By Harry Kemble & Amie Keeley.
Online travel agency and former Freedom Travel Group member Very Holidays has ceased trading.
The business, which was owned by former Freedom Direct bosses Martin Jones and Nick Jackson, had recently joined the Midcounties-run Co-operative Travel Consortium following the failure of Thomas Cook.
The majority of bookings made while it was a member of Freedom have been taken on by Hays Travel. There is understood to be around 100 bookings made since joining the Co-operative Travel Consortium.
The agency, which used to be called Very Cheap Holidays, advertised through its own website and through online aggregators such as icelolly.com.
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It is understood to have turned over just over £10 million a year.
Very Holidays is thought to be the first agency failure since the collapse of Thomas Cook on September 23.
Very Holidays posted on its Facebook page a week after Cook’s collapse announcing it had joined the Midcounties-run consortium and received a new Abta number.
“We were left completely in the dark immediately after the failure (of Cook) without any support from the failed Thomas Cook group or any of the trade bodies,” the post read.
“We were unable to book new holidays for our new clients and access to all systems we had used was blocked.”
Jones is the former chief executive of Newcastle-based call centre and online travel agency Freedom Direct Holidays, which went into liquidation in 2009. Jackson was managing director of Freedom Direct.
Jones declined to comment when contacted by Travel Weekly.