Book holidays with confidence

Travel advice: With consumer confidence down after the collapse of XL. The Civil Aviation Authority will be pushing the importance of financial protection to consumers.

With travel agencies closing and the demise of XL, then booking with confidence is all the more important.

Here are a few tips to help you avoid the expense and heartache, if your travel agent goes bust..

1. Always always if you can, pay by credit card, that way your card provider has to refund you in the event something goes wrong.
2. Book direct with the tour operator who will be both ABTA and atol bonded by the CAA, thus giving you even more financial protection.

Cheaperholidays will be sending out a direct mailshot to around 365,000 households via post and email at the end of January.

(The mailshot will advertise) the security and financial protection of booking direct with tour operators plus you get extra savings.”

Meanwhile the CAA is working alongside the Department for Transport and the Office of Fair Trading on a campaign to publicise consumer financial protection ideally for spring.

A CAA spokesman said the process had been delayed by XL Leisure Group’s failure in September and would await the conclusion of a DfT review of the collapse.