Just over a week after a California woman filed a class action lawsuit against Boston-based Vantage Deluxe World Travel, reports are that the company abruptly ceased operations on Monday, June 12, leaving travelers stranded.
According to News Nation, the company’s Ocean Explorer and Ocean Odyssey ships are docked along the coast in Normandy, France, while its River Splendor is being held in Germany due to unpaid debts.
Just days prior, Boston 25 News reported that the embattled cruise company was looking for a new owner. It also noted that since the beginning of the year, 156 complaints have been filed with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. Since the beginning of 2020, the office has received nearly 800 such complaints about Vantage Deluxe World Travel.
In April, the company said it was the victim of a ransomware attack that caused it to cancel several voyages days before departure. It’s website also went down before a dummy homepage could be created to share updates.
On Facebook, consumer advocate and journalist Christopher Elliott posted on June 2 that Allianz terminated its relationship with Vantage Travel.
“We have terminated our relationship with Vantage, and they are no longer authorized to offer our insurance products, either separately or together with Vantage’s cancellation fee waiver (Part A),” the travel insurance company said in a statement. “We are in the process of communicating to customers relevant information about how they can contact Vantage about their Part A product or claim, as well as about how to contact Allianz for assistance with their Allianz post-departure insurance product (Part B).
“For customers who canceled a Vantage trip because they won’t be traveling, they are entitled to a refund for the price they paid for their Part B product. Vantage should provide this refund directly, but any of our customers who have not received a refund for their Part B product should contact us at 800-284-8300.
“We are not able to assist Vantage customers with questions about refunds for the cost of the Part A waiver product they purchased from Vantage or for the status of refunds for canceled trips covered under that waiver product.”
In a memo obtained by Consumer Rescue that same day, a Vantage Travel executive announced that the company would cancel all tours through August 28, 2023. That same story lists reports of employees not being paid and being “encouraged to ‘fib’ about the company’s status and upcoming tours.”
Trade Response
Vantage Travel is typically a direct-to-consumer business, so most travel agencies we reached out to said they do not do business with it.
"Vantage Deluxe World Travel is not a preferred supplier with Avoya and the sales volume with them over the past five years is not even significant enough to mention," a spokesperson for Avoya Travel told us.
Separately, a spokesperson for World Travel Holdings, operator of Dream Vacations/CruiseOne, said, "We had a recent request about this last week, but none of our agents who we reached out to sold Vantage Deluxe World Travel river cruises. We're not very familiar with that group and they are not one of our preferred suppliers. As far as we know, our agents do not work with them."
Vantage Deluxe World Travel has not posted on any of its social channels since the ransomware updates in late April.
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