The term decides who bears the cost when events disrupt a package holiday:

• The traveller can cancel without a fee. If such circumstances occur at or near the destination and significantly affect the package, or getting there, the traveller can cancel before departure without paying a termination fee. They get a full refund within 14 days, but no extra compensation.

• The organiser can cancel too. If the circumstances prevent the organiser from performing the contract, it can cancel with a full refund and no compensation, as long as it tells the traveller without undue delay before the package starts.

• During the trip. If the circumstances stop the organiser getting the traveller home as planned, it must pay for necessary accommodation, if possible of an equivalent category, for up to three nights per traveller, or for a different period where the passenger rights rules for that transport set one. That limit does not apply to people with reduced mobility and those travelling with them, pregnant women, unaccompanied children and people needing specific medical help, if the organiser was told about their needs at least 48 hours before departure.

Foreign Office advice

The government’s guidance says FCDO travel advice will be a critical consideration in deciding whether such circumstances exist, but not the only one.

Worth knowing

• The circumstances must arise at or near the destination. The government’s guidance says personal circumstances unrelated to events there should not give a right to cancel with a full refund, so a traveller’s own illness would not normally qualify. A traveller’s situation can still matter when judging how events at the destination affect them, for example a pregnant traveller and a Zika outbreak. Travel insurance is the usual answer for personal reasons.

• Travellers cannot give up these rights, and contract terms that restrict them do not bind the traveller, so a force majeure clause in your booking conditions does not override them.

• This is not the same as the extraordinary circumstances that decide whether an airline must pay fixed compensation for a delayed or cancelled flight.