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Claim under Section 75 (Consumer Credit Act)

Posted: May 13th, 2020, 12:12 am
by cavebat
Unfortunately the small company we booked a specialist holiday with for the end of April (obviously cancelled) has gone into liquidation as a result of Covid-19. I paid the initial deposit (off the top of my head about £300) by bank transfer through internet banking, but the balance (circa £2000) was paid by my Halifax Mastercard CC.

The holiday was ATOL protected and we have annual travel insurance in place.

The initial advice coming out is that we should reclaim costs via the CC company. Can I claim the whole cost of the holiday from CC including the deposit?

I've never had to do this before so any help appreciated.

Re: Claim under Section 75 (Consumer Credit Act)

Posted: May 13th, 2020, 11:04 am
by dealtn
cavebat wrote:Unfortunately the small company we booked a specialist holiday with for the end of April (obviously cancelled) has gone into liquidation as a result of Covid-19. I paid the initial deposit (off the top of my head about £300) by bank transfer through internet banking, but the balance (circa £2000) was paid by my Halifax Mastercard CC.

The holiday was ATOL protected and we have annual travel insurance in place.

The initial advice coming out is that we should reclaim costs via the CC company. Can I claim the whole cost of the holiday from CC including the deposit?

I've never had to do this before so any help appreciated.


Under this legislation the stipulation is the "item" must cost more than £100, and you have paid some of it by credit card, and you can claim for the full "loss".

So you are covered. Assuming that is the full picture.

You might not be covered if there is a 3rd party payment process in place. So if it is YOU > HALIFAX MASTERCARD > SPECIALIST HOLIDAY it is fine, but YOU > HALIFAX MASTERCARD > PAYPAL > SPECIALIST HOLIDAY it might not be, for example.

Also it covers "single item" so if your specialist holiday isn't considered a single item package, you might have multiple claims, some of which will fail the >£100 test. It isn't possible to tell from the information you provided, and I wouldn't have said anything if you hadn't described it as a "specialist holiday. For me it if is a "package holiday" I would say that's one item, but were it say a package holiday and a £50 entry to a waterpark that was an add on, you might lose out on the add-on.

Re: Claim under Section 75 (Consumer Credit Act)

Posted: May 13th, 2020, 9:03 pm
by pochisoldi
cavebat wrote:Unfortunately the small company we booked a specialist holiday with for the end of April (obviously cancelled) has gone into liquidation as a result of Covid-19. I paid the initial deposit (off the top of my head about £300) by bank transfer through internet banking, but the balance (circa £2000) was paid by my Halifax Mastercard CC.

The holiday was ATOL protected and we have annual travel insurance in place.

The initial advice coming out is that we should reclaim costs via the CC company. Can I claim the whole cost of the holiday from CC including the deposit?

I've never had to do this before so any help appreciated.


You call on the protection in the following order:
1) ATOL
2) Credit card company (noting the other response you've received to your post)
3) Insurance (always the last resort, never the first)

Any residual losses after each step, you chase the next organisation for (if it's worth your while)

Re: Claim under Section 75 (Consumer Credit Act)

Posted: May 13th, 2020, 9:35 pm
by pochisoldi
More info:
Pay a visit to https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/M ... -failures/

If your company is listed, click on the link and see what's going to happen next.
I get the impression that it's a case of sit back and wait - ATOL will contact you, and all you have to do is check the website every so often to make sure you haven't dropped between the cracks.