The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
OUR CAMPAIGNS: AN UPDATE Pulling together to make family breaks safer
Britain’s biggest and most influential tour operators have signalled their support for Telegraph Travel’s family safety campaign by agreeing to share data with an independent charity, bringing an end to the dangerous lack of understanding of how and why British children die abroad.
At the beginning of this year, Telegraph Travel launched a campaign to increase public awareness of the need for reliable figures on how many, and what sort of, accidents happen to children on holiday. Prior to this, there was no government or independent database providing those numbers.
Since The Telegraph raised this issue in January, many leading holiday companies have agreed to share their accident statistics, and the
Safer Tourism Foundation (STF) – a charity dedicated to the prevention of holiday accidents – has been able to produce the first industry-wide analysis of the types of incidents befalling families abroad.
Twenty-five companies have now agreed to share data relating to more than 12 million holidays every year. Following nine months of campaigning, we are pleased to reveal that this includes the three largest operators in Britain – TUI, Jet2 and Thomas Cook – as well as British Airways Holidays, Audley Travel, Expedia, Kuoni and Explore.
Welcoming the recent participation of Jet2, Britain’s second-largest holiday company, Katherine Atkinson, chief executive of the STF, said this had increased the charity’s collection of data by 20 to 25 per cent, and this broader range of incident reports brings greater clarity to the types of accidents that happen on holiday.
“Being able to pull together data from such a wide range of companies is brilliant because it allows us to extract the real story of what can go wrong for travellers; we used this data to shape our swimming pools campaign earlier on in the summer, highlighting a number of risks that pool users might not have thought of.”
If you missed it this summer, please read our pool safety guide (telegraph. co.uk/tt-pool-safety), revealing the hidden dangers of swimming pools.
Ms Atkinson added: “We’re also seeing how valuable it is for companies providing very different holiday experiences to share ideas that help to make travel safer for all of us. We’re seeing conversations on travel safety happen between operators that have rarely met before. That’s really exciting and gives us the potential to do so much more in the future.”
The increased profile of the group’s work has benefited the travel industry. For example, after three young people in succession fell to their deaths from balconies at Eden Roc Apartments in Magaluf, Mallorca, the charity called for owners of the apartments to make immediate safety improvements or face a boycott by British holiday companies – and the property was quickly removed from websites, including HomeAway and Airbnb.
More broadly, this fundamental shift in understanding about the incidents that befall families abroad means we can identify the problems that occur on holidays – whether it’s water safety or facility maintenance – and determine where parents should be more vigilant and accommodation providers need to take steps to improve safety inspections.
In the coming months, we will be reporting on more of the charity’s evidence-based projects to demand further transparency from operators and help you and your families stay safe on holiday. Many of you responded to last week’s article about travelling with a visual impairment. See “People Like You”, Page 21.
What are your rights if you want to change your flight but the booking agent has ceased trading?
QIn May I purchased a ticket for my daughter Madeleine to travel back to Australia with Malaysia Airlines (MAS) on Sept 26. I booked the flight through online agent Tripsta and paid extra for flexibility in case she wanted to change the flight date. Due to a death in the family, Madeleine does not feel able to return to Australia for the time being. Both she and I have tried to contact Tripsta using the numbers provided and by email but we have received no response. Madeleine called Malaysia Airlines direct, which said it could not get involved and that she could only deal with Tripsta. Please can you suggest a way for her to change the date of her flight?
ACONSUMER CHAMPION
SARAH HUDSON
Unfortunately, the Athensbased Tripsta ceased trading at the end of June and shut down its operations. Industry insiders blame its aggressive discounting of airline tickets, which led to unsustainable debts. Tripsta’s website says customers who want to change or cancel their reservation should contact the servicing airline directly. Fortunately, Miss Hudson had been issued with her e-ticket, which can be viewed in the MAS booking manager. However, the fare rules section has been left blank, so it is not clear what her rights are. I contacted MAS to find out why its staff would not engage with her. The airline has now confirmed that as a general rule it will take over the management of the booking as long as it has been paid for before the agent goes bust. In such cases it will amend the ticket in line with its own standard terms and conditions, which may differ from those of the travel agent.
Miss Hudson was fortunate that her e-ticket was issued and paid for by Tripsta. MAS has now been in touch and is allowing her until May 2019 to rebook her flight. The situation is more complicated for any Tripsta customer who has only been sent a booking confirmation and not issued with the actual e-ticket. Anyone who booked with Tripsta from June should check that their flight ticket is valid using the relevant airline’s booking manager. If there is no six-character airline booking reference or e-ticket number then the ticket was not actually issued and hasn’t been paid for.
In such cases, customers should contact their bank for a refund. If you have paid by debit card you can obtain what’s known as a “chargeback” under the Visa or Mastercard schemes’ rules. The claim must usually be lodged within 120 days of the ticket purchase, though some banks allow claims up to 120 days after the date of travel. Banks do not have a legal liability to refund customers who have paid by debit cards, though most do.
If you paid the agency using a credit card and do not receive an e-ticket, the bank has a legal liability to refund you under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act as it is jointly liable with the travel agency to provide the e-ticket or give a full refund. It is very tempting to pounce on a bargain airfare when using a flight-comparison site. Always browse for reviews as there are a lot of agencies out there that are flying by the seat of their pants.
‘We’re seeing how valuable it is for companies to share ideas that make travel safer’