On 26th October 2019, Secret Escapes contacted all LateRooms and LateLuxury.com customers, informing them that they had acquired the business that owned the two brands.
As part of their obligations under the new EU data protections laws, known as GDPR, Secret Escapes was required to inform customers that it had acquired their personal data.
LateRooms, and sister brand LateLuxury, went into administration back in August, leaving customers of the hotel booking platform – once owned by TUI – uncertain as to whether existing bookings would be honoured by hotels. Administrators KPMG said they would seek a buyer for the troubled business.
In what appears to have been an asset sale, Secret Escape has purchased the customer databases, presumably to try and convert former LateRooms/Luxury customers into Secret Escapes ones. At the time of writing, other parts of the failed business, including the Super Break package holiday company, had not attracted a buyer.
As this announcement was made, the LateRooms.com website was down due to security issues. The site’s security certificate was incorrectly set for the secretescapes.com domain. This will no doubt worry former LateRooms customers, many of whom have already had to liaise directly with hotels to ensure their future bookings are secure, and now unable to browse help and contact information on the website.
The LateLuxury.com website was unaffected and is now operating as “Powered by Secret Escapes.” Perhaps Secret Escapes are putting more energy into the preservation of the LateLuxury brand and customers, as they better align with the Secret Escapes product?
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