Globetrotters should be extra careful when booking flights with travel
agents in the UK. High street budget travel agents, Trailfinders are,
like most other companies, happy to sell you a ticket for any destination
in the world and try to get you to cough up for their in-house insurance
at the same time. They of course earn commission on this.
This Globetrotter booked a ticket through Trailfinders to Bali. I booked
it well before the Bali incident and am due to fly to Bali at Easter.
I was offered insurance, which I declined as I have my own. At a recent
London travel show I enquired about the two different Trailfinder policies
on offer, one annual and one single trip.
When I rang to ask to book the Trailfinder insurance a couple of weeks
later, I was told that Trailfinders would not insure trips to Bali or
any part of Indonesia. Whilst I totally understand the reasoning behind
this, Trailfinders should not be offering insurance over the phone and
at Travel shows and then reneging when people try to book it.
After the Bali bomb many companies in the travel trade took the step
of contacting clients with existing reservations to Bali offering them
money back or a change of destination. Trailfinders did not do this and
now as time for final payment looms, the horrible truth of the situation
is becoming apparent to UK travellers.