Travel company charging ATOL fee

yellowrose33

I have never paid fee for my ATOL certificate. Doing a research, it says that the ATOL certificate is part of the package holiday and there is no extra charge for it.
However, I've just come across a holiday package with Lumle Holidays with this message:

The price will appear slightly lower than advertised when clicking through. A £2.50 ATOL fee will be applied at the end of the booking process, taking the total to the advertised price.

Is this allowed? 

la531983

Not sure what the problem is. If its advertised on the first page as £2,000, the first payment page says its £1997.50 and then the final page says its £2,000.... whats the issue?

MyRealNameToo

la531983 said:

Not sure what the problem is. If it's advertised on the first page as £2,000, the first payment page says its £1997.50 and then the final page says its £2,000.... whats the issue?

On the one I looked at it isnt, it was £1,899 on the first page, payment page says £1,901.50 - can't get past the payment page without actually entering card details which not going to do for testing. 

yellowrose33 said:

I have never paid fee for my ATOL certificate. Doing a research, it says that the ATOL certificate is part of the package holiday and there is no extra charge for it.
However, I've just come across a holiday package with Lumle Holidays with this message:

The price will appear slightly lower than advertised when clicking through. A £2.50 ATOL fee will be applied at the end of the booking process, taking the total to the advertised price.

Is this allowed? 

Yes, if its working how you and the other poster is seeing it, the headline price is what's your paying, the fact they have broken it down at some point isnt an issue its just being more transparent than most. 

On the one I looked at its an issue because the end price is higher than advertised and there is no option to exclude the ATOL fee so would breach the rules on advertising a lower price and then charging a higher one via non optional extras. 

Westin

yellowrose33 said:

I have never paid fee for my ATOL certificate. Doing a research, it says that the ATOL certificate is part of the package holiday and there is no extra charge for it.
However, I've just come across a holiday package with Lumle Holidays with this message:

The price will appear slightly lower than advertised when clicking through. A £2.50 ATOL fee will be applied at the end of the booking process, taking the total to the advertised price.

Is this allowed? 

Yes.

The ATOL fee of £2.50 pp is broken out of the advertised package price. It shows as a separate line item but the cost is within the total package price you have agreed to.

yellowrose33

My issue is that ATOL is not a service and should not be charged for! 

Alan_Bowen

The ATOL scheme certainly is a service, it has existed since 1973 and guarantees your money back or repatriation from abroad if the company fails. It is not an optional extra but a legally required payment, collected and paid to the government by the tour operator

la531983

And thats the end of that.

MyRealNameToo

yellowrose33 said:

My issue is that ATOL is not a service and should not be charged for! 

If you the customer doesnt pay who do you think does?

You know that you are also paying for their offices? Christmas party? Staff salaries? Credit card fees?