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Protecting yourself from holiday woes is frustratingly complex, says Ken Mcleod

How to protect a holidaymaker’s investment in their package holiday has been a priority for the travel industry for years – it’s just that nobody can agree on the best solution. On the face of it, travel arrangements are made up of pretty simple components. You book a flight, a hotel, maybe a car hire or some excursions and you want to ensure that you are still going to get the services you paid for, even though you have booked some way in advance. It seems straightforward, but the legislation which governs holidays is produced by both the EU and the UK governing bodies, who struggle to define the way travel arrangements are booked and protected, complicating things immensely. For a start, each European country works differently in putting together holidays, with the UK having a bigger percentage of package tours than most.

So why is it so difficult to understand how your purchase is protected when there is already considerable legislation in place? This is down to how you buy your holiday. If you purchase your trip with all the components in place – flight, hotel and car at the same time – then as long as your organiser has an ATOL licence, your money is safe. However, using the same organiser you may wish to book your flight early to secure a low price, leaving the hotel booking until much later in the process. One or both, or neither, may be protected depending on how your organiser treats the booking in the eyes of the regulatory body, the CAA.

If you book by credit card, that gives you some safeguard on your money, but doesn’t repatriate you to the UK should your airline fail while abroad. Regrettably, it is only when something goes wrong that the customer finds out not everything was as expected. So checking your rights carefully is important. Insurance helps, but many people do not take out insurance especially travelling to Europe because of our reciprocal health agreements.

All this becomes more important to the customer from 1 July, because the Package Travel Directive is being amended and tightened by the European Union. There have been two public consultations on some of the proposed amendments recently, but it still doesn’t make it any easier for the customer to understand the rules. Whoever said “keep it simple, stupid” clearly wasn’t referring to the protection of a package holiday – or even what the definition of a package holiday is, on which the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and CAA will ultimately decide. They are not currently in a position to tell anyone any of the details until sometime later this month, barely eight weeks from the implementation date.

More than ten years ago, the Scottish travel agency trade body, the Scottish Passenger Agents Association called for a £1 levy on all overseas travel trips, to protect every passenger from every eventuality. No matter what would have gone wrong the passenger would always get their money back, be able to take their holiday or be repatriated. Stupidly simple.

The call was ignored on many an occasion, and still we do not have a protection system that the very people who need protected, can understand. If I can give any advice it is this: Use a travel agent, insist on understanding what is protected and what is not, then you can really enjoy your holiday. As we await the new rules, let’s just hope that the powers that be can make life somewhat less complicated for everyone. l Ken Mcleod is president of the Scottish Passenger Agents Association