FTI pays out to claimants after insolvency

FTI, until recently the third-largest German tour operator after Tui and DER Touristik, went bankrupt at the beginning of June 2024 and cancelled all previously booked trips shortly afterwards. The German Travel Security Fund (DRSF) protects payments already made for package holidays against the organiser's insolvency. The protection does not apply to individually booked travel components such as hotel bookings.

Following the bankruptcy of tour operator FTI, affected package holiday customers can now expect to receive compensation. The DRSF, through which package holidays are insured, started making refunds towards the beginning of August. The co-managing director of DRSF, Ali Arnaout, assumes that this is one of the ‘largest reimbursement processes to fulfil consumer protection in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany’.

More than 215,000 cancelled package holidays are involved, of which around 60,000 package holidaymakers had already been on holiday with FTI. The volume of refunds involved has now grown to a three-digit million amount. Those affected have been contacted by DRSF since 8 August. They can then submit their refund application online. The plan is to process the majority of refunds by the autumn. Since then, the majority of people contacted by DRSF have started the refund process online. They will have the outstanding amounts transferred back to their specified bank accounts. 

If customer data is incomplete, the sales partners of FTI and BigXtra will help out by completing incomplete data records. This means that such customers can also get their money back.

DRSF tries to reach those who have not provided an email contact by post. In the letter, those affected are invited to submit the online claim on the DRSF website. 

The FAQs on this topic (although in German language) are recommended and are updated on an ongoing basis. Further questions can also be answered by a specially set up hotline, also at weekends: +49 (0)30 78954770