Travel News > February 2012 > ATOL Reform: More holidays to be protected from April, but many still left unprotected

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ATOL Reform: More holidays to be protected from April, but many still left unprotected

17/02/2012

ATOL Protection is being extended to include Flight Plus holidays, however many holidays booked independently or booked with an airline will still be unprotected making travel insurance with insolvency cover important for many holiday makers.

The Government has announced reforms to the ATOL Protections Scheme, which provides financial protection for consumers that book air package holidays. If your holiday is ATOL Protected it means that in the event that your airline becomes insolvent before you travel you would be able to make a claim to the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) to recoup your lost money. Or if the airline becomes insolvent whilst you are away, the CAA would arrange to bring you home so you are not stranded abroad.

The good news is that, from April 30, the scheme is being extended to include what are known as flight plus or dynamically packaged holidays. Currently the scheme only applies to air packages that are sold at one inclusive published price by a tour operator who is ATOL bonded.

From April 30, if you book a flight plus hotel, or a flight plus car hire from the same company your holiday will also be ATOL Protected. This means that the regulations are extended to include high street and online retailers where you can choose flights and hotels separately to put together your own ‘package’.

The bad news is flights or holidays sold by airlines will still be excluded from the ATOL Scheme, therefore if you book a flight plus hotel or flight plus car hire with an airline your holiday will not be protected. This omission is down to the fact that bringing airlines into the regulations would require a change in the law. Although the Government has expressed a commitment to bringing holidays sold by airlines into line with the rest of the industry it has been unable to do so in this round of reforms.

The other thing to be aware of is that booking flights and accommodation through completely separate companies also still falls outside of the ATOL Scheme, so your holiday would be unprotected.

This is where having insolvency cover, often called scheduled airline failure, included in your travel insurance policy becomes important. Having scheduled airline failure included in your travel insurance policy can plug this gap in the financial protection provided by ATOL. It provides travel insurance cover to recoup money lost on flight tickets if an airline becomes insolvent before you travel, or recoup the cost of replacement flights home if an airline becomes insolvent whilst you are away. It also provides travel insurance cover for the insolvency or financial failure of other holiday suppliers including hotels and car hire companies.

Insurewithease.com includes scheduled airline failure in all of our travel insurance policies, regardless of whether you are buying single trip travel insurance, annual travel insurance or backpacker insurance.

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