Wealth Blog | Truant school kids jet off to the sun - with their own credit cards

Runaway Stonyhurst pupils “safe and well” in the Caribbean, we read. Well there’s a relief. Not the slightest bit discomforted by the furore that’s shortened their lovely holiday. If I was the parent of one of these 16-year old lovebirds who bought HK$40,000-worth of air tickets and a five star hotel stay with a credit card I’d trusted them with, I’d be livid. They took a taxi from their Jesuit-founded school in Lancashire, England, to Manchester Airport and then booked into a five-star resort hotel in the Dominican Republic.

Call me old fashioned but…

I would take a very dim view of everyone involved, starting with myself. For trusting them with a credit card and not putting a sensible limit on it. I’d be even madder with the credit card company for not notifying me that a large wodge had been charged to the card. These kids are only 16, after all, and clearly not yet responsible. But then the parents probably don’t know them that well. They didn’t even know the girl had a boyfriend.
 

England’s only non-curious cabbie

Then I’d be furious with the taxi firm for driving them – in the middle of term – from school to the airport without checking with the school. Then I’d be livid with the airline for not noticing that two 16-year olds had bought tickets – all airlines require passport details with dates of birth, even for online bookings. Then I’d be mad with the school for having such lousy intelligence that no one noticed them being picked up, packing bags, acting suspiciously, missing from meals. Several hours must have elapsed between absconding and take off. Then I’d be incandescent with Dominican Republic immigration for not questioning them on arrival and the five-star Occidental Grand Resort hotel for not clocking their age when they handed over their passports at check-in.