A member of an Accredited Body acting within its membership conditions is exempt from holding its own ATOL, and the Accredited Body is liable to the member’s customers as if it were the member. Membership is one of the main ways small independent businesses sell flight-inclusive holidays, including ones they put together themselves.

How membership works

• Customers’ payments for ATOL-protected bookings go into the Accredited Body’s trust account, and the member holds that money for the Trustees of the Air Travel Trust.

• Members must use the Accredited Body’s booking systems and procedures and give it booking data as they go.

• Members can issue ATOL Certificates, although the Accredited Body may require them to source the certificates from it.

• The Accredited Body includes its members’ bookings in its reports to the CAA and pays the ATOL Protection Contribution on them.

• In their publicity, members state that they are an Accredited Body Member of the named Accredited Body and show its ATOL number, the ATOL logo and the CAA’s standard ATOL protection statement.

Not the same as an agent

An agent for an ATOL holder can sell a flight-inclusive package under that ATOL only if it is limited to choosing from services the ATOL holder makes available and the ATOL holder is the organiser. A member of an Accredited Body can act as the organiser of its own flight-inclusive packages under the Accredited Body’s ATOL.

A business cannot hold its own ATOL and be a member of an Accredited Body, or belong to two Accredited Bodies at once. The Accredited Body can end a membership with immediate effect, but it stays liable to that member’s customers who have not yet travelled or returned. The CAA publishes the current list of Accredited Bodies on its website.