Several duties under the Package Travel Regulations only count if they are met on a durable medium:

• the copy or confirmation of the package contract

• notice of a price increase, with its justification and calculation, at least 20 days before the package starts

• notice of changes to the contract

• the traveller’s notice transferring their booking to someone else

For off-premises sales, such as a homeworker visiting a client at the client’s home, the copy or confirmation of the contract must be on paper unless the traveller agrees to another durable medium.

What counts

An email and a PDF attachment both normally count. A page on your website that you can change usually does not. The EU Court of Justice held in 2012 that information available only through a link on the seller’s website is not provided on a durable medium, and accepted in 2017 that some online systems can qualify, but only under strict conditions. These pre-Brexit rulings still carry legal weight in the UK, although the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal can depart from them. We are not aware of any UK court ruling on whether text messages, app inboxes or customer portals qualify.

Example: a tour operator adding a fuel surcharge emails each lead passenger a letter as a PDF, at least 20 days before departure, showing the increase and how it was calculated. A notice placed only in a “My booking” area of its website would be risky.

Worth knowing

Durable medium is about how information is delivered, not about signatures or file formats. The ATOL Certificate has its own delivery rules under the ATOL Regulations.