Tripaneer is bankrupt: what it means for your booking

What happened

According to the public insolvency record, a provisional suspension of payments was granted on 28 September 2026 and converted into bankruptcy on 30 September 2026 (some reports give 1 October). The case number is F.13/26/306, a court-appointed trustee — in Dutch, a curator — now controls the company's money, websites and contracts, and the first creditors' meeting is set for 9 December 2026 at 10:30. You can check the case yourself on ClaimsAgent, which republishes the Dutch court register.

A bankruptcy is not an allegation of wrongdoing, and it does not automatically cancel bookings. It does mean that money held by the company is now frozen inside the bankruptcy, and that is where the problem for travellers and schools lies.

Which websites are affected

Tripaneer ran a family of marketplaces. Reports list these among them:

• BookYogaRetreats
• BookYogaTeacherTraining
• BookDetoxRetreats
• BookSurfCamps
• BookMartialArtsTraining
• BookCulinaryVacations
• BookCyclingHolidays
• BookHorseRidingHolidays
• BookAllSafaris

Some similarly named booking sites are separate companies and are not part of this case. The quickest way to know whether you are affected is to look at your booking receipt or card statement and see which company took your payment.

Why the deposits are the problem

On these sites a guest paid a deposit online to Tripaneer and paid the rest of the price directly to the school or organiser. Tripaneer kept its commission and, according to its own help centre, passed the remainder of the deposit to the organiser one to two days after the guest arrived.

That timing is what matters now. For a retreat or training that has not happened yet, the school has probably received none of your deposit — it is still held by the bankrupt company. The trustee has said the company cannot currently pay claims linked to bookings that have not taken place, and that it is too early to say whether those claims will be paid later.

So a school may be running your retreat exactly as planned, and still not have received a single rupee, baht or euro of the deposit you paid.

If you are a student with an upcoming booking

Act soon — some of the routes below have time limits.

• Contact the school directly. Ask, in writing, whether your place is still confirmed, how much of your deposit (if any) they received, and what you would need to pay to attend. Many schools are honouring bookings; some will ask you to pay the deposit again.
• Get any new arrangement in writing before paying, and only pay into an account you have confirmed with the school using contact details you looked up yourself.
• Ask your bank or card issuer about a chargeback if you paid by card. Card schemes generally allow disputes for services not provided, but the deadlines vary by card and bank.
• In the UK, ask about Section 75. If you paid at least part of a price of £100 to £30,000 on a credit card, the card provider may share responsibility. Payments through an intermediary can complicate this, so ask.
• If you paid with PayPal, PayPal disputes generally have to be opened within 180 days of payment.
• Check your travel insurance for cover against a supplier going bust (often called supplier failure or end-supplier insolvency).
• File a claim with the trustee. It is free, through the ClaimsAgent case page linked above. Keep your booking confirmation and payment proof.

Be realistic about that last step. In a Dutch bankruptcy, ordinary creditors such as customers are paid after the trustee's costs, employees, the tax authority and secured lenders, and often recover little or nothing. A chargeback or insurance claim is usually the better route; the bankruptcy claim is the backstop.

If you have already been

If your retreat has already taken place, you are likely unaffected: your deposit should have reached the school around your arrival. If you were holding store credit or a gift card from one of these sites, it is now an unsecured claim against the bankrupt company. Keep the records and file a claim.

If you run a school or retreat

Schools are creditors too, and in an awkward position: guests who arrived recently may be owed to you, and guests arriving in the coming months have paid deposits that you have not received.

• File your claim for money owed on guests who have already arrived, through the ClaimsAgent case page linked above, with your partner agreement and booking evidence, ahead of the creditors' meeting on 9 December.
• Decide how you will treat upcoming guests who paid a deposit to Tripaneer, and tell them clearly and early. Some schools are honouring the bookings and absorbing the loss; others are asking for the deposit again. Either is understandable — silence is not.
• Pause or update your listings on the affected sites if you no longer want new deposits going to the bankrupt company. Reports say this can still be done from the partner dashboard.
• Follow the public register for updates rather than waiting for individual replies; the trustee has asked partners to do so.
• Take payments into an account in your school's name, confirm price and dates in writing, and send your cancellation terms with the payment request. It protects you and reassures nervous guests.

Watch out for scams

Insolvencies attract fraudsters. Ignore anyone who offers to recover your money for an upfront fee — filing a claim is free. Be wary of emails or calls claiming to be from Tripaneer, the trustee or a "refunds department" that ask for card details, and never pay a deposit again to an account you have not confirmed with the school in writing.

Is it safe to book a retreat now?

Yes — with one question in mind: who is holding your money, and when does the school receive it? Whichever website you use, ask before you pay:

• Who receives my payment — the platform or the school?
• If the platform holds a deposit, when is it passed to the school?
• What happens to my money if the platform or the school stops trading?
• What are the school's own cancellation and refund terms?

For transparency, this is how YogaStay works today: you send the school a free enquiry, the school confirms with you, and you pay the school directly on its own terms. YogaStay never takes payment and charges no commission, so there is no deposit sitting with us. That does not remove every risk — you are trusting the school — so the same advice applies: get the details in writing and pay into an account in the school's name. Our guide on how to choose a yoga retreat covers the other questions worth asking.

The bottom line

If you booked through a Tripaneer site and have not travelled yet, talk to your school today, start a chargeback or insurance claim if you paid by card or are covered, and file a free claim with the trustee as a backstop. If you run a school, file for what you are owed and tell your upcoming guests where they stand. We will update this article if the trustee's position changes.

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