Andean Trails has nearly two decades of experience of dealing with South America holidays.
We also offer ATOL (Civil Aviation Authority) protected holidays to give our customers peace of mind when booking and travelling.
We pay a fee to the CAA for every licensable passenger we book since we hold an Air Travel Organiser’s Licence granted by the Civil Aviation Authority. In the unlikely event of our insolvency, the CAA will ensure that you are not stranded abroad and will arrange to refund any money you have paid to us for an advance booking.
When you buy an ATOL protected air holiday package from Andean Trails Ltd you will receive a Confirmation Invoice from us confirming your arrangements and your protection under our Air Travel Organiser’s Licence number 6275.
What is ATOL?
The CAA’s ATOL scheme offers protection to your money and your holiday if you book with us. Not everybody is covered (see ‘Who is covered?’ for more), as you must purchase an ‘air package holiday’ with Andean Trails to be protected.
And ‘air package holiday’ is defined as including a flight and some ground services (hotel, transfer, trek etc). This is also known as an ‘ATOL-protected holiday’.
Who is covered?
To be covered by ATOL, you must book a flight and some ground services with us and be from the UK. If you are from the UK and only book ground services and no flights, you are not covered by ATOL (see below for more on how non-ATOL clients are covered).
If you are outside the UK and buy flights with us, you will be ATOL protected IF any of the flights booked with Andean Trails touches/stops in the UK at any point during your holiday package booked with us.
If you buy your flights elsewhere, please check with that agent if you are ATOL protected. Be careful with online flight purchases and make sure you know what protection you have, if any, before paying for flights.
Not all holiday or travel services offered and sold by us will be protected by the ATOL scheme. Please ask us to confirm what protection may apply to your booking.
For land only holidays not involving any air travel, in accordance with “The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992”, all UK passengers booking with Andean Trails Ltd. are fully protected for the initial deposit and subsequently the balance of all money paid to us, arising from cancellation or curtailment of travel arrangements due to the insolvency of Andean Trails.
I’m not ATOL covered, what protection do I have?
If you are not ATOL covered, any payments you make to us go to a Trust account.
We can only access this money once your tour has been completed, meaning that if anything happens to Andean Trails Limited while you are on holiday, then your money is secure and you can either complete the trip or be able to make it home.
If you pay for your holiday with a credit card, some offer payment protection – please check with your cardholder.
You also should have cancellation protection written into your insurance (which we recommend you have at the time of booking) in case you need to cancel.
Need more information?
Contact us for more and with any questions.
Can’t find what you’re looking for? Get in Touch
+44 (0)131 378 5593
+44 (0)131 554 6025
info@andeantrails.co.uk
The high point was a sea lion swimming with us whilst snorkelling off Cape Rosa amongst the lava ‘tunnels’. We have a video of this taken by the snorkel leader playing on our digital frame at home. The low point were the Avianca flights out and back to Galapagos from Ecuador mainland – an airline & staff that really don’t care about you! The day tours were all excellent – sometimes the description was a little vague – for example the Volcano tour on Santa Cruz was a 5 hour 10 mile hike on muddy paths and uneven lava fields, with only a couple of short stops, that needed a good level of fitness but was pitched as a 2 to 4 hour ‘walk’. Food on some tours was a little basic and not very vegan whilst on others it was superb, e.g. the vegan vegetable rice served on one of the boat tours. The highlights were the snorkelling trip to Cape Rosa tunnels and the visit to the Bartolome Island, plus the small plane trip back from Isabela to Santa Cruz. The guides were all very knowledgeable and friendly – William and Martin stood out. We feel we benefited the local people. We had lots of feedback from locals thanking us for staying on land rather than going on one of the boat cruises What we would do differently is probably fly between islands rather than taking the speedboat – and perhaps fly to a third island as we had long enough there to spend three days on a third island (Cristobal?) We chose Andean Trails because it felt like a focused agency that specialised in the area and we liked Kat!
Prof Bob
We had a wonderful time in Galapagos. We really appreciated the guide we had: he gave us so much information, he made us feel safe and took us to the most spectacular snorkelling sessions. I can’t describe any low points. Everything went very smoothly: starting from Quito airport, the welcome in Baltra, the boat and the whole crew. The crew did their best to accommodate all our requests and desires. The only thing I would do differently next time is choose a longer holiday :).
A Calinici