Consumer Protection

Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours are fully bonded and licensed for your 100% financial protection and genuine peace of mind. This covers ALL bookings made with us and ALL holiday and travel payments made to us, regardless of where the booking was made or by whom. Thus Non UK clients and commercial bookings are covered as well as bookings by UK residents. 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.

ATOL

The air holidays and flights in this brochure 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. In the unlikely event of our insolvency, the CAA will ensure that you are not stranded abroad and will arrange to refund any money you have paid to us for an advance booking.

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. Some UK Tour Operators and many European holiday suppliers are unprotected, even though this is a legal requirement throughout the E.U.

On the CAA site you can learn more about the CAA, ATOLs and even check a company’s ATOL licence to see how many people it is licensed to carry! For further information, visit the ATOL website

AITO & AITO TRUST

AITO is the ‘Association of Independent Tour Operators’. This is the elite association of small and medium sized British Tour Operators who are soundly financed and share a dedication to quality, integrity and service in travel. Arblaster & Clarke is proud to belong and has been an active member since 1991. Lynette Arblaster is a former deputy Chairman of the Association.

Aito operates a regulated bonding Trust scheme for its members. For all non-flight inclusive bookings that you make with Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours, The Sunday Times Wine Club Tours and Laithwaites Wine Tours you are protected by our AITO Trust bond under licence no 1005. The 100% financial bonding and peace of mind offered by AITO trust should NOT be confused with trust fund arrangements.
ALWAYS book with a fully bonded Tour Operator.

See the AITO QUALITY CHARTER at the end of this document.

MUCH TRAVEL IS NOT PROTECTED

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.

I 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.
  • 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.

ABTA

ABTA is the Association of British Travel Agents. This is a very worthy and well recognised travel association but Arblaster & Clarke is not a member since we chose to belong instead to Aito. This is for the simple reason that we are a Tour Operator, not a Travel Agent. Tour Operators can belong to ABTA, but these tend to be the larger Tour Operators who essentially sell though ABTA agents. All packaged tours sold though ABTA agents or by ABTA Tour Operators are bonded, although some other arrangements that travel agents may make are not.

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.

THE AITO QUALITY CHARTER

AITO is an association of companies independent from the large vertically integrated firms specialising in particular areas or types of holiday and sharing a common dedication to high standards of quality and personal service. AITO defines “quality” as “providing a level of satisfaction which, based upon the holiday information provided by the tour operator, aims to meet or exceed a customer’s reasonable expectations, regardless of the type of holiday or the price paid”.

This is how we aim to achieve it:

EXCLUSIVE MEMBERSHIP: AITO sets criteria regarding ownership, finance and quality which must be satisfied before new companies are admitted to membership. All members are required to adhere to a Code of Business Practice which encourages high operational standards and conduct.

FINANCIAL SECURITY: An AITO member is required to protect money paid by customers to the member for any holiday sold under the AITO logo. This protection applies to customers who are in the UK at the time of booking or to overseas customers who have booked directly with the member. Members have to comply with UK Government Regulations in this respect. Members submit details of their bonding or guarantee arrangements to the Association on a regular basis.

ACCURATE BROCHURES: AITO members do their utmost ensure that all their brochures and other publications, print or electronic, clearly and accurately describe the holidays and services offered.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE: AlTO members are committed to high standards of personal service maintained by the thorough training of employees. Members continually seek to review and improve their holidays. They listen to their customers and always welcome suggestions for improving standards.

MONITORING STANDARDS: AITO endeavours to monitor quality standards regularly. All customers should receive a post-holiday questionnaire the results of which are scrutinised by the Association.

RESPONSIBLE TOURISM: All members acknowledge the importance of AITO’s Responsible Tourism guidelines, which recognise the social, economic and environmental responsibilities of tour operating. Those demonstrating their achievements beyond the pure acceptance of this principle are recognised by the award of 2 to 5 star status.

  • Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours has 3 star status.*
    This is due to the fact that we do not want to charge our customers for carbon offsetting unless they wish to be charged, so we do not have an opt-out carbon offset programme. However you can opt in to our carbon offset scheme, please see the Arblaster & Clarke brochure to do this.

CUSTOMER RELATIONS: All members endeavour to deal swiftly and fairly with any issues their customers may raise. In the unlikely event that a dispute between an AITO member and a customer cannot be settled amicably, AITO’s low-cost Independent Dispute Settlement Service may be called upon by either side to bring the matter to a speedy and acceptable conclusion.

THE ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT TOUR OPERATORS

THE QUALITY ALTERNATIVE

For further information call AITO on 0208 7449280 or visit the website www.aito.co.uk