"Can I help you, ATOL?"

The answer, if you are a customer with the failed travel group XL, is no. That is, if you paid by credit card. The ATOL protection scheme only protects up to a point. The get out clause for the CAA is that credit card companies have an obligation to pay out to customers under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. So that gets them off the hook. Customers who paid this way are not happy. However, they should get a refund from the card issuer.

My concern is that there are going to be quite a few crashes and collapses this year. We've had all manner of mixed messages coming from administrators about who will or will not be paid as creditors. As the government lurches from one fantasy to the next, perhaps a touch of reality should hit them. There needs to be a firm set of rules and regulations covering the position of creditors so that people know exactly where they stand. For example, it is no good one set of adminstrators paying up on gift vouchers and another not. Tightening the rules won't solve everything but it will give a bit more confidence back to a shattered public.