Consumer Protection

Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours are fully bonded and licensed, all vetted by external official organisations, for your 100% financial protection and genuine peace of mind no matter what type of travel you choose to book with us. This covers ALL bookings made with us and ALL holiday and travel payments made directly to us. Non UK clients, who book directly with us, and commercial bookings are covered as well. This is the highest level of Consumer Financial Protection available.

This goes well beyond the legal minimum and is of course very expensive for us to provide, but we consider it money well spent and I’m sure you do too as this brings absolute financial security to you. As the world’s leading Wine Tours specialist, we view providing complete, unequivocal and fully regulated protection of your booking, as an integral part of our delivery to you.

For clients making their booking via non-UK based agents: Please check what arrangements your travel agent has made for your financial protection.

ATOL For our flight inclusive holidays, booked with us

The flight based holidays on this website are ‘ATOL protected’. We hold an Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL) granted by the Civil Aviation Authority and have held this licence since 1990. Our ATOL number is 2543. Visit the ATOL website

All British companies offering holidays that include flights are required to have an ATOL. Some don’t bother or are not financially sound enough to be granted one; use these companies at your peril. This level of protection extends to our wine tours for corporate hospitality for companies or for anyone booking a private day trip by private plane with us. If your company books a wine tour with us including a flight you are covered automatically by CAA Atol Licence 2543. (If a tour operator offers to arrange you a day trip by plane but can’t book this for you itself, this is becuase it does not have the requisite financial licensing or bonding to offer you)

Also note that ATOL gives no protection regarding holidays that do not include a flight or holidays where the flight was purchased by you direct from the airline. In such circumstances the operator needs to cover your booking with another bond such as AITOT or ABTOT. There are companies that have ATOL who do not do this.

ABTOT For our non flight based holidays, booked with us

As a member of the Association of Bonded Travel Organisers Trust Limited (ABTOT), Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours has provided a bond to meet the requirements of the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992.

In the event of Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours’ insolvency, protection is provided for non-flight packages commencing in and returning to the UK and other non-flight packages excluding pre arranged travel to and from your destination. Please note that packages booked outside the UK are only protected when purchased directly with Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours.

In the above circumstances, if you have not yet travelled you may claim a refund, or if you have already travelled, you may claim repatriation to the starting point of your non-flight package.

ALWAYS book with a fully bonded Tour Operator that can cover all aspects of your travel, no matter how you choose to do so.

MUCH TRAVEL IS NOT PROTECTED

Financial protection for ‘package travel’ is required by UK law. Unfortunately there are loop holes in the law regarding travel and enforcement has been lax in the past. Many small firms, wine merchants and other organisations of all sizes routinely flout or break the law.

There are huge advantages to the consumer in buying their holiday from a single bonded and licensed supplier in a “package”. If you buy a flight from a “No Frills airline” and a hotel room and car hire or other services on a web click through, you will be stuck with the hotel and other bills if the airline goes bust or closes the route. – This is not theoretical, it has happened to a lot of people – 17 or so airlines went out of business last year alone. Those who had bought the same services from a Tour Operator got their money back or the holiday the Tour Operator had contracted to give them.

Many people are surprised to hear that any travel is un-bonded, but with the rise of “No Frills” Airlines, unprotected travel is actually increasing and you may very well have bought a holiday in the past couple of years in the mistaken belief that you were protected.

We have listed below a few examples: –

  • Scheduled Air tickets bought direct from Airlines are NOT protected.
  • Payments made to Hotels and other services bought on line on a “click through” from the main Airline site are NOT protected.
  • Almost all direct bookings with foreign hotels, car hire companies, incoming travel agents etc are NOT protected.
  • Most ‘Dynamic packaging’ of holidays by ABTA Travel Agents, ie a hotel booking and a separately invoiced flight are NOT protected.
  • Bookings for holidays that do not include a flight made with a company that only has an ATOL are not protected.
  • Most Travel bonding does NOT cover business travel and does NOT cover bookings made outside the country.
  • Many small travel operators, including some that you may find advertised in Decanter or other Magazines are NOT bonded. (Some offer inferior forms of payment protection, but many are trading illegally). Sometimes Restaurants, Wine Shops or wine educators offer tours. These are very rarely bonded or protected in any way.
  • Protection offered under “Trust Funds” is limited and has on occasion turned out to be non-existent. see below.

In order to get bonding, become a member of AITO, (or ABTA or FTO) or be granted an ATOL licence, a company must be solvent and pass a number of stringent tests including liquidity and asset ratios. Many of those who offer unregulated trust accounts could not pass these tests, nor could they afford the bonding if they could. They are quite often in a businesses which traditionally has poor “cash flow” (such as restaurants or wine lecturing) and this is why they are attracted by tour operating. So your money is doubly at risk when you book with such people. It is precisely because Travel companies hold your money before they supply the service that bonding was conceived in the first place and why it is so important.

For the moment Airlines and on-line bucket shops selling flights with a click through to other suppliers, are not required to be bonded. You should be aware that they fall outside the “package travel” laws and regulations, which is very much to your disadvantage. Furthermore, although the ‘elements’ may depend on each other absolutely, they are in fact individual contracts, not in any way related to each other, as I am sure they will tell you when one vital element fails, does not connect with another, is substandard or is withdrawn.

Some of organisations seem to believe, wrongly, that the laws do not apply to them or their accounts clearly show that they are not financially viable enough to be eligible for external licensing and bonding. Trust accounts held by a third party, such as an accountant, are not externally regulated and absolutey do NOT offer 100% financial protection. This is important for you to know to when you choose to book on any holiday.

You also need to ask such companies what their team size is and what back up they have for you in the event of things going wrong. (A&C had a team of 5 working in their offices throughout the whole weekend during the worst of the ‘ash cloud disaster’ earlier this year, for example, ready to talk to clients, re-assure them and re-arrange holiday plans. Wine merchants offices will have been firmly shut all weekend).

ABTA

ABTA is the Association of British Travel Agents. This is of course the best recognised travel association and although Arblaster & Clarke is not currently a member this is because we have instead chosen to belong to Aito.

ABTOF

ABTOF is the “Association of British Tour Operators to France”. It is a trade association purely for travel arrangers to France and provides useful support for British Tour Operators operating to France, contact with French suppliers and regions, as well as training and P.R. It is not consumer focused and there is no quality control over members of Abtof nor are members required to be bonded. It does NOT provide bonding or consumer protection. (You should perhaps beware of firms that are not properly bonded that wear the ABTOF badge very prominently as it gives the consumer no guarantee – sounds a bit like ABTA but isn’t). Arblaster & Clarke is a member and would recommend the association to other Tour Operators operating to France for its membership benefits but it does not offer any form of consumer guarantee.

TRAVEL TRUST FUNDS

An alternative to bonding to protect Client’s money is to hold this money in a separate ‘trust’ bank account until the holiday is supplied. This form of protection is only really suitable for someone offering tours as a hobby or a church, social or school group or in certain circumstances by Travel Agents for a small proportion of their business as actual operators.

Trust Funds fall into 2 camps. Those that are regulated and guaranteed by the Travel Trust Association, and those that are not. (There may be another body that regulates Travel Trust Funds, but I am not aware of it).

A professional tour operator will be able to afford to get bonding and their accounts will stand scrutiny. If for some reason they choose to run a trust fund, that is legal and OK as long as it is guaranteed by the TTA. Simply having a trustee’s name is not enough. There is no official, independent checking of unregulated Trust funds and in the event of problems such funds have often turned out to be empty. In these troubled economic times, the temptation to use the cash supposedly lodged in such a Trust fund could well prove too great.

As a consumer you should be asking serious questions of a company claiming to be a professional in travel if they have not bothered to put their accounts to the scrutiny of an exterior bonding organisation. If such a company accepts payment by credit card, this would afford you some protection (see below on credit card payments).

If such a company does not accept payment by debit or credit card and appears (or claims) to be well established, it is most likely that the banks are not prepared to grant credit card terms to them and you should therefore be suspicious of such a company. However much a travel firm protests that it takes consumer protection and your peace of mind seriously, if it has a Trust Fund arrangement rather than bonding, and is NOT a member of the TTA, and does not even accept credit card payments, very serious questions should be asked.

Payment by Credit Card

Theoretically you can protect your payments by using a Credit Card and we are often asked by clients if payment by Credit Card will give them additional protection. The answer in Arblaster & Clarke’s case, and indeed all our AITO colleagues cases is NO. We have already put all the necessary protection in place for your funds.

However, some credit cards do offer the customer complimentary travel insurance and as long as you are satisfied that the level of insurance offered by your card provider gives you the protection that you might need both in the case of cancellation and emergency assistance on tour, then, by all means do pay us by Credit or Debit Card if you prefer.

We take Access, Visa, Mastercard and American Express. There is a small charge for Credit Cards, but none for Debit Cards.

Generally, it is worth paying for scheduled airline tickets by Credit Card. As to whether you can gain extra protection in any booking with a UK Tour Operator by using a Credit card, that is a moot point! If they are financially sound they will probably have bonding in place (but do check) if they are not, and are unbonded THEY ARE UNLIKELY TO BE ABLE TO TAKE CREDIT CARDS ANYWAY, as the Credit Card companies are unlikely to want work with them.