I was saddened to see the pictures over the weekend of Goldtrail holidaymakers at airports and overseas having their precious holidays spoiled or even cancelled.
In some senses, the Goldtrail holidaymakers were the lucky ones as Goldtrail held an ATOL licence. Their holidays have been spoilt but the CAA will ensure that those still to go will get their money back in due course and those overseas will be flown home at no additional costs. If they had not booked a package holiday but had created the holiday themselves either online or with a non-ATOL travel agent, they would have been left to fend for themselves.
Holiday companies are failing all the time - Monster Travel failed earlier in the week with almost as much disruption but failed to hit the headlines. I can’t understand why anyone would not book an ATOL Protected holiday these days – it might cost a few pounds more but at least you won’t loose any money if things turnout not the way expected. And with ash clouds and bad weather, strikes and walkouts, that seems to be happening quite a lot this summer.
