ABTA Reviews 

I approached ABTA under 298661 in good faith for help with a dispute involving Thomas Cook after my holiday was booked as All Inclusive but wrongly confirmed as Half Board. Despite providing clear evidence, including screenshots, email threads, and details of the issue from the time of booking (17 March 2025), I feel like my complaint wasn’t handled with the seriousness it deserved.

Thomas Cook gave a vague response that essentially blamed me for a website “refresh,” despite them also acknowledging there could have been multiple interactions between the time of the screenshot and confirmation — which to me indicates a possible fault on their end. ABTA accepted their explanation without challenging it further or properly investigating my side.

After weeks of stress and correspondence, ABTA sided with the company, and now I’m left with a holiday I didn’t book, no accountability from the travel agent, and no real consumer protection.

I’m so disheartened and expected more from a body that promotes itself as protecting holidaymakers.

We had 2 suitcases damaged on a cruise on Feb past. One case had a hole in it and a wheel missing, other one had three cracked wheels. Contacted customer service cruise company were only prepared to offer £100 to replace the 2 cases. After speaking to customer service again to say I felt this was not enough, as the cases were of a set of luggage which I cannot match up, and will have to buy a whole new set of luggage, the answer was still the same £100. I decided to take the matter to ABTA who accepted to look at the case for me. I am pleased to say the case has been resolved in a satisfactory manner. Only for ABTA’s intervention this would not have happened. Thank You very much ABTA

Good job in the end by the ABTA arbitrator

Travelled for years (decades) with confidence if anything went wrong. Had a problem and complained to them after holiday company closed my complaint. Spent ages filling in the forms etc. Holiday company wouldn't change decision. Told option was to go to court. ABTA seems to have no power. Just wasted all my time. Perhaps the website should simply say "Go to court" would have saved me lots of effort. Really disappointed.

Have always booked package holidays as was reassured by the ABTA protection.
However, after needing them recently (against Hoseasons not an expensive holiday abroad) now don't understand what they actually "protect" and no doubt the holiday companies know this too!
Had an issue with Hoseasons. Escalated to ABTA.
Hoseasons replied denying the matter. Abta just asked if I was satisfied and wanted to close and if not reminded me I was responsible for costs !
So they have offered no advice, or helped in anyway. Apparently I am misunderstood and they don't enforce anything or advise on anything...so what's the point?
Apparently they can assist with ADR and court if I pay....well I can do that myself!
So in future I'll book all my holiday elements separately because as a lay person I don't understand what they actually do?

What an absolute disgrace of a company and Hunt who carry out arbitration are just as bad. Hunt did not even address my whole complaint and basically have condoned smoking drugs around a children’s pool as it is legal in Florida. This is actually laughable. Hunt also agree that the holiday company should keep monies from the accommodation we were forced to leave and we are not due any monies. I intend to appeal and I am going public with this just to high light how corrupt Hunt are. ABTA you should be ashamed to use such a company.

Took what I thought was a cast iron case to ABTA still cannot believe they found in favour of the travel company. I paid for services that were not provided and couldn't get a refund

Seems to be deliberately designed to place customers who have been treated unfairly in Dante's Fifth Circle of Hell by dealing with claims incompetently, refusing to review evidence, refusing to respond, and not following their own process

EDIT 10/03/25: I will not be removing my review, as I have explained to you multiple times, my complaint is about American Express Travel and not the airline. You accepted the complaint, were mediating from July 24 - January 25, and then all of a sudden decided it wasn't one you could help with.

I used them for an issue with a Wowcher holiday company they use called Travelodeal and it seemed to be the push they needed to refund my money.

Used ABTA to resolve a cruise complaint.
Initially the cruise company had offered me a voucher for £100 for having no cold water in my cabin for 5 days. I didn’t find this acceptable as I couldn’t shower because the water was boiling. I had to put hot water in the sink to cool to wash. As it was a disabled cabin I think they let me down as I relied on that shower with a seat.
I had complained to customer services on the ship immediately & was told it would be fixed. It wasn’t so I told the Steward. It was not fixed at all. So I refused the compensation from them.
I followed the rules by making a complaint to the cruise company but when they declined my counter offer-I contacted ABTA.
I thought that £250 which worked out at just £50 a day was more acceptable.
I used the ABTA online form.
The site is easy to use.
I uploaded documents as requested. ABTA contacted the cruise company-arbitration.
ABTA kept me updated & finally the cruise company has accepted my proposal of £250 in vouchers.
I’m very pleased ABTA was there for me.

I had a problem with a holiday that was changed before we went on it. The change made by the travel company were unsuitable for us as a family, which resulted in us being unable to go.
It was complicated because the company had made two separate bookings but would only refund one.
Having saved long and hard for our holiday, I took the matter to ABTA
I have to say they were fantastic. Very helpful, excellent at communicating and the outcome was that I obtained a full refund from the company involved
I would not hesitate to go through ABTA to help with a problem and would recommend other people to go to them too

We had an issue where we weren't collected to go to the airport. So had to pay again, to start with we were refused a refund however, we went through the complaints process with ABTA and we're grateful to recieve a full refund for taxi costs.

The ABTA website is difficult to navigate. They refuse to answer my messages and are just waiting for me to go away. Waste of time . Why do they not have a properly monitored email address?

I have contacted this company on two occasions since last October not even had the courtesy of a reply

Raised a complaint against Tui who treated me as a longstanding customer, appallingly. Tui promised all sorts, lied and then to cap it all, reneged on the agreement they had made which would have gone some way to resolving my complaint. Complained to ABTA who were no help at all. It seems that the ABTA code of conduct does not extend to travel firms honouring agreements they make. No response to recent messages or emails to ABTA. Now want to submit a Subject Access Request to ABTA but no contact details on the website. They have not treated my information in line with their own terms and conditions so looks like the Information Commissioners Office is my next port of call.

for the heads up and saving me additional wasted time and expense. Now it makes total sense why Hoseasons (also Cottages.com) are so entirely happy to point blank deny my valid claim without any reasonable grounds and instead keep throwing ABTA's name at me at every given opportunity! Looking at the company details most of the multiple CEOs (odd in itself) are also CEOs of companies such as Jet2, Easyjet Holidays, Celebrity Cruises (...), Blue Bay Hotels and Travel etc. So here we go again - another shady, unscrupulous, smoke and mirrors 'authority body' in the UK, lacking impartiality and clearly setup for one purpose - to shield rogue holiday providers and maintain the lowest of standards in this country. Utterly shameful. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night working for an outfit like this. 'Travel with confidence'? Sure ABTA, sure. Legal action it is then.

The ABTA response was immediate in that the team set my expectation levels with regard to how quickly they would be able to address my complaint. However within a week I was able to speak directly to my holiday company, having tried to do this unsuccessfully for three months, before contacting ABTA. I was very pleased with the outcome and am grateful for ABTA's intervention.

I'm yet another reviewer with a complaint re Jet2 Holidays. Having returned from a thoroughly rotten Jet2 holiday I submitted a formal complaint to Jet2. It took almost 7 weeks for them to contact me personally (a phone call) It was instantly clear that I was wasting my time with Jet2 and so contacted ABTA. I assumed that ABTA was an organisation set up to support the traveller/customer, however I now know that this is not really the case. ABTA is essentially a trade union for the travel industry, they regularly refer to 'Our member' which in my case was Jet2 Holidays and definitely not me. To be fair to ABTA their web site does make it clear that they are not an ombudsman and that they cannot help re compensation etc - anyone thinking of contacting ABTA, please bear this in mind. Having submitted all details of my complaint to ABTA and waiting a full 3 months (from my original complaint to Jet2) I eventually ended up at the point where others have ended up, namely - ABTA couldn't help me but could point me in the direction of arbitration for a fee etc etc. I decided to cut my losses and treat the whole experience as an education. I'm obviously pleased that some other reviewers have found ABTA helpful but I have ended up, like many others, wondering why ABTA exists? In future I will A) disregard 'ABTA protected' and B) run a mile from Jet2 Holidays. Contacting ABTA has been a complete waste of my time.

Contacted ABTA regarding a complaint I had with Virgin holidays, they escalated my issue and gave it their priority attention. Virgin however addressed my concerns and complaint resolved. Thank you ABTA for providing the support for a very complex situation

Thank you ABTA. I raised a dispute as I felt I was taken for a toss by the Holiday Provider who gave me instructions after the event and expected me to comply. Thankfully my dispute raised with ABTA resulted in my getting a refund. Thank you for the positive intervention ABTA. I feel that your purpose, role and result for consumers like me was very well served