What counts as a group booking

A group booking is one reservation for several people travelling together, made under a supplier’s group terms rather than as separate bookings. There is no standard size. easyJet’s group terms cover 10 or more passengers. Virgin Atlantic counts 10 in Economy or 8 in Premium Economy and Upper Class. Aer Lingus counts 7 adults. Premier Inn and Travelodge both start at ten rooms, although Premier Inn says this can vary by hotel.

Group terms let you hold space before every traveller is named, in return for commitments on payments, names and numbers. Other features of the published terms:

• A separate way to book. easyJet’s group terms apply only to bookings made through its groups team, and Virgin Atlantic says agents must refer all group bookings to it.

• Quotes and options run out. An easyJet quote does not reserve seats and the price can rise. Virgin Atlantic offers an option of up to four weeks, after which you commit to deposits or release the space. Travelodge’s group rate offers last 3 working days.

• Net rates and resale limits. Virgin Atlantic quotes group fares net of commission and bans selling them on as individual seat-only fares. Premier Inn pays no commission on agreed group rates, which cannot be resold at different rates.

• No splitting a group. Premier Inn applies its group terms to members of a group who book the same hotel separately.

How airline group bookings work

Group terms vary by airline. Three published examples show the range:

• easyJet. You pay the full value of a group booking when you make it. Names and passport details are due at least 5 days before the first flight, and names can be changed free until then. If the booking is cancelled, easyJet refunds government taxes but not the flight price.

• Virgin Atlantic. When the option ends you commit to deposits of £50 a person in Economy, £100 in Premium Economy or £200 in Upper Class. You can cut numbers by up to 20% without penalty until six weeks before departure, as long as the group stays at the minimum size. By then you must give final names or commit in writing to a number of seats, or the booking is cancelled and the deposits are charged. Names can be changed free until ticketing, and the ticketing time limit is five working days before departure. If numbers fall below the group minimum, the booking is cancelled and the passengers are rebooked at the lowest available individual fare.

• Aer Lingus. You pay in full when you book. All names are due 10 days before the outbound flight, or Aer Lingus may cancel the booking without a refund. You can reduce numbers when you add the names, but nothing is refunded.

Taxes can also change before ticketing: Virgin Atlantic honours its YQ charge from the time of booking but applies other taxes as they stand at ticketing. In a package, the Package Travel Regulations allow a price rise for changes in fuel costs, third-party taxes and fees or exchange rates only if the contract provides for it, with notice at least 20 days before the package starts.

Group flights and ATOL

Group flights follow the normal ATOL rules: the CAA says that unless you are an airline selling its own flights or are exempt, you need your own ATOL to sell flights and flight-inclusive packages to consumers in the UK.

The CAA’s note for airlines says that when a travel business wants to place a group booking, the airline must either make sure the business holds an ATOL or appoint the business as its airline ticket agent. A business that combines the seats with other services into packages cannot act as an airline ticket agent.

The CAA says airline ticket agents and IATA-accredited agents need not provide ATOL protection for flight-only sales to consumers if they meet all its conditions, including issuing confirmed tickets immediately upon payment and not providing tickets as part of a package. A confirmed ticket is valid for travel without any further payment. Group fares can be ticketed much later: Virgin Atlantic’s terms allow ticketing up to five working days before departure. Before taking customers’ money for group flights that are not yet ticketed, check with the CAA how the ATOL rules apply. Two other exemptions matter for groups:

• Occasional not-for-profit sales. The ATOL Regulations exempt a person “making available flight accommodation occasionally on a not-for-profit basis to a limited group of consumers”. The CAA’s example is one member booking for a group of friends. It says a school, college or university organising a flight-inclusive trip on that basis needs no ATOL and issues no ATOL Certificate, but a travel company organising the trip for it should hold one.

• Business travel. The ATOL Regulations also exempt sales under a general business travel agreement, which covers travel booked in connection with the client’s own business. The CAA recommends that the agreement says clearly that the exemption applies and that you keep records of bookings made under it.

An ATOL Certificate is due as soon as a customer makes a first payment, even a deposit, and taking card details counts as payment. If passenger numbers are not confirmed when a deposit is paid, the CAA says to show the known numbers and the lead passenger name, then supply a new certificate whenever the booking changes, including the number of passengers. Package certificates can show just the lead name, but flight-only certificates must show all known names.

Hotels and accommodation for groups

Hotels handle groups under group contracts, and terms differ by hotel: Travelodge says each group offer is based on the request. Two UK chains’ published terms show what to check:

• Payment schedules. Premier Inn’s depend on the contract length. On its 180 day contract, 50% is due 180 days before arrival and the balance 90 days before. Travelodge’s group deposits vary from 0% to 50%, depending on the size and date of the booking.

• Releasing rooms. Premier Inn lets a group release up to 10% of the contracted room block free of charge with at least 14 days’ notice. A bigger or later reduction counts as a cancellation.

• Cancellation charges. At Premier Inn, amounts paid are forfeited if a booking is cancelled after the deposit period. Travelodge’s minimum group cancellation period is 28 days before arrival, and it can cancel without refund if payments are not made on schedule.

• Rooming lists. Premier Inn needs the rooming list 14 days before arrival.

• Resale. Premier Inn bans reselling rooms, alone or as part of a combined offer, and points tour operators to a separate contact. Check that a supplier’s terms let you include its rooms in trips you sell.

Our glossary also explains allocations and their release dates.

Group trips and the Package Travel Regulations

The Package Travel Regulations 2018 apply to group trips as they do to any other trip. A business that combines two or more different types of travel service for the same trip and sells them is the organiser of a package. A retailer sells packages someone else has combined. Government guidance says whoever ultimately combines a package is its organiser, even if it presents itself as the traveller’s agent, and the Regulations say that declaring yourself only an intermediary does not remove your obligations.

The not-for-profit exclusion. Regulation 3(2)(b) says the Regulations do not apply to “packages offered, and linked travel arrangements facilitated, occasionally on a not-for-profit basis for a limited group of travellers”. Government guidance gives a one-off church trip for members as an example and takes “occasionally” to mean no more than a few times a year. The exclusion covers the not-for-profit organisation itself, not an organiser serving that group or market commercially, and commercial organisers acting for a not-for-profit group are always in scope. Two school examples from the guidance:

• A school’s four-day geography trip to Yorkshire, by coach with a youth hostel and parents paying the costs, is not a package.

• A volunteering trip to Costa Rica arranged for a school by a travel company specialising in tailor-made school trips is a package, and the company must comply.

Corporate and incentive groups. Packages bought under a general agreement between a trader and a business, for travel connected with that business, are also excluded. Government guidance says this covers companies booking through framework contracts with business travel agencies, while business travellers using consumer channels without such an agreement stay protected. See also our glossary entry on MICE.

Rules that matter for groups:

• Before booking, travellers must be told, where it is not obvious, whether services are provided as part of a group and, where possible, its approximate size, plus the minimum number of people needed for the package to go ahead and the deadline for cancelling if it is not reached.

• An organiser can cancel for low numbers only if the contract states a minimum and travellers are told within the contract’s deadline, which can be no later than 20 days before trips of more than six days, 7 days before trips of two to six days and 48 hours before shorter ones. Travellers get a full refund within 14 days but no extra compensation.

• A traveller can transfer their place to someone who meets the contract’s conditions, with reasonable notice on a durable medium. Notice of 7 days or more is always reasonable. Transfer costs must not be unreasonable or exceed the organiser’s actual costs, and on Virgin Atlantic’s terms a name change after ticketing means buying a new ticket.

What changes on 6 April 2027

The Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/455) were made on 22 April 2026 and apply to contracts made on or after 6 April 2027. For group sales:

• A new kind of package. Two or more types of travel service for the same trip will form a package if one business lets the traveller choose and pay for each separately in a single visit to, or contact with, its point of sale. That includes its premises, its website and its phone line.

• Linked travel arrangements are abolished. The not-for-profit and business travel exclusions stay for packages.

• Supplier refunds. A supplier that cancels or fails to provide a service in a package must refund what the organiser paid it within 14 days, though it can deduct any refund it has paid the traveller under passenger rights law.

Deposits, payments and customers’ money

Group suppliers can want money early, as the airline and hotel terms above show.

For packages, the usual rules on customers’ money apply:

• Before booking, travellers must be told the total price and the payment arrangements, including any deposit and the timetable for the balance.

• Organisers of packages not covered by ATOL must protect customers’ money against their own insolvency with a bond, insurance or a trust account. The security must cover the reasonably foreseeable cost of refunds, taking into account the time between deposits and final payments.

• Packages that need an ATOL are protected through ATOL instead.

Our guide to taking payments as a travel business covers deposits, ATOL money, surcharges, chargebacks and refunds.

School and youth groups

• Department for Education guidance. The DfE’s guidance on health and safety on educational visits applies in England. Schools using an outside organisation must check it has appropriate safety standards and public liability insurance, and can check whether it holds the Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) Quality Badge. If it does not, the school must make sure it is appropriate, which could include checking its insurance, risk assessments, staff competence, safeguarding and accommodation. For trips abroad, schools should make sure organisations providing activities hold the badge or similar local accreditation. The school should also have an agreement setting out who is responsible for what.

• The LOtC Quality Badge. The Council for Learning Outside the Classroom, a charity, oversees the badge, and specialist awarding bodies assess providers. For study, sport and cultural tours abroad, that is the School Travel Forum.

• The School Travel Forum. The STF is a not-for-profit trade association founded in 2002. Its code requires members to be principal (tour operator) members of ABTA or members of ABTOT, or both, to be bonded if they are sole traders and to hold an ATOL in their own name for air packages, with no split contracts or ATOL agency arrangements. New members have up to two years to pass an independent audit, and audits are yearly after that.

• Adventure activities. HSE says anyone who provides, for payment, adventure activities within its licensing scheme to under-18s must hold a licence. The scheme covers some caving, climbing, trekking and watersports in England, Scotland and Wales, and payment includes payment made through booking agents.

• Supplier rules. Premier Inn requires at least one supervising adult per 10 children throughout a youth group’s stay, easyJet one adult per ten children on groups booked through its website and Travelodge an adult with every under-18 unless they are part of a supervised student group booking.

Travellers with disabilities or reduced mobility

• Before booking a package, travellers must be told whether the trip is generally suitable for people with reduced mobility and, on request, given precise information for their needs. Government guidance accepts an accurate standard line if specific information follows on request.

• Under the UK version of Regulation (EC) No 1107/2006, an airline, its agent or a tour operator, which includes package organisers and retailers, must not refuse a booking for a flight to or from a UK airport on grounds of disability or reduced mobility, except to meet safety requirements or where the size of the aircraft or its doors makes carriage physically impossible. On safety grounds they can require a companion who can give the assistance needed.

• They must be able to take requests for assistance at all their UK points of sale, including by phone and online, and pass on requests made at least 48 hours before departure to the airports and operating airline at least 36 hours before. The CAA says agents and tour operators must offer a free way to ask.

• CAA guidance says airlines must not set quotas on the number of disabled passengers on a flight for non-safety reasons.

• If unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances stop a package traveller getting home, the organiser normally pays for up to three nights’ accommodation. That cap does not apply to people with reduced mobility and their companions, pregnant women, unaccompanied minors or people needing specific medical assistance, if the organiser was told of their needs at least 48 hours before the package started.

Insurance

• Before a package is booked, travellers must be given information on optional or compulsory insurance covering cancellation by the traveller or assistance, including repatriation, after an accident, illness or death. Government guidance confirms travel insurance is not a travel service, so it does not create a package.

• ABTA’s Code requires members to point out the advisability of travel insurance before a contract is made. ABTA’s guidance says selling or advising on travel insurance is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, so a business needs FCA authorisation or must be an appointed representative of an authorised firm, and that selling a holiday with non-optional insurance is also regulated.

• The FCDO says people travelling abroad should buy appropriate travel insurance as soon as possible after booking, covering existing health conditions and planned activities, and that a GHIC or EHIC is not an alternative.

• For schools, the CAA advises those organising package trips to make sure they have the necessary insurance, and DfE guidance says schools must check outside organisations have public liability insurance. Public sector schools in England in the DfE’s Risk Protection Arrangement have UK and overseas travel cover, including winter sports, within limits such as £10 million for medical expenses and £4,000 a person for cancellation overseas.