It is essential that when you are making your travel arrangements that you book with an agent, operator or arranger who carries membership of one of the following organisations. By placing your booking with such a member, you may be ‘buying’ extra consumer protection through their bonding arrangements (if they exist), should an element of your travel fail.  You may be able to benefit from the additional facilities of a complaints process should that agent, operator or arranger fail to deliver timely responses to your complaint. In certain circumstances you can invoke an arbitration process to settle your dispute. Below are brief summaries for each of the organisations along with an appropriate link for further information. Read More

The issue of Holiday Financial Protection through the ATOL scheme has attracted intense scrutiny since the collapse of the XL Group and Freedom Direct.  We have been guiding Mr & Mrs A – consider this quote from Mrs A – “the more this is highlighted the better – various people who I have spoken to – are under the impression that if a Tour Operator has an ABTA/ATOL No, they are covered – how wrong they are!!”  Mr & Mrs A booked a holiday through the collapsed travel provider, Freedom Direct.  They purchased a flight, hotel and transfers, all stated as one inclusive price.  They have advised that it was their intention to purchase a package holiday and that there was nothing that they could see or hear, which put them on notice that it was anything other than a package holiday! Read More

The ABTA Code of Conduct was updated in February 2008. The Code is designed to import a standard level of professional behaviour that you can expect from your travel agent or tour operator, if they are members of ABTA. Read More

If you discover that you are unable to resolve the complaint directly with the tour operator, you have the option to present your case under the ABTA Arbitration scheme. Read More