Holiday Advice – CAA ATOL warning

Latest holiday advice: The CAA has warned it may stop refunding the flight costs for customers who booked a holiday through an agent – even if the flight was provided by an Atol holder.

Which means they may not refund the cost of the flight or the whole pacakge if your travel agent has combined the flights and accomodation separately and they are not ATOL holders. In other words this is not a package you would get from say Thomson.

The CAA has issued this holiday advice warning, after the failure of seat-only operator Customflights, which held an Atol and sold flights through agents to the public.

The CAA said it believed many of the holidays sold by agents using Customflights flights were packages and were sold unlawfully by agents without an Atol.

The CAA said that it would cover the costs of the flight booked by an agent on Customflights – but warned that could change in future cases.

It said in a statement that the trustees of the Air Travel Trust Fund were taking legal advice about changing the policy of paying customer claims for flight costs in such cases.

“In particular the trustees are considering whether in future to refer the customer for their refund to the travel agent which organised the customer’s package and continues to trade,” it said.