Can I claim on both Travel Insurance and Package Travel Regulations?

italianie

We were made aware that our flights and holiday would be cancelled at the beginning of the month, so we've been trying to negotiate a refund for our holiday with the travel agent, who appears to be avoiding offering any form of a refund.  We have reached the point of despair where the agent is now playing silly buggers.  Their main office is in the UK but their customer service line goes to an overseas call center where upon phoning, you just get passed around by the staff, who all have fake names and seem unable to do anything.  Escalating to a manager is just as useless as they are just as unprofessional, fobbing you off and treating you as though your an idiot who can't see the wood from the trees.  I won't name the agent at this point, but they are an ATOL / ABTA member.

Today I phoned ABTA, who stated I can pursue a complaint to recover a refund under the package travel regulations but I need to wait until the travel agent actually cancels the holiday, if they even do that. It may then several months until I see my money again via this process but they ensure me my money is protected and I will get it back.  So I also phoned my travel insurer, who checked my policy and confirmed I should be covered, so they have advised me to put a claim form through and it would take less then a month for my claim to be paid out.  The insurance route sounded much easier but the downside is I will take a loss of around £150 on the policy excess.  It may be better to right off this loss then to avoid the stress and uncertainty of going through claiming via the Package Travel Regulations and ABTA as the process sounded messy, unclear and that it is changing rather then fixed in stone.

My question is can you claim on both the travel insurance and  also pursue a separate claim under the financial protection of the Package Travel Regulations at the same time?   This would seem like taking two bites of the same cherry, as in theory you could end up with an insurance payout as well as a refund under the Package Travel regulations, but I'm sure it may not work like this and it's one or the other?.  It just feels a bit wrong to allow this travel company to pocket your money, take back your flight and hotel refunds and then wriggle away from situation without refunding you a single penny which looks to be the case if I just claim on insurance.

So can anyone advise me if I can pursue both?

italianie

Just to add that ABTA said the travel agent will have to issue a refund credit note when they eventually decide to cancel my holiday.  The credit note will have to comply with ABTA's criteria to be financially protected and can later be exchanged to claim a full refund at a later date.  The cut off point from when the agent would have to issue a full refund will be the end of July however I can attempt to seek a refund from the point at which the credit note is issued.

TELLIT01

If you claim through two routes it's possible/likely that both parties will say they won't pay because you are claiming of the other.  I would go down one route or the other, not both.  Even if both do accept the claim, there will then be the haggling over what percentage of the total each pays etc.

Alan_Bowen

You must not profit as a result of the cancellation, that would be a fraud. Not that stops people from trying, the CAA alleged they found over 80,000 fraudulent claims when Thomas Cook failed. If your insurer's pay out, then the only claim from the ATOL holder would be the loss of the £150 which I suspect they would be delighted with!

Ganga

Not a criticism but you new what the excess on your travel insurance was when you purchased it ,you could have paid a bit more and had a smaller excess amount ,

harz99

Can you not claim from insurance, then when that claim is settled and you have the money from it, make a further claim from ABTA for the amount of your losses caused by the excess on your insurance policy. The aim being to recover all you have paid out but not to profit in any way.