What protection does a package holiday give me?

The trade-off is genuine and worth understanding before booking rather than after. Assembling a trip yourself is often cheaper and more flexible, and it leaves you as the person who has to sort out a failed airline, a closed hotel and a missed transfer, separately, with each supplier. A package makes one organiser responsible for the whole thing and adds financial protection if that organiser goes under.

Safety

Step by step

1. Work out whether what you booked is actually a package.Broadly, two or more different travel services bought together for the same trip from one seller. Booking a flight and then separately a hotel on the same site may or may not qualify depending on how it was sold. If it matters, ask the seller to confirm in writing.
2. Look for the financial protection certificate.Package holidays including a flight are generally covered by the ATOL scheme, and you should receive an ATOL certificate at the time of booking. If it does not arrive, chase it — it is the document that matters if the company fails.
3. Understand what protection against failure means.If the organiser goes out of business, protection is aimed at getting your money back if you have not travelled and getting you home if you have. It does not protect against a hotel being disappointing.
4. Understand the single point of responsibility.On a package, the organiser is responsible for the whole arrangement — the flight, the transfer and the accommodation. You complain once, to them, rather than chasing three suppliers who each blame the others. This is the practical benefit most people never use.
5. Know your position if the organiser makes a significant change.Significant changes to a package — a major change of resort, dates or a large price increase — generally give the customer options including cancelling with a refund. The detail is in the booking conditions.
6. Recognise what a self-assembled trip does not give you.Book the flight from one company and the hotel from another and each is responsible only for its own part. A cancelled flight does not entitle you to anything from the hotel, and vice versa.
7. Check what your credit card adds either way.Paying by credit card can bring additional protection on qualifying transactions above a threshold, which is a useful backstop on both packages and separate bookings. Check the current rules rather than assuming.
8. Buy travel insurance regardless of which you book.Financial protection and consumer rights are not insurance. Medical costs, cancellation for personal reasons, lost baggage and repatriation come from the policy.
9. Keep the certificate and the booking conditions.Filed with the rest of the trip documents, and photographed. If you need them it will be at a point when the company's website has stopped working.

Tips

• Ask before booking whether the arrangement is a package with financial protection. A straight answer in writing is worth having, and hesitation is informative.
• Trips assembled through a single travel agent are frequently packages even when they feel like separate bookings. Check rather than assume either way.
• If a company fails, do not book replacement travel before checking the protection scheme's instructions — doing it in the wrong order can affect what you recover.

Questions people ask