Topic: Carnival UK severs ties with Gill's Cruise Centre

This is really serious, after Gills massive 2 page ad: spreads in every weekend newspaper, it seems no company is safe. It makes me wonder about my future cruise bookings with my agent

Gill's manager denies cruise agency 'sold at a loss'

A former performance manager at failed travel agency Gill's Cruise Centre has dismissed suggestions that the agency collapsed because of high levels of discounting.

Gill's ceased trading after cruise lines put the agency on stop sale. Industry observers have blamed the failure on excessive discounting.

However, Sonja Harris, who managed a team of around 30 agents at Gill's London call centre, said: "Not at any time did we sell at a loss. If you are earning a flat commission rate of 5%, you can't give another 10% or 12% discount."

Before Complete Cruise Solution cut commission to 5%, Harris said the agency did price match its competitors, but not always. "If Thomas Cook or Bolsover was doing 12% we would match it. But we wouldn't always match it if it meant selling at a loss - that's not the way we worked."

She said staff were unaware that the company was in trouble until a customer said they had a read a story on Travel Weekly on Thursday. A formal announcement was made to staff on Friday.

Harris denied any workers were escorted from the premises, as some reports have suggested.

She added: "Sales were good. We had an amazing, dedicated team. My only regret it that management didn't talk to us as we would have done everything we could to help."

Harris confirmed that the agency's London office moved from Paddington to Edgware Road just under three weeks ago.

QUOTE:

News of Gills problems have been circulating for over a month on various forums as for buying a dynamic package, I have warned about it many times you get a cheaper deal but not full cover if things go wrong.
Your post read that you blamed someone on this forum, yet had we posted what we were picking up elsewhere a couple of posters would have made a song and dance but you would have had the chance to book your cruise with another agent and saved yourself all that stress.
Funny thing is that poster who went on about legal action has deleted now everything is in the open.

I dont read any other forums, it is time consuming enough keeping up with this one, can become addictive! so I had not heard anything about Gills financial problems until I saw it on this site shortly after we had booked a cruise for November. If I had known a month ago as you say you did we would have made our booking elsewhere. We have booked 2 previous cruises earlier this year with Gills and were pleased with the service we received from them. If it is company we have not used before we always pay with credit card for extra protection but on this occassion we were woried as we paid in full with debit card. Anyway it seems all is well and we have got a package with Cunard including flights so are fully covered by ABTA.