LCI Travel

Do you live in easy reach of Wakefield, Rotherham, or Nottingham?

Then there is a good chance you may get a telephone call from a company called LCI Travel offering you a cheap holiday. The cost is supposedly £34.50 each person to pay for a processing fee.

For this you will get a "Two flights, plus one week's luxury self-catering accommodation in either the Canary Islands, The Balearics, Portugal, or the Costa Del Sol, plus a free category A car hire for the duration of the holiday with unlimited mileage free insurance and free collision damage waiver".

Is there a catch? Well on the face of it how could there be?

Where do you wish to start?

Let's start with LCI Travel. Are they a travel company?

Well actually despite their claims - they aren't. They are a marketing company. A travel company sells holidays. LCI Travel don't sell holidays they sell Club Sunterra. That's all.

But they said they were ABTA and ATOL and IATA registered.

Well - and get used to this - they lie. It is easily checked.

Enter their name into the ABTA website.

You can even enter their "ABTA number" which they will tell you is S203X

Certainly it looks like an ABTA number. But it does not seem to be on the ABTA database. And their free holiday booking site does not mention an ABTA number.

Their ATOL number is a different kettle of fish.

Ask them for that and they will tell you it is 4160. That is indeed an ATOL number. It belongs to a firm called Canaryroute Ltd who are a branch of Sunterra.
So what is the connection between LCI Travel and Sunterra. Well as I said, they sell Club Sunterra - so nothing wrong with that.

Well actually there is. You see I asked ATOL what the connection was.

Here's what Sunterra told ATOL. (The "company" she is referring to is LCI Travel)

Having checked with Sunterra, this company is not an agent or in any way affiliated with them. We will be looking into this further.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

kind regards

Helen Creighton

ATOL Consumer Advice

Civil Aviation Authority

So here is a puzzle, LCI Travel only sells Club Sunterra and uses their ATOL number when asked for one - yet Sunterra tells the CAA that LCI Travel is not an agent or in anyway affiliated to them.

So why would they do that?

Answer in the next bulletin.