The latest excuse is that Thomas Cook was unable to do a BACS payment to Vacation Travel due to the fact that their credit card details had expired. (Obviously no-one at Thomas Cook knows how to use a phone or email and request new details). Therefore they said they were raising a cheque which would take up to 14 days to be delivered to Vacation Travel. (Apparently Thomas Cook cannot afford first class stamps!).

I agree that between them Thomas Cook and Vacation Travel haven't handled this well but BACS payments aren't that straightforward. A 'cashback' or refund for a cancelled transaction can only be easily made to the account that that the money was received from in the first place - it becomes a lot more complicated when you're trying to refund to a different CC account because the system regards it as a new transaction. There's a bit more to it than just getting the new card details. Not impossible but, yes, in these circumstances it is easier to raise a cheque. This is also why when you've paid for something in a shop with a CC the refund is either back to your card account or in the form of a credit note.

I came across this because I used to organise a national conference and we had a particular delegate who liked to get his University to pay us on his behalf and then he'd cancel and try and get us to send a cheque made out to him for the refunded fee! Once we started insisting on only accepting personal cheques in the first place or else BACS payments that would only be re-paid to the account it was paid from, he stopped booking to come on our conference! The main reason for rules like these is because of the anti money laundering laws as well as preventing fraud like this person was potentially asking us to collude in. But that doesn't excuse Thomas Cook from not doing something quicker to raise a cheque.

SM