No automatic refund for most Monarch customers

● Credit card claim only hope for up to 90% of flight only passengers

The vast majority of Monarch customers will not receive an automatic refund following the firm’s collapse, new figures show.

Administrators KPMG estimates that just 10-15 per cent of the 860,000 customers affected have bookings which are protected by the Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (Atol).

The scheme only covers package holidays or Monarch flight-only bookings made before December 15, meaning hundreds of thousands of people will be forced to seek refunds elsewhere.

Anyone who booked flights costing more than £100 using a credit card can claim a refund under the Consumer Credit Act, while those who bought cheaper flights or used a debit card can apply for a chargeback to get their money back.

Many travel insurance policies will not pay out in the event of an airline going bust but it is worth checking the detail of individual policies, the Civil Aviation Authority said.

More than 23,000 of the 110,000 Monarch customers abroad when the administration decision was announced on Monday were expected to have been repatriated by last night. They will all be flown home on as close to a normal schedule as possible at

0 The vast majority of Monarch’s 860,000 passengers are not covered by the Atol guarantee no extra cost until 15 October, according to the CAA.

Many travellers are in sunshine destinations in Spain and Portugal such as Costa del Sol, the Algarve and the Canary Islands. A further three-quarters of a million people who held future bookings with the firm have had their travel plans cancelled.

CAA chief executive Andrew Haines said: “We recognise that this will be a concerning time for many customers and we really appreciate their support.

“Given the unprecedented scale of this task, some disruption is inevitable. We thank everyone involved for their patience.”

Mr Haines said the CAA was notified by Monarch fourand-a-half weeks ago that “there were issues they were dealing with” and he understood that the firm’s board decided to go into adminis- tration close to midnight on Saturday. Monarch was still advertising flights on its website on Sunday, meaning some passengers may have booked trips even after the company’s bosses decided it would stop trading.

Meanwhile crisis-hit Ryanair has said 98 per cent of customers impacted by its flight cancellation fiasco in September and October have been refunded or transferred on to other flights or transport.

The airline said in a flight traffic update that the remaining 2 per cent of customers affected over the first two months of disruption have yet to contact the group.