Many charter sailors use the holidays and the free time between the years to plan and even book their cruise for next year. After all, many fleet providers are still offering early booking discounts, often up to 25 per cent or even more, in order to fill their booking lists for 2024 as quickly as possible. With the substantial 2023 Price increases for charter weeks it is important for some customers to take these discounts with them. The financial problems of two online agencies in recent months, in which dozens of customers lost their entire down payments in some cases, have made it clear that hard-earned euros can certainly be jeopardised. As a customer, you hand over relatively large sums of money relatively early on, either to a German agency or directly to a fleet operator abroad.
But there are ways for you to prevent such a debacle at an acceptable cost. Especially as unusual practices by some agencies are currently being reported on the charter scene's bush radio. For example, a major European online booking platform currently has offers online where ships are being offered with substantial discounts, but where immediate, full payment of the charter is required instead of the usual 50 per cent or similar. On top of this, obscure clauses such as "no refunds" can be found in the terms and conditions, which raises fears that it will no longer be possible to cancel the trip at the pro rata charter price, which is actually the rule. Anyone who stumbles across such things that are unusual in the industry should immediately set alarm bells ringing. Then change providers or play it safe:
The lifeline: insurance certificate or external insurance
For years it has been possible to insure your payments against the insolvency of the local agency or fleet operator abroad. There are two ways to do this: If you book through one of the member agencies of the Association of German Yacht Charter Companies (VDC), you can ask for an insurance certificate. The members have been cooperating with a reinsurer for years. However, this cooperation expires at the end of 2023 and the association is currently working on a new solution for 2024. Just talk to your agency about it. Incidentally, the advantage of a good agency that is also organised in the industry association is that it knows the fleet operators well and sometimes dispenses with the mass of providers, but selects the companies more carefully. In this way, it will be noticed relatively early on if the fleet operator runs into problems.
Probably the safest alternative is for customers to take action themselves and insure their booking themselves. This can be done via insurance brokers such as Pantaenius Hamburg Yacht Insurance and others. The amount of the fee is then calculated based on the charter sum. In most cases, however, insolvency insurance is only available in a package with travel cancellation insurance. The costs for the duo, which usually has to be explicitly selected as an add-on, amount to just under 200 euros for an average charter trip of one to two weeks with a charter sum of 4,000 euros and a crew of five to seven sailors, but with a ten per cent deductible in the event of cancellation due to insolvency. If you are unable to go on the trip for health reasons, the cost is 20 per cent.
