Should you use a school travel company or organise your trip yourself?

21 Mar 2025, 12:08
by Kate Moore

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Enjoy additional refund protection by arranging your school trip as a package

When Heathrow Airport closed unexpectedly on Friday due to a fire, thousands of travellers were left stranded, including one of our school groups returning from southern Spain. With travel disruption expected to continue for days, we acted quickly to arrange alternative transport by coach, ensuring the group would be safely back in the UK and ready to return to school by Monday.

This situation highlights one of the key reasons to book your school trip as a package, with a specialist provider, rather than going it alone.

If you’re considering organising a school trip alone, read on to understand the crucial benefits of partnering with an experienced travel package provider.

Benefit from financial and refund protection with a school trip provider

When planning for a school trip abroad, it's crucial to ensure your group's safety and financial security. Voyager School Travel offers comprehensive packages that provide both financial and refund protection, ensuring a worry-free experience for teachers and students alike.

The key is to arrange your school trip as a package

By booking your school trip as a package with an ABTA member, your group benefit from additional consumer protections under law. For example, by organising your school trip as a package, we are legally obliged to:

deliver the school package you paid for and, if something does go wrong, put it right. This includes offering an alternative trip or full refund if we can't provide the educational experience we promised
have financial protection in place so that deposits are secure from day one - an invaluable benefit considering many school trips are booked a year in advance and are more vulnerable to suppliers going out of business

How might that work in practice?

If flight delays or cancellations lead to your trip being cancelled, or new arrangements are made that result in a significant change to your educational experience, then we must offer an alternative trip if we can, or a refund for the full price of your package holiday, not just the cancelled flight.

By choosing the DIY approach and booking the flights, activities and accommodation separately, schools run the risk that if travel arrangements fail, refunds will not be payable for the other elements.

What's a package trip?

For an overseas school trip to qualify as a package and receive refund protection, we must arrange multiple elements, such as transportation and accommodation or guided tours and meals. The more components we manage for you, the greater your protection in case of itinerary changes.

DIY versus using a school travel specialist

Even if you have a clear view of where you want to go and exactly what you want to do, putting together a DIY trip can be more of a headache compared to using an educational travel specialist.

One single supplier and just one single invoice to pay is certainly easier than organising each element yourself
A School Travel Forum (STF) member will guarantee that all accommodation, transport and itineraries are fit for school groups, meaning you don't have to do the research
Using a Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge holder means you can be sure about the quality and safety of our trips, reducing your risk assessment burden.

We know you have enough on your plate during PPA so use us to take the pressure off!

We'll get your group home

When you travel with Voyager School Travel, you benefit from our extensive network of partners and our ability to make quick decisions when plans change unexpectedly. Our dedicated team is on hand 24/7 to support your group and get you home safely, whatever the circumstances.

On more than one occasion, we've used our coach fleet to bring home a school group left grounded in Europe.

Ready to plan your school trip abroad?

Get in touch and talk to us about your trip's objectives. Our travel team will use their expertise to recommend a workable itinerary with plenty of school group-friendly options to help you make the most out of your trip.