its customers through Gullivers Travel Associates, also known as GTA.

However, from July 9th, “as a result of alleged outstanding debt due to GTA from 1800Hotels”, GTA also began cancelling 1800 Hotel’s reservations. This affected about 1,800 customers.

Hotelbeds also threatened to cancel booked future travel arrangements of customers of 1800 Hotels.com, as did other travel companies.

To illustrate the company’s difficulties, a lawyer for 1800Hotels submitted a long list of irate customer e-mails to the bankruptcy court.

1800’s submissions included an affidavit from one of its senior technical staff, showing how the online bookings were cancelled.

Both sides will take depositions from witnesses on Monday and on Tuesday morning and must disclose documents to each other by Monday morning.