Agent bookings excluded from Balkan Holidays’ relaxed cancellation terms
Balkan Holidays has extended its flexible booking policy, but not for bookings through travel agents.
It claimed it was unable to include agents because that would have jeopardised its ABTA financial protection.
The operator, which updated its conditions for May bookings on March 17, has now rolled these out to June bookings.
It means that anyone travelling in June can cancel up to four weeks before travel, without paying normal cancellation fees, and will only lose their deposit. These are normally charged 10 weeks before travel.
But the operator said the conditions do not apply to flight only or travel agent bookings.
A spokesman told TravelMole: "We did want to offer this across the board. Having consulted with ABTA we established that should we change our payment terms, we would not be financially protected by ABTA.
"Sadly, therefore, we cannot offer this to agents at this time. We are 100% committed to the travel trade at all times."
She said agents should raise any further queries or issues regarding this directly with its trade sales team by emailing [email protected].
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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