MSE News: Booked with Lowcostholidays? Check options as firm loses Atol protection

Former_MSE_Darryl

"If you've booked a trip with Lowcostholidays, be warned that you're no longer covered by the UK's Atol protection scheme after the firm moved its business to Spain...."

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Booked with Lowcostholidays? Check options as firm loses Atol protection



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emweaver

If ATOL only covered package holidays and flights, is there no protection at all for hotel only bookings?

fight2survive2013

lowcostholidays are the worse company I have the misfortune of booking with. booked holiday to Egypt 2 years ago, arrived at hotel after 6 hour flight and room hadn't even been booked, told my hotel was another 15 miles away in the middle of nowhere.

Alan_Bowen

Most accommodation only suppliers provide no financial protection at all. They are not legally obliged to and this may explain why it can be cheaper to buy a holiday this way. Low Cost Beds are based in Switzerland for VAT purposes and others are based in Dubai. Just because there is an English name doesn't mean the business is based here. Low Cost may be ahead of the game, EU proposals to "improve" consumer protection suggest that package organisers should be allowed to provide financial protection from any country they like within the EU, if your operator fails in the future, it may not be the CAA you deal with but a civil servant in Bulgaria or Latvia, this will make Spain seem like a dream!

Mwjd

We have a holiday booked for 18th November, hotel etc & then flights with Thomas Cook (through lowcostholidays)

Where do we stand?
We have since paid additional for seat & extra baggage (direct through thomas cook), will this form part of the refund?
Can we still get 100% refund at this late stage?

Thanks in advance

Alan_Bowen

It appears that Low Cost are offering passengers 7 days to cancel and have a full refund. However before you decide to do anything, consider whether you believe LCH are going to go bust in 2 weeks time, remember that Thomas Cook Airlines will not refund additional fees paid for seats and luggage and consider whether you could actually buy the holiday any cheaper anyway? In most cases, you should probably stick with what you have, if your holiday was 9 months away you might have a different view.

You should have an ATOL Certificate, if that says in the right corner "Package Holiday" then you should still be protected under Spanish law (no, I have no idea how they provide protection) but if you have a Certificate marked " Flight Plus" then you will no longer be protected as Flight Plus is purely a UK concept that does not exist anywhere else.

Bottom line, risk of immediate failure is probably zero so unless you have broken your leg and have no insurance and wondered how you could get your money back, stick with the holiday

Former_MSE_Tim

Update 6 Nov 2013: All customers who booked Atol-protected holidays with Lowcostholidays before 1 November will keep their Atol protection, despite being told by the travel firm this would not be the case, the CAA has confirmed. The CAA says it made this move due to the lack of notice and information given to both it and customers about Lowcostholidays' move to Spain. Lowcostholidays bookings made from 1 November onwards will not be covered by an Atol certificate.

DMHReaper72

Does anybody have an email address for this company as I need to get some cancellation documentation from them in writing?

Browntoa

Noticed they are advertising on TV at the moment

Wonder how many people realise about this

Alan_Bowen

Very few it appears. The CAA suggest that the financial protection scheme they are now using in Majorca provides no repatriation if a business fails only a refund, fine if you haven't started to travel, not great if you happen to be half way around the world.


Every EU country is supposed to have financial protection in place for package holidays but many of us now like to book flights and accommodation separately, these are only protected in the UK, and called a Flight-Plus sale, but booking the same way overseas has no protection at all. You pay your money and take your choice, or is that risk?

tamiami

They are now based in Majorca so you have no UK cover whatsoever. If the holiday goes fine then great, if you have problems then to take them to court you have to travel to Spain! They know that you probably wouldn't do that due to the cost so they can mess you around as much as they like. You can take a chance that all goes fine, but to pay a few quid more for a UK based company would be my preference.