Atol/ABTA Cover

peawack

My wife and stepdaughter have paid by direct debit for a 4 day trip to New York. Unfortunately,  they are both now in ill health and unable to travel. They have not yet taken travel insurance but will the cost be covered by ATOL or any other way ?

bagand96

ATOL only covers you if the supplier goes bankrupt.

ABTA is a trade association where members sign up to a Code of Conduct and ABTA will assist with complaints against members if they have broken the code of conduct or laws such as the Package Travel Regulations.

Unfortunately neither will help in this situation.  You need to look at the T&C's of the trip and what the cancellation terms are. Generally T&C's won't allow a refund just because of ill health, they just treat it as a customer cancellation like any other.

I'm sorry to say that this is an event travel insurance would cover and is why travel insurance should be purchased as soon as a trip is booked.  Have a think to see if either of them may have any travel insurance included with anything like house insurance/bank account/credit card.

onashoestring

As above , this is exactly what a travel insurance policy is for and what would have covered them .

Without that , they are only entitled to anything that is in the T&Cs of the travel company they  booked with .

Things to check -

Did they book a refundable hotel ? 

If there is no refund for cancellations at short notice  - is it possible to change the dates (for a fee )? 

Which company did they book with ? 

tightauldgit

peawack said:

My wife and stepdaughter have paid by direct debit for a 4 day trip to New York. Unfortunately,  they are both now in ill health and unable to travel. They have not yet taken travel insurance but will the cost be covered by ATOL or any other way ?

In short no. Unless the company they booked with allows changes/cancellations or is willing to offer something as a goodwill gesture?

peawack

Thanks for all the suggestions. 

I did suspect that there might little or no recourse
They booked with TUI
Change of dates might be one solution. 

onashoestring

TUI treat any change to a later date as a cancellation.

If there is less than 14 days before the holiday - they will not be entitled to any refund from TUI for cancelling- 

They could wait and see if the outgoing flight is cancelled and then claim compensation. It’s a long shot , but the only option for recouping any money as they took a gamble by not buying  travel insurance.