At its simplest, a trust is a legal agreement by which a trustee holds funds for the benefit of another party in a trust account. This other party is known as the beneficiary, the person for whom the funds are being held in the trust account.
In travel, a trust account protects the consumer by ensuring that their money cannot be used before they travel for any other purpose than paying suppliers for their holiday. The consumer pays money for their holiday into the trust account and it can only be paid out before travel to suppliers if there is insurance in place to repay the trust account in the case of insolvency.
The trust account is run separately from the travel company who you booked with. This provides an extra level of protection for you and ensures the money you have paid can only be used for paying for your holiday.
With Protected Trust Services (PTS) members, the trust account is in the name of the trustee and is run by PTS and the independent trustees. The travel company does not have direct access to your money. As an extra layer of protection, you are given a booking reference which ensures your money is credited directly to your booking. If a refund is required, these will also be administered from the PTS trust account too, to ensure your monies are safe.
How Does the Trust Account Work At PTS?
There are a few different ways trust accounts are run, even in travel. At PTS we have made our trust account solution as secure as possible so that our consumers can travel with trust and our members can run their businesses with great financial security.
This is why we run an independent trust account with detailed, tried and tested processes to allow our members and you as a consumer to track all payments on your holiday to the penny. For extra security, we have appointed independent trustees, Elman Wall, so any payment out of the Trust has to be authorised both by PTS and Elman Wall.
At PTS, we also believe in being completely transparent with our members and consumers. We reconcile the Trust Account daily, allocating all payments to an individual booking, so the money you pay can only be used to pay for your holiday. We also provide a link for you (via your PTS member) to the payment page on the itinerary for your booking which shows all payments you have made for your holiday.
Our trust account system is incredibly efficient with our market-leading IT allowing our members to instruct payments easily and efficiently. All payments can be made swiftly and without hassle wherever you are travelling in the world
When you are ready to book your next holiday and you want to book with some of the best protection in the UK travel industry, don’t forget to look for the PTS logo and company number on your travel businesses website. Or, if you’d like to check that your travel business is indeed a PTS member, you can use the PTS member search.
If you would like to learn more about how a trust account works with PTS or how else you are protected as a consumer with PTS, don’t forget to check out our articles and updates.
Book your trip with a trusted PTS operator
Your money is held with independent trustees in trust for your peace of mind
Independent trustees allocate your money to pay for your specific booking
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Take a Look at Other Related Topics
When it comes to travelling, no one really wants to be thinking about financial and legal safety when you’re trying to enjoy a long stretch of sun on the beach as evening creeps over the beautiful land of another, magnificent country. It is perhaps for this reason that ensuring complete security when you travel with trust is so important to us and our Protected Trust Services (PTS) members.
When it comes to paying a decent amount of money in advance for something such as travel, and something that takes you somewhere unfamiliar at that, it becomes even more evident how important being properly protected is. The big question is: how is your holiday actually protected? And, how is it done so through Protected Trust Services (PTS)?