Benefit of paying for holiday with CC?

bouncydog1

Please can someone explain the benefits of booking a flight with a scheduled airline (needed to get to international departure point), plus a package holiday with Thomsons and paying by CC. I believe that if the amount paid is over £100 and the scheduled airline or Thomson goes bust, then the CC is jointly liable for the cost - does this only cover what has been paid with the CC or the whole holiday.

Thanks.

platterfish

bouncyd!!! wrote: »

Please can someone explain the benefits of booking a flight with a scheduled airline (needed to get to international departure point), plus a package holiday with Thomsons and paying by CC. I believe that if the amount paid is over £100 and the scheduled airline or Thomson goes bust, then the CC is jointly liable for the cost - does this only cover what has been paid with the CC or the whole holiday.

Thanks.

If you book with an Atol protected agent, you will get a refund from the Civil Aviation Authority if your airline goes bust, regardless of how you pay. If you book a package holiday with a reputable company - this is ABTA/ATOL protected, same applies really. I don't see Thomson going bust anytime soon though, but i guess you never know. CC usually have a fee to pay. I'm also sure you will take out an insurance policy for your whole trip, which is likely to cover you.

magpiecottage

bouncyd!!! wrote: »

I believe that if the amount paid is over £100

Martin just said on Moneybox Live that you are covered for the whole holiday even if you only pay "one pence".

Martin is wrong. The word is "penny" as "pence" is a plural.

Apart from that he is right!

Monkeychops_3

Yes, potentially the credit card can do a non reciept of service claim. If that does not work then they may claim through Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

PNPSUKNET

when airlines go they say you have to claim through atol first before the credit card will even get involved anyway

KingElvis

We always pay for our holiday on a card but we always have the actual cash saved to enable us to pay it back off straight away.

Wobblydeb

One of the benefits for me is getting 1% cash back (Capital One)

HXDave

Bouncydog,

some of the above posts could be a bit misleading, depending on exactly what you mean on your original post. This is the way i see your situation, and please correct me if i am wrong:

you want to book a Thomson Package Holiday (i presume departing the UK), however you are not resident in the UK, so therefore you need to get a flight from your place of residence to the UK departure point to connect with your Package holiday! If this is correct, then these are my comments:

Your package holiday is normally covered by the ATOL bond, irrespective of a) whether you book directly with Thomson or b) book through a bonded agent. This is irrespective of if you pay by cash, cheque, credit or debit card. And whilst it would seem very unlikely for someone like Thomson to go bust, stranger things have happened. The only thing i would be cautios of (which I am not 100% sure on this point) is to wheter you would be covered under the ATOL being a non UK resident!

As far as the flight only goes, then generally booking with a Credit Card is the only real way to gaurantee against loss of monies if the flight goes bust, unless you book through an agent / company that offers what is called SAFI (Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance). SAFI (or sometimes just called AFI) is slightly better cover than the Credit Card cover (well, the one we use is anyway), as whilst a Credit card will only refund you the cost of the ticket if the airline goes bust, there could be an arguement as to what the credit card company will pay out if the airline goes bust after you have used your outward flight, but not your return flight. With our SAFI (and probably other similar policies), if the airline goes bust before you make your outward journey, you will recieve a full refund of the cost of the ticket paid. However if you have used your outward journey only, and the airline goes bust, SAFI will provide an alternative flight to get you back to your original departure point.

Now the final point to make is this, and i believe this what you might have meant in your original post. The schedule flight booking and the package holiday booking will be TOTALLY SEPERATE TRANSACTION. Therefore, if your schedule flight company goes bust, and you are not able to get to the departure point for the Thomson Holiday, whilst your Credit Card or SAFI insurance will cover for the flight, it will not have any bearing whatsoever on the package holiday - ie if your flight company goes bust 2 days before flying out, and you cannot source another flight in time to get to the departure point for the package holiday, you will lose all your money on the holiday, unless you have some other form of insurance to cover these events. Likewise, if for any reason the 'package' holiday is cancelled (poor sales, withdrawl of services, natural disaster etc) whilst you should get an automatic refund for the package holiday, this again will have no bearing on the scheduled flight booking, and unless you have specific insurance to cover it, you will either have to forfeit the flight or use it, but then would you need to use it if the holiday was no longer happening.

I hope this gives a bit of insight, however if my original predictions about your situation is incorrect, please advise. Likewise, if anyone else thinks anything i have put is incorrect, please feel free to advise.

HXDave

dazza.mk

Monkeychops wrote: »

Yes, potentially the credit card can do a non reciept of service claim. If that does not work then they may claim through Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

Careful, dangerous advice without adding a few caveats. In many situations people may have booked via a travel agent and as such the credit card company would not be liable if the tour operator goes bust.

Note even if you book a Thomas Cook package via a Thomas Cook Travel Agent this may apply if the tour operator is a separate legal entity.