What protection do I get if I have bought a Linked Travel Arrangement?
The protection available to travellers who have bought an LTA, organised by a ‘facilitator’, is limited to cases where the facilitator themselves have become insolvent. The facilitator, unlike a package travel organiser, has no liability if any of the travel services are defective in any way.
The only protection is if the facilitator themselves goes bust and the traveller loses out as a result.
So for instance is the facilitator has taken a payment for your flight or hotel and then goes bust and they still hold your money they must protect you against their own insolvency. If they go bust after they have passed your money on then there is no problem – you still have contracts with the service providers, the airline or the hotel.
However if it is the service provider who goes bust, after they have received your money, you have no rights against the facilitator. You may be lucky in these circumstances if your facilitator has not yet passed the money on – in which case you will get a refund.
The LTA facilitator must provide protection against their own insolvency by using one of the schemes discussed above for package travel organisers.
One extra bit of protection exists if it is an airline that has arranged the LTA and it is the airline that goes bust while you are abroad. In these circumstances the insolvency protection put into place must be sufficient for you to be repatriated and to pay for your accommodation while you wait to be repatriated.