Traveland.com looked like a solid travel agency. But Sandra Baker and dozens of other travelers found the ground was more than a little shaky when Traveland's abrupt disappearance on March 8th nearly stranded them in Cusco, Peru in the middle of a trip.
"On the bus at 8:30 or 9:00pm, the tour guide announced that Traveland had paid them some money but ... basically, we were on our own," she said, as the local tour operator Rainbow Tour and Travel demanded checks to pay for the next night's accommodation and flights back to Lima.
"We were hostages," she said.
And they weren't the only ones left on their own. Traveland didn't pay Rainbow "one U.S. cent" for the entire group, Rainbow spokeswoman Melissa Loreno de Duran said in an e-mail. "They kept those customers' money, and they sent us a huge problem," she wrote. Rainbow is now out up to $559 for each traveler -- and Traveland has vanished with the dough.
Traveland evaporated overnight, leaving an incoherent -- and thoroughly misleading -- screed on their Web site, www.traveland.com. While their phone number in Mission, TX is still live, it just gives you an answering machine; their number in Los Angeles and the listed home phone number of Traveland owner Sergio Lemos are disconnected. They didn't answer my email, and neither the Texas nor the California secretary of state's office has any record of their existence or who to contact. While Traveland advertised that they had a California Sellers of Travel registration number, the California attorney general's office confirmed to me that their number -- and their registration -- lapsed in April of 2006.
The suggestions on the Traveland website aren't much help, either. They suggest you go to the Airline Reporting Corporation, the organization that accredits travel agents to issue airline tickets, for help. But ARC has no interaction with consumers, ARC spokesman Kelly Quinn said, and the "bond" mentioned on Traveland's Web site will probably be used to pay off creditors at some point in the future, according to Steve Watt of IATA. Needless to say, Traveland is being investigated by ARC's fraud department.
Baker, meanwhile, was told that Traveland "had put $1.6 million into a fund" and that in a worst-case scenario, travelers should go to California's Travel Consumer Restitution Fund (ag.ca.gov/travel/faqs.php) for help. But that would only help if both Traveland and the consumer asking for money were in California. After a day of searching, I can't say with complete confidence where Traveland was based; my best bet is Mission, TX, a border town where Lemos had a home phone number, Traveland shared a building with a liquor store, and the local Better Business Bureau's report on the agency looked like a catalog of sins.
Since nobody can find Traveland, nobody can figure out who they're supposed to get their money back from. Your best bet right now is to go to your credit card company or travel insurer (see below).
So how can you avoid booking with a travel agency in trouble, and what can you do if yours goes under?
Get a real business name, the principal owner's name, a physical business address and a non-800 telephone number. This doesn't apply to big guns like Expedia.com, who are generally easy to find. But for smaller agencies, if something goes wrong, knowing the real details -- not just a Web site address -- can help you work with your state attorney general's office to get payback.
Check their memberships. Being a member of a reputable group doesn't guarantee you aren't a scam artist, but it shows a level of seriousness it's good to have. See if your agent belongs to one of these organizations:
- United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA) (www.ustoa.com)
- National Tour Association (NTA) (www.ntaonline.com
- American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) (www.astanet.com)
- A Certified Travel Counselor certificate from the Travel Institute (www.thetravelinstitute.com)
Sergio Lemos and Traveland.com didn't have any of those certifications.
Check with the local BBB. A legitimate travel agent should tell you where their primary place of business is. So go to http://search.bbb.org and see who's complained. Traveland.com had a pretty awful record in Mission, TX -- though watch out, because the California BBB showed several companies with the name "Traveland" that aren't the one in question.
See if insurance companies have faith in them. It's a pretty good bet that if mega-insurer AIG Travel Guard won't sell you insurance in case an agency goes under, the agency must be in financial trouble. This rule doesn't hold for airlines, who use bankruptcy as a tool to renegotiate contracts. Check AIG's alert list at buy.travelguard.com/tgdirect/customerservice/alerts.aspx and make sure your agency isn't on there.
If you're in California, check on the California Sellers of Travel website at http://ag.ca.gov/travel and see whether the company has filed with the travelers' restitution fund. That gives you a last-resort option if your credit card company and insurance don't come through.
Book with a credit card. The venerable Fair Credit Billing Act lets you get your money back if someone who charged you doesn't deliver -- for instance, if you paid a travel agency and they didn't pay your hotel.
Buy third-party travel insurance. Travel insurance may not make much sense on simple airline tickets, but it makes a tremendous amount of sense on complex trips. Insurance doesn't just help you get your money back. Travel Guard's insurance, for instance, comes with a 24-hour concierge service that can help you find a hotel and transportation if a fly-by-night agency leaves you stranded. Read more about travel insurance here: www.frommers.com/articles/225.html.
Double check bookings. If an agency says they paid an airline, they should give you a confirmation number, and you should be able to call the airline and see that it's a confirmed ticket. Unfortunately, hotel bookings often aren't paid in advance, but air tickets should be locked down.
Finally, consider bringing a cell phone on your trip. If something goes wrong, you can whip it out to quickly call your insurance or credit card company for help, rather than competing with dozens of other stranded travelers for a few pay phones. For tips on traveling with cell phones, see this article www.frommers.com/articles/4045.html.
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