Upscale tour operator Absolute Travel is not answering its
phone and has been placed on travel insurance provider Travel Guard's financial
default alert list.
Travel Guard in April placed Absolute Travel and its
destination-focused brands Absolute Australia and Absolute Asia Pacific on its
alert list, which means that Travel Guard will no longer protect clients
against financial default for bookings of the three brands.
Travel Weekly repeatedly called the phone number
on Absolute Travel's website, which rang several times before being disconnected.
An email to company founder and president Ken Fish was not returned. The
company's website is still live.
A Google search for Absolute Travel brings up the company
information with a note that its New York location has been recorded as "permanently
closed."
Questions about Absolute's status were first reported by
Insider Travel Report.
Several reviews on Yelp with dates from April and May
include complaints from
customers who wrote that they booked and paid for vacations with Absolute
Travel, which in turn did not submit payment to the suppliers, vendors or
ground operators executing the trip.
"We had a great holiday in South Africa planned and one
week before come to find out they never paid the game parks the money we gave
them," wrote one reviewer.
Another reviewer wrote, "I gave them thousands of
dollars for a trip in two weeks, some of which Absolute should have earmarked
for payment to a third-party vendor in the country I was going to. The
third-party vendor never received payment."
There were two complaints about Absolute Travel filed with
the Better Business Bureau last week, but details about the complaints were unavailable.
Additionally, Virtuoso told Travel
Weekly that it dissolved a 15-year relationship with Absolute Travel in
October 2016 and informed travel agents in its network accordingly. Virtuoso did
not provide a reason for cutting ties.