Thomas Cook went into administration on 23 September 2019 which affected tens of thousands of customers who had purchased a package holiday or flight through the travel giant. Plenty of advice has been issued on what to do if your holiday has been affected by the collapse, but there has been very little information made available to customers who purchased travel money through the Thomas Cook website and may now be out of pocket.
If you purchased travel money from Thomas Cook
If you purchased travel money for home delivery on the Thomas Cook website and have not received your order, you will need to contact your bank or card issuer to claim a refund.
If you paid by debit card you can instruct your bank to make a chargeback request against Thomas Cook's bank to recover the funds you sent. These refunds are not guaranteed as the request can fail for various reasons but you still stand a good chance of recovering some or all your money.
If you paid by credit card you have full legal protection under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. Contact your card issuer and ask to make a claim as you should be entitled to a full refund provided your order was over £100.
If you purchased a prepaid Lyk card
Thomas Cook launched a prepaid currency card in November 2017 which was branded under the name ‘Lyk'. Lyk cards allowed customers to pre-load cash in advance in several currencies that they could then withdraw or spend abroad without incurring the some of the costs associated with a traditional bank card.
Although the Lyk card was sold through Thomas Cook, it was underwritten by Wirecard AG; a German-based technology and financial services provider. A statement on the Lyk card website reads:
Following the news of Thomas Cook going into administration, it is important to remind cardholders that the safety of your money is not affected. The funds are held by Wirecard at a regulated credit institution which is completely separate to the Thomas Cook business. Any change in Thomas Cook's business position or operating circumstances will not have an impact on you being able to access your funds as you do today and they will not be used by Thomas Cook or Wirecard Card Solutions Limited for any other purpose.
So, if you have funds stored on a Lyk card they are not affected by the collapse of Thomas Cook and you can continue to use the card as normal.
However, the Lyk card charges are dormancy fee of £2 per month after 15 months of inactivity so don't leave your balance on the card and forget about it. The fees and charges section of the Lyk card website is currently down and it's unclear if/when it will made live again, but a cached version can be still be found on Google for now.
The fallout from the collapse of Thomas Cook is still ongoing, but customers who purchased travel money from Thomas Cook should be able to claim a refund through their bank, and users of their prepaid Lyk card will remain unaffected.