A dream holiday at a luxury villa in Turkey for Tanya Douglass and Darren Brown has turned into disaster when holiday giants XL Leisure Group went into administration.

Tanya, 27, and Darren, 24, of Grovehurst Road, Sittingbourne were counting the days to their flight on September 23.

But the dream became a nightmare when Tanya heard the news on GMTV today.

" Tanya, a commercial executive said she was stunned and horrified to hear the news.

" I was just sitting having my morning cup of tea and thinking there were only 13 more days before we flew out. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing.

" I immediately rang Darren and said ' who are we flying with?'

"He said, 'XL', I said, oh no we're not, they've gone bust."

Tanya and Darren are now battling to scrape together another £400 for re-booked flights and attempting to re-coup their money. But the collapse of XL has already taken the shine off their holiday.

"In the current economic climate, holidays are the one thing that people have got to look forward to.

"We felt we could rely on an established company like XL, and they must have known about this for some time.

"I'm shocked and disgusted that they were still taking bookings up to midnight last night," Tanya said.

The collapse of XL Leisure Group, Britain's third biggest tour operator, has affected at least 285,000 people.

It blamed fuel prices and the credit crunch over its plight and all of XL Airways flights have been grounded with customers being advised not to go to the airport.

The Civil Aviation Authority has said the collapse is "probably the biggest holiday failure in the last 20 years".

The demise of XL follows on the heels of Seguro Holidays, a company that operated holiday under the Kent Escapes brand, which went into administration last Wednesday leaving around 200 holidaymakers, who flew from Kent International Airport stranded.

Raed more about Seguro Holidays

Have you been affected by tour operators going bust. Let us know at kentonline.editor@thekmgroup.co.uk