Hunt told TTG’s One Week At A Time series on Monday (6 July) he had written to Barclays after paying almost £12,000 in processing fees.

In recent weeks other agents have reported incurring charges - paying fees to make the original booking and being charged again to refund it – the SPAA branded the problem “a perfect storm”.

Hunt said Deben had lost money on some bookings, prompting him to “start a dialogue” with Barclays around how to try and limit the problem.

“It really got on my nerves… right now they’ve have got us in the corner and we can’t do anything about it,” he said.

“So we’ve not only put in loads of work to book the holiday, then to cancel it and help our customer, but now we’ve actually lost money on the booking because of these fees.

“I don’t expect Barclays to write me a cheque for the money but I do want to know what they’re going to do moving forward to support us more.”

Hunt said he would encourage fellow agents to contact their payment providers about the possibility of lower fees as the travel sector looks to build back business lost due to Covid-19.

“Hopefully over the next 6-12 months we’ll be in a position to see bookings come back and we can recoup that money that we’ve lost though card fees.

“For me it’s been an initial telephone call with a follow-up letter. The more of us, as agents and business owners, who put the pressure on the better chance we have of securing discounted rates on our fees for the coming year. It’s something as an industry we all need to get behind.”