You have to very careful when putting together your own holiday to avoid the potential of ending up being in difficulty and out of pocket if things go wrong during the trip. If you book a traditional package holiday with a travel agent then you’ll be covered. The mechanism for covering this is due to change next year with the proposed £1 ATOL Protection Contribution. However this will only cover package holidays. In the recent opinion poll more than half of travellers thought independently arranged flights should be covered too. At present you’re not covered if you book directly with a scheduled or low cost airline.

At present the best way to cover yourself when put together your ow holiday is to pay by credit card. Be aware that this only covers purchases of at least £100, so if you find a cheap flight there’s no benefit to paying by credit card.

The strange thing is that the charter flights I booked with flythomascook.co.uk for our pickage holiday are covered by ATOL. Therefore if the airline goes bust before we fly we’ll be reimbursed and if it happens when we’re away we’ll be flown home.

I booked the accommodation through medhotels.com paying by credit card which did not incur any additional charge. You must check that the name of the payee is the same as the supplier which is the case with medhotels. So far so good but I’ve paid the car hire by debit card to avoid a £3 charge on the £118 cost. Oh dear, if there’s no car when we arrive at the airport we’ve had it. However I rationalise that it’s no as much of a disaster as having to arrange our flights home or have to find another place to stay and lose the £275 that I paid for accommodation.

Another way to protect yourself is to purchase travel insurance which offers cover you for DIY holidays or dynamic packaging such as that offered by 1Stop Travel Insurance. It would probably take a while to get your money back as the failed company would have to be in liquidation before payout is made. However if the insurance premium is good value this is a virtually free additional safety net. Speaking of travel insurance, check that you are covered for terrorist attack.

By this stage you’re probably thinking this trip you’re plannng is supposed to be for pleasure not dodging through minefields. To put things into perspective I’ve taken many pickage holidays over the years and never had a problem but you never know. If I add up all the additional fees for credit card charges I could have paid over the years they would probably come to more a lot more than I stood to loose if one part of my holiday went wrong. For example I could have paid another £6 in credit card fees if I’d paid for our charter flights by credit card, if I hadn’t know I was covered by ATOL. It’s about knowing the facts and making your own decisions in full knowledge of the potential risks.