Travel agency consortia are reviewing commercial relationships with non-ABTA bed banks following a vote to make ABTA suppliers liable if a retailer fails.
Advantage even admitted it may drop non-ABTA bed banks in light of the ruling, passed by a vote of 82% last week.
It makes ABTA suppliers liable if an ABTA agency they sell through collapses, even if they have not been paid the customer’s money. The move follows Freedom Direct’s collapse earlier this year.
Non-ABTA members are not covered by the ruling, although ABTA claims they would be obliged to honour bookings under agency law.
Advantage, of which ABTA chairman John McEwan is chief executive, has preferred deals with seven or eight bed banks, including non-ABTA members. Commercial director Julia Lo Bue-Said said: “We are a commercial organisation but need to do what’s right for members, even if it means not dealing with suppliers that do not follow ABTA’s guidance. We cannot endorse them.”
TTA Worldchoice is reassessing partnerships with non-ABTA bed banks, but hinted it could mean changing relationships rather than dropping suppliers.
Managing director Simon Hargreaves said: “We are looking at those arrangements to determine whether we can add further protection that would be acceptable to Worldchoice agents and bed banks.”
But Steve Endacott, founder of non-ABTA bed bank Holiday Brokers, claimed agents would work with bed banks based on price, product and health and safety procedures, not whether they followed ABTA’s advice.
“If agents ask the bed bank to abide by the ruling, it will demand agents set up trust funds to hold customers’ monies secure until they travel,” he said. “We see no reason to change our commercial terms. If an ABTA member says we have to protect the money, we will put the ball in their court to set up a trust fund.”
The ruling also provoked a furious reaction from somewhere2stay.com managing director Stuart Jackson, who questioned the point of ABTA if its agents continued to book non-ABTA bed banks.