Advantage Travel Centres has set minimum standards for bed banks to work with the consortium as it opens its doors to deals with non-principal suppliers for the first time in more than a year.
The consortium currently works with 11 bed banks since ditching those without principal status in April 2007.
The decision by accommodation-only supplier medhotels.com to drop principal status earlier this year led to a rethink, said commercial director Julia Lo Bue-Said. Advantage has continued to work with Med Hotels.
She added: “As some members will still support Med Hotels, it’s our responsibility to do all we can to ensure robust processes are implemented to protect members in the event of any product default.”
Bed banks with principal status remain preferred suppliers, but the new criteria allow those operating as agents rather than principals to join a second tier of ‘authorised’ suppliers. These are sold by members, but not actively promoted.
The new standards demand bed banks have indemnity insurance with a minimum value of £5 million, covering product and public liability, payment terms close to departure date, helplines and on-call assistance for holidaymakers, and evidence properties have adequate health and safety audits.
Ideally, bed banks would demand payment after the holiday to avoid pre-departure risks to agents or allow payment via Advantage’s central payments system.
Lo Bue-Said added: “A lot of bed banks are not ABTA members and want payment eight weeks before departure – what happens if they go bust in that time?”
Some current bed bank terms and conditions mean agents could be “hung out to dry”, she added.
“We have an opportunity to work with agent bedbanks and the numbers will increase. But if they don’tcomply with our conditions, we couldn’t sleep at night,” she said.
Lo Bue-Said said some bed banks’ terms and conditions mean travel agents can be ‘hung out to dry’