ATOL, Package Travel and Your Booking Software: A Plain-English Guide

For UK travel businesses, compliance isn’t paperwork you do at the end of the year. It shapes how every booking is made, priced and confirmed. Your booking software should make the right thing the easy thing.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Check your own obligations with the CAA and your trade body.

What ATOL covers

ATOL is the UK’s financial protection scheme for holidays and flights sold together. If a protected business fails, customers are refunded or brought home. When you sell a package that includes a flight, you usually need to be an ATOL holder or sell as an agent of one, and give the customer an ATOL Certificate.

What your software should do

Recognise a package when it’s created

A booking with a flight and a hotel is very different from a flight on its own. Your system should spot when a basket becomes a package and apply the right rules automatically, rather than relying on an agent to remember.

Issue the right documents

• An ATOL Certificate for flight-inclusive packages, issued at the right time
• The pre-contract information the Package Travel Regulations require
• Clear confirmation of who the organiser is

Keep a record for reporting

Your ATOL return needs the number of passengers you’ve protected. Good software counts these as you go, so the quarterly report takes minutes rather than days.

If your team keeps a spreadsheet next to the booking system to track compliance, the booking system isn’t doing its job.

Questions to ask your software supplier

1. How does the system decide whether a booking is a package?
2. Can we see and reprint every certificate we’ve issued?
3. How are changes and cancellations reflected in our reports?

If you’re reviewing your booking system, our travel team is happy to walk through how others handle it.