Is it worth buying flights and hotel separately rather than using a travel agent?

l.c.elliott

We want to book a holiday to zell am see in Austria next year. I've been advised to book flights and accommodation with an independent travel agent so that we can get the abta and atol protection. But the choices theyve offered are quite limited for our budget and we have to pay upfront rather than if we paid separately, we'd only need to pay for flights upfront and could do buy now pay later on accommodation.

My question is, is it really worth buying a package? What does abta and atol cover than normal travel insurance doesn't?

eskbanker

Some of the issues were covered in your previous thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6613175/travel-insurance-when-booking-flights-and-accommodation-separately

ABTA is the travel agents' trade association and offers a post-travel dispute resolution scheme if you booked with one of their members.

ATOL covers holiday continuation, repatriation, etc, in the event of travel company failure, but this can be purchased with insurance policies.

TELLIT01

It depends on your main drivers - do you want a package which may not provide exactly what you want but will have considerably more protection than DIY, or do you want the freedom to get exactly what you want in terms of accommodation, departure airport and time, etc etc.

We have booked independently for years although we could save money at the same resort by booking a package.  We do want the freedom to choose where we stay along with departure airport, date and time...

zagfles

I've been on probably close to 200 foreign trips in my life, the vast majority not packages, had a few issues but never once did I have a problem where I thought "if only I had ABTA/ATOL protection". 

If you find a suitable package that does what you want and is better value than booking direct, go for it, but don't be scared of booking stuff direct. Sometimes it's less risk, eg hotels are often cancellable last minute and sometimes only charge the first night, and flights are often cheap, and there are always risks which won't be covered by insurance or ABTA/ATOL protection. For instance cancelling for a reason not covered by insurance, insurance will only cover cancellation for limited reasons, and if that happens the less upfront committment the better. 

Beeblebr0x

The sightseeing trips I've booked myself were fully cancellable until the day before. 

NoodleDoodleMan

My question is, is it really worth buying a package? What does abta and atol cover than normal travel insurance doesn't?

There is no absolute yes/no answer to this IMO - it'll depend on how confident you feel about resolving problems if someting major goes wrong, such as hotel messing you about or flight cancellations especially at short notice.

The latter in particular can be a nightmare scenario.