Don’t trip up with your padel trip
Padel holidays are becoming increasingly popular – they are a great opportunity to grab some sun, improve your game and have fun. But, as Ian Ryder, co-founder of Padel Tripper discusses, there are steps to take to ensure your padel break is protected.
You’re probably reading this because you love padel and as the nights get colder and the clouds get greyer thoughts inevitably turn to a dose of sunshine with some padel to break up the winter months.
As padel booms in the UK over the coming years, packaged trips will become more and more common. Golf and tennis have been doing this for years and the market is mature but padel has some catching up to do.
So if you are planning a trip with a company or even your tennis or padel club, it’s important to have a good understanding of how they must protect your trip by law. These laws exist to make sure you can put down your deposit months in advance, safe in the knowledge that whatever happens, you are totally protected from any financial misfortune.
There are three main types of trip protection to look for:
ATOL: if you are booking a trip and it includes air travel as part of your booking, by law the company must be ATOL protected. This ensures that you will be financially protected in the event of a company failure and you won’t get stranded. As online flight booking has become easier many holidays don’t include flights and in this case ATOL protection has no value.
ABTA: if you are booking a trip and it includes land travel – ferry, coach, train etc – then ABTA works in a similar way to ATOL. You are protected if the company goes bust or doesn’t deliver on its promises.
Trust Account Protection: for trips that don’t include travel ATOL and ABTA aren’t necessary. In the UK the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018 state that any company (or club) providing two parts or more of a trip must be covered in the event of financial or other failure.
We’ll focus on the third option as it’s probably the least understood and you are also likely to see more of this option within the padel world as it works perfectly for companies/clubs that aren’t traditional travel agents – ie their focus was padel first and they later decided to add travel components to their existing padel expertise rather than the other way around.
With a trust account, when you book your trip you aren’t paying the company providing the trip directly, you are paying it into a trustee managed account that only allows the company to use the funds on the trip components (accommodation, courts, coaching etc) until the holiday is complete. Also, every booking automatically has supplier failure insurance so if the company happens to go bust you are protected.
Organisations providing these trusts operate under strict regulations and any company signing up has to be vetted – credit checks, business plans, funding etc. In the event of a dispute or a promised element of a trip not being delivered, the trust company will step in. Some examples of trust account providers include Protected Trust Services, Travel Trust Association and Serenity Travel Trusts.
In summary, any trip you book that includes travel, accommodation, padel play or coaching in combination must be protected under one of the three options. Even if it’s your padel or tennis club that you have been attending for years they must be covered. And don’t forget, all of this is in addition to your own personal travel insurance, which should always be taken out. 🎾
