Frequently Asked Questions:
How do Diamond Star Experience and the Travel Trust Association provide 100% financial protection for me?
Every Travel Trust Association member deposits your money into the Trust Account. A Trust Account is a bank account designated to hold the customer's money. Your money remains in the Trust Account and is supervised by an appointed trustee who is either a banker, chartered or certified accountant or a solicitor. Both the Travel Trust Association members and the trustee are required to authorise payments from the trust account. In addition to being held in trust, you also have a financial guarantee from the Travel Trust Association. Diamond Star Experience Ltd is acting as an agent for TTAFS Ltd, ATOL 10300.
TTA will guarantee the financial obligation of its members up to a maximum any one passenger of £11,000. So if you paid £2,000 we guarantee we will reimburse the loss of the £2,000, where it is not available for you from the Trust Account. Therefore, the Trust Account plus the guarantee will ensure that all the money which you have paid is safely protected and available to reimburse the money paid. When you make a booking, you will be supplied with a guarantee certificate – you can see the terms of our guarantee here.
Should the TTA member become insolvent, in most instances your money will still be held within the TTA member’s Trust Account by the designated Trustee, and available to pay for your holiday. If because of fraud or dishonesty the money is not there, then the guarantee is available to reimburse your loss. In some cases your holiday may continue as the providers or suppliers have already been paid. Where you have only paid a deposit and still have an outstanding balance, your holiday may be unaffected and by paying the balance your holiday will continue as planned. Where possible, attempts will be made to ensure that you can carry on with your original holiday arrangements.
About ATOL? (Our ATOL number is: T7641)
The ATOL scheme exists to protect consumers if their travel organiser should fail. It ensures consumers are not stranded abroad or do not lose money paid to the travel organiser for holidays and flights. The first ATOL Regulations requiring businesses to hold a licence were introduced in the 1970’s. Since then they have been replaced with new regulations in 1995 and again in 2012 (amended 1 July 2018 and 1 January 2020). The ATOL Regulations set out who can advertise and sell flight accommodation in the UK
Basically, these are:
• the operator of the aircraft;
• an ATOL holder; or
• a person who is exempt.
A business selling a Flight-Only or a flight-inclusive package (Single-contract or Multi-contract package) must fall into one of the above categories, which means that, if you are not the operator of the aircraft or you are not exempt, you must hold an ATOL to provide financial protection for your customers.
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Who are the Travel Trust Association?
The Travel Trust Association is a travel trade association. Our membership base consists of travel agents, tour operators and travel organisers.
The Travel Trust Association exists in order to provide you, the customer, with 100% financial protection and has been doing so for over 20 years. This means that every penny that you pay to our members is protected by the Travel Trust Association.
It means that you can book your holiday secure in the knowledge that Travel Trust Association will protect you in the unlikely event of a member becoming insolvent.
Should a member of the Travel Trust Association for any reason financially fail or cease trading, the Travel Trust Association will liaise with the suppliers and tour operators to ensure that you holiday goes ahead unaffected. If for any reason this is not possible, we will administer a claim for a refund of money that you have paid to a member for your holiday.
All members of the Travel Trust Association have to abide by the members Code of Conduct. This is to ensure that the customers receive the best possible service.
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