The Package Travel Directive: what a "package" legally buys you

Per the Commission's Your Europe guidance, package rights cover the performance of travel services included in your package and insolvency protection, whether bought online or face-to-face, from a tour operator, travel agent or any trader acting as the organiser. The same guidance draws the boundaries: more limited rights apply to linked travel arrangements, and the rules do not cover stand-alone travel services — a flight booked alone lives under EU261, not this directive.

Source: Your Europe — Package travel and linked travel arrangements (European Commission), read 8 September 2026.

Directive 2015/2302 handles the post-booking price hike directly: if the organiser proposes a price increase of more than 8% of the total price, the traveller should be entitled to terminate the package travel contract without paying a termination fee. Below that line, permitted increases follow the contract's own rules; above it, the exit is free and the choice is yours.

Source: Directive (EU) 2015/2302 on package travel — EUR-Lex, read 8 September 2026.

The directive also lets the traveller terminate without paying any termination fee where unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances will significantly affect the performance of the package — its own examples: warfare, other serious security problems such as terrorism, significant risks to human health such as the outbreak of a serious disease at the travel destination, or natural disasters. Note the test is significant effect on the package's performance, not general nervousness about a destination — and note, as ever, that these rights refund your package, not your medical bills abroad: health cover is a separate policy.

Source: Directive (EU) 2015/2302, termination provisions — EUR-Lex, read 8 September 2026.