Hooked On Asia

I wrote yesterday about bargain spotting and that got me thinking about financial protection for the traveller. Anyone shopping for a cheap deal, particularly an air fare, needs to make sure they seek financial protection. This should have been commonplace for years but until quite recently people rarely contemplated a scheduled airline going bust. As we now know, sadly, they do go bust and we have to take appropriate precautions.

In the UK, as air travellers, we are quite well protected financially but only if we are booking our travel arrangements through an ATOL bonded operator; in which case our operator’s ATOL licence gives cover under the government backed-scheme. This area is potentially quite confusing but the ATOL site covers the topic very well.

On my last trip to Asia (Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand) I bought my air tickets through one agent (ATOL bonded) and my accommodation through two separate online accommodation agents. My flights were ATOL protected, my accommodation wasn’t! I wasn’t being totally reckless though because I purchased the accommodation with a credit card and so was covered under the Consumer Credit Act. I am also talking about early 2008 when most people had no inkling of a “credit crunch”, £1.00 equalled $2.00 and everything in the travel world was rosy!

Now that we are in these more uncertain times I am wondering to what extent we are more wary about whom we give our money to. For example, if I were booking that same holiday to Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand now would I be booking the whole thing through an ATOL operator or would I still mix and match?

On balance I would probably do the same thing again but then I have been doing this for over 25 years and would find it difficult to surrender total control to a third party! But if my flights were not covered by an ATOL licence, for example they were with a no-frills carrier, I would make sure I had insurance cover against airline failure.

As an aside, it is worth mentioning that booking everything with the same ATOL holder means more than just financial protection. If anything goes wrong with the trip, the company is obliged to help you out; whereas doing it my way means you are on your own.

Are people more wary now than they were say a year ago?