Advise

[Jackietwirl]

Does anybody know where we stand on this. Booked 11 secluded flights through traveloworld in October 2013. Everything paid for in full. To be told yesterday that they are overbooked, offering us other flights which are no good for us at all. We have hotels booked, car hire booked, house in orlando for 2 weeks booked. Traveloworld are atol protected. Help please.

[gangesboy]

Just had a look on the traveloworld website and at the bottom of the home page under financial protection it clearly states that whilst package holidays are protected under ATOL and ABTA " Sales of single components are unlikely to be covered by ABTA or ATOL licenses unless the suppliers terms and conditions make this clear"

[factor-fiction]

I am not sure what you mean by secluded flights but maybe that's not important.
There will I'm sure be something in the Ts and Cs that allows this since it is not unusual for flights to be overbooked.. You need to check the Ts and Cs and see what alternative arrangements should be offered.
It does seem odd though that they would bump off a party of 11 - it must have been a significant over booking.

[factor-fiction]

By the way, I'll 'report' this question for you and ask Ed to move it to Law or Travel where it may be more likely to be seen by those with knowledge of these things

[237SJ]

Travel agents don`t overbook scheduled flights, airlines do. The travel agent gets a rate from the airline and sells the tickets. Sounds like the travel agent either hadn`t secured the seats from the airline before selling them on, or they have made a mistake and sold more than they had in the hope that they could secure more (but couldn`t) because the flight is full and the airline doesn`t want to let any more seats go at travel agent rates. I would try standing my ground a bit before giving in. That`s assuming you mean scheduled flights of course. You could even go onto the airline`s website and see if there is availability before you contact the agent.

[factor-fiction]

Thanks 237SJ. Yes, it'll be scheduled, not secluded.
Is it 11 seats?
I assume you'll take it up with Travelworld - insist they find something more suitable or preferably reinstate you. Were any other parts of the holiday booked through TravelWorld?

[Buenchico]

Irrespective of your legal rights, it won't help much if you win a battle with Travel O World (or the airline) in several months time if your holiday is booked for next week. So the priority has to be to find a way to get you to and from Orlando when you need to travel. So please tell us the name of the airline you were due to travel with, the planned dates of travel (in both directions), the airport you were expecting to fly from in the UK and the airport you expected to land at. (Is it Orlando, Sanford or somewhere else?). Are there actually 11 people travelling or is that a typo?

With that information available we can then research ways of getting you to Orlando because, if the flights you expected to use really are full, then no amount of hassling Travel O World or the airline will get you onto them.

Incidentally, forget about ATOL, as its not relevant here. However it's possible that Travel O World is in breach of the code of conduct that ABTA members are required to comply with, so it might be worth contacting ABTA:
http://abta.com/contact-us