British tour operator Thomas Cook collapsed, stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers

And hopefully they had travel insurance.

Yes, a nightmare. It seems, however, that this didn't come out of the blue.
Current thread running on RS
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/thomas-cook-bankrupcy

And, although it’s still flying, Condor Airline is part of Thomas Cook. Unless Germany steps up with additional money it too is in trouble.

A completely untrue headline. People haven’t been left stranded, as the process of repatriation has started. The U.K. government is guaranteeing that everybody will get home as close to their original travel date as possible, at no cost to the travellers.

Nine thousand people in the UK have just lost their jobs.

And no need for travel insurance: the holiday makers are all covered by a industry-wide protection scheme.

The U.K. government is only returning it's own citizens.

Maybe the reference was to the customers in other countries Thomas Cook did business in: Germany, France, Netherlands, the Nordics etc. What happens with these are not really covered by the article at all. Those on packages should however be covered.

There will be some people out of pocket, mainly those who bought future flight-only arrangements under £100 (or over that in cash) without Airline Insolvency Insurance. There won't be much if anything for unsecured creditors at the end of the day.

"And hopefully they had travel insurance."

On the face of it, yes - but as has been highlighted in several places in the UK, the normal level of travel insurance taken out by UK travellers tends to cover things like lost luggage etc - but is unlikely to cover a massive travel company going bankrupt (because the assumption within Europe would be that the ATOL/ACAS company insurance would cover it).

It's fairly certain that most people out of the country will be repatriated , if not always when originally scheduled - but thousands due
to leave for trips in the near future are probably out of luck. The added frustrations for them is that even if they can get some form of refund - from insurance or charge back of credit card - that most replacement flights have rocketed in price as there has been a sudden demand.

I don’t know Jennifer. If I had a flight home this morning, I’d still be pretty upset

Terrible. We travel independently, and this is one reason.

Terrible, awful and just downright sad.

In Munich I remember seeing two Thomas Cook offices, one walking up from Munich Hbf to Stachus (Karlsplatz) and the other further in town , beyond the Marienkirche.

There was also a T. Cook outlet inside Gare du Nord, used it in 1989. Now that exchange outlet is run by TravelEx.

Another reason I don't book tours and go solo in Europe instead.

Those saying, "That's why I don't go on tours" are showing a pretty low level of understanding of how Thomas Cook operated (and of tours in general). If they did offer tours, I don't know about it. What they were well known for was packages that combined air and hotel at holiday locations. One might sign up for a vacation to (insert name here) and buy your air and hotel together at a discounted price. You didn't travel on a guided tour, you simply had a hotel/air package that you purchased.

" What they were well known for was packages that combined air and hotel at holiday locations"

And for many people this is exactly why you would have booked through them or another travel agent as it gives greater levels of security than independent travel. In the UK, package tours bought from a major agent such as Thomas Cook are protected - those people who have booked upcoming holidays will be entitled to full refunds through industry wide insurance systems - so inclusive of flights, hotels, and any transfers etc.

By contrast, independent travellers who have booked just flights through Thomas Cook might be out of luck.

Yes, you're in a worse situation if you buy a flight directly from an airline and the airline fails than you are with a package holiday agent failure.

So, for Brits, was this a complete surprise? Seems like their problems have been festering for awhile and hints of imminent failure would have been visible? FYI, newspapers here in the US are blaming self-booking on the internet and the rise of AirBnB as draining their business (as well as an occasional mention of decline in travel due to uncertainty). Is there more to it?

It sounds flippant but another reason to plan, book and execute your own travel. My main reason, however, has always been that no one knows my personal preferences like I do - including which sights I want to see, what lodging I want to stay in and how I choose to get around.

I did have a flight booked on a small Spanish airline that went out of business before my trip. It was an inconvenience. Since it was part of a same ticket booking, however, the flight plans changed slightly but at no additional cost.

It's interesting that Britain is spending money to get people home. This is bankruptcy, not war, etc. Most of us would be responsible to get ourselves home (or our trip insurance) if an entity went bust. While it is awful, and I sympathize, as most of us hate to spend double what we planned on vacation, one would hope that money was available, otherwise, travel was a poor choice. But we all have made poor financial choices at one point or another in our lives.

Whenever I plan a trip, the question is whether to self insure or buy insurance. For the trip, I tend to be a self insurer. For health insurance and evacuation, I do not self insure. This is another lesson on not putting all one's eggs in one basket. Traveling more independently, would have not wiped out all the trip payments; ie, I took my one RS tour and self insured the tour portion as the risk seemed to be only about a 4 week period, IMO, and airfare and other hotels, etc were separate. We all weigh risks, or should.

In Britain there is ATOL which protects citizens in cases such as this. In the EU, for flight disruption, there is EU261. In the USA we have....bupkas! Here travel insurance you purchase provides coverage; without it, good luck. Even then, as we’ve seen on this board, should a travel agent commit a crime, steal your money instead of paying the vendors, your insurance won’t step up. I don’t agree that the Thomas Cook failure is an argument against group travel. Their business model was pretty unique-their own airplanes, etc-while most tour companies, using RS as an example, provide a defined set of services for a fixed price and does not own the hotels, doesn’t have airplanes, etc. Thomas Cook had a huge amount of debt trying to keep this model alive. It’s been on tether hooks for a while. It’s failure caught many by surprise as they assumed the company would be bailed (too big to fail?). At the end of the day that didn’t happen.