Financial Protection

ATOL stands for the Air Travel Organisers Licence and is administered the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). It is a legal requirement for us to report all qualifying bookings to the CAA and to pay a fee for each qualifying passenger into the Air Travel Trust. In the event that we ceased trading whilst you were abroad on your holiday, the Air Travel Trust is the fund used to repatriate you and ensure you are not left stranded. If we were to cease trading prior to your holiday, the CAA guarantees all monies paid to us for your holiday and would refund it to you.

It is worth noting that in order to be granted an ATOL licence by the CAA, we are obliged to submit our accounts to the CAA for their scrutiny on a regular basis. The CAA is looking for a strong balance sheet in order to satisfy themselves that Holiday Architects is a solvent going concern. This financial scrutiny should be a source of reassurance for all our clients, not just those falling under ATOL protection!

All the flights and flight-inclusive holidays on this website are financially protected by the ATOL scheme. When you pay you will be supplied with an ATOL Certificate. Please ask for it and check to ensure that everything you booked (flights, hotels and other services) is listed on it. Please see our booking conditions for further information or for more information about financial protection and the ATOL Certificate go to: http://www.atol.org.uk/ATOLCertificate

Trust My Travel operate an insurance scheme which we use to cover all bookings that do not qualify for ATOL protection. We pay a premium per booking and if we were to cease trading prior to your holiday, this ensures that Trust My Travel will refund all monies paid to us for your holiday.

TMTProtects.me Financial Protection, provided exclusively by Trust My Travel, covers Travel Providers registered as members of Trust My Travel and their Travellers in the event of non-delivery of service, or operator insolvency. This means that when a Traveller makes a payment that is processed by or registered with Trust My Travel, their funds are financially protected and returned to the Traveller by Trust My Travel in the event that the Trust My Travel Member (the Travel Provider) does not fulfil the booking purchased.

Trust My Travel guarantee the Travellers of Trust My Travel Members that a successful non-delivery or Travel Provider insolvency claim will result in either the issue of a refund or the provision of a replacement booking. It is the Traveller’s responsibility to submit a claim. See ‘Claims Procedure’ overleaf for details on how the process a Traveller follows to submit a claim.

Any payments made by the Traveller to a Trust My Travel Member, that are processed by or registered with Trust My Travel, for a valid booking are financially protected by TMTProtects.me. Such payments each have a unique ‘Trust ID’ issued, confirming the validity of the Trust My Travel booking.

1. Any payments made for a travel booking which have not been processed by or registered with Trust My Travel, irrespective of whether the Travel Provider is a member of Trust My Travel, will not be protected by TMTProtects.me financial protection.
2. Losses which are fully recoverable under an alternative insurance or bond are not covered by TMTProtects.me financial protection. However, in the case of partial recovery provided by an alternative insurance or bond, TMTProtects.me will issue the Traveller a refund for the shortfall, up to the maximum sum insured. The latter policy is subject to supporting documentation provided by the Traveller.
3. The financial failure of any named Third-Party Provider that is in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy or Receivership or is listed as an ‘Excluded Supplier’ by the insurer, at the date the travel arrangement is booked, is not covered by TMTProtects.me financial protection.
4. Losses that are not directly resulting from the incident that caused the Traveller to submit a claim, unless expressly stated in the Travel Provider’s Booking Policy are not covered by TMTProtects.me financial protection.
5. Any loss, injury, damage, ill health, death or legal liability arising directly or indirectly from, or consisting of, the failure or fear of failure or inability of any equipment or any computer program, whether or not the Travel Provider own it, to recognise or to correctly interpret or process any date as its true calendar date, or to continue to function correctly beyond that date is not covered by TMTProtects.me financial protection.
6. If any Third-Party Provider, whose details have not been communicated to Trust My Travel at, or in advance of, a Trust My Travel Booking being created, is not covered by TMTProtects.me financial protection.
7. Claims arising directly or indirectly from existing, or publicly declared, financial failure or collapse of a Scheduled Airline on or before the date the booking is made are not covered by TMTProtects.me financial protection.
8. Claims relating to an Airline in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy or Bankruptcy Protection where the ticket was purchased subsequent to the Airline registering under Chapter 11 or Bankruptcy Protection are not covered by TMTProtects.me financial protection.
9. TMTProtects.me does not cover Special/Private Charter flights.
10. TMTProtects.me financial protection does not apply if a Scheduled Airline is taken over or forms part of a merger by another Airline – This is not deemed as a financial failure.

There is no TMTProtects.me Policy Excess.

In the event of non-delivery of service or Travel Provider insolvency, the Traveller completes and submits an online Claim Form at https://trustprotects.me/claim/.

Travellers unable to complete an online form must contact Trust My Travel by Email: Claim@TrustMyTravel.com; or by telephone Tel +44 (0) 1780 679894 with details of their Travel Provider and Booking ID for assistance in submitting a Claim Form by post, enclosing the requested, required documentation.

Please Note that in the event of a fraudulent claim being submitted by a Traveller or anyone acting on the Traveller’s behalf or with whom the Traveller is in close collusion, all benefits under TMTProtects.me shall be forfeited.

There are a number of trade bodies out there you may have heard of, and may wonder why we haven’t joined them. Here are a few of them, their roles, and our take on them:

The International Air Transport Association is the body that represents and coordinates the global airline industry. IATA accreditation would only be required for Holiday Architects if we issued our own flight tickets. We have chosen to use 3rd party wholesalers to issue our flight tickets rather than have IATA accreditation for a number of reasons; one is cost, as licensing the necessary systems to issue your own flights and having the requisite level of training in the team comes with a hefty price tag. Also, as a smaller company we also don’t have the same buying power with the airlines as a major wholesaler, so by using the wholesalers we have access to better fares for you.

ABTA was originally the Association of British Travel Agents. But, as their role has developed into more of a membership organisation promoting standards across the travel industry, they’ve kept the acronym whilst dropping the original meaning! They do offer financial protection, but as we already have all of our bookings covered by either ATOL or Trust My Travel, we don’t feel the need to join ABTA. We do however recognise that the Code of Conduct they require members to uphold is an excellent basis for running a holiday company.