You need to remember that the review of the Package Travel Directive is being made by the European Commission not by ABTA. The question about click through bookings was worded by the Commission and not by ABTA but clearly one of the main areas that it would address would be airlines sites which then have a tie up with accommodation/car hire/other service suppliers whose sites you access via their own. This is a very common practise and one we feel that should be addressed by the terms of a new directive.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by kevinlukemay: HELP! Can someone PLEASE explain what is a click-through travel booking? http://bit.ly/bq6Pcw [Tnooz via @alexbainbridge]…

Currently you can go to a website, book a flight and hotel and find it is protected or it is not, why the difference? Normally it comes down to the wording of the website.

What I would also like to see avoided is XYZ travel setting up a website that says, book your flight with XYZ flights for 100 and we can offer you this hotel here for 50, just click and book on XYZ hotel website. This already happens and people doing it know they make a lot of money cheating the system selling unprotected travel.

So I would like anyone who advertises flights or hotels as part of a transaction on the same website to be made to protect the customer. If you sell just the flight and then advertise a matching site selling hotel for that flight then you should need to protect your customer. Or cross sell any product. But only on websites that make the sale.

However if you advertise a list of websites selling hotels and / or flights and do not take money for the transaction yourself then there is no need for a license. This would cover paybyclick etc.

It all comes down to, if you take money for a sale – protect it. If you do not then it does not affect you. In my opinion.