Rejected petition Stop tour operators breaking the law by refusal to refund on cancelled holidays

Rejected on 29 May 2020

Package Travel Regulations mean those who have booked package trip are entitled to a full refund within two weeks of a cancellation by their agent or tour operator but many companies are flouting these rules. With COVID-19 many customers are in financial crisis and need their money back.

Many tour companies are multi-million pound enterprises while their customers and families live on limited means and save hard for an annual break. The financial impact of COVID-19 has placed many customers and their families in crisis. They are in dire need of monies which were committed to a holiday which is now cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government must ensure that operators fulfil legal obligations to make refunds and reject ABTA's call to relax regulations.

Why was this petition rejected?

It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.

Arrangements for refunding, changing or rebooking travel are a civil matter between individual travellers and airlines or travel agents, not the Government or Parliament.

The Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates the UK aviation industry, has provided guidance on passenger rights and how to make a claim: https://www.caa.co.uk/Passengers/Resolving-Travel-Problems/Delays-and-cancellations/

We have published the following petitions, which you might like to sign:

Require travel companies & airlines to pay compensation if no refund in 14 days: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/317878

Create a fund to reimburse money lost due to covid-19 travel cancellations: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/304912

You can find out more about coronavirus and how you can protect yourself and others here:

www.gov.uk/coronavirus
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

The Government has also created an online service to help you out what you can do if you’re struggling because of coronavirus: https://www.gov.uk/find-coronavirus-support

You can read NHS tips to help if you are worried about coronavirus here: https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-anxiety-tips

You can read impartial analysis of the Government response to coronavirus and policy developments here: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/coronavirus/

You may also be interested to know that because of the large number of petitions that have been started in relation to coronavirus, the Petitions Committee has been questioning the Government about its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Find out more: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/192/the-governments-response-to-coronavirus/

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.