Question Time: Time to stop using my LISA? Are cashback & switch bonuses taxable? Are investments protected up to £85,000?

In our Question Time podcast, Martin Lewis gives you answers on absolutely anything and everything, including: how to get hotel money back on flight cancellations, do investments have the same protection as savings if a provider goes bust, should I stop putting money in my LISA, and what’s his favourite type of music? If you want to ask Martin a question, you now can! His Question Time podcast lets you ask Martin absolutely anything and everything (within reason!) – so if you’ve always wanted to know his favourite city, what he does in his spare time, or have a very complicated question about your finances, email it to [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:01Martin Lewis?

  It doesn't protect the underlying thing you are investing in. There is a plausible possibility that we will see a change to the lifetime ISA in the budget. I used to dance quite a lot, bizarrely. I used to probably go out and dance quite seriously. I think you've done everything you can possibly do. Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. This is our question time edition, in which I answer your questions about absolutely anything and everything within reason. This week, you ask me, are investments protected up to £85,000 per person per institution just like savings? Should I stop putting money in my lifetime ISA because the property threshold is frozen?

• 1:46Martin Lewis?

  Do you pay tax on cash back on credit cards or cash back from bank switches? How do you get your money back on hotels after your flight's been cancelled? And what's my favourite type of music? Well, it's the theme tune, of course, so play it.

• 2:14Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to the Question Time pod. Joining me is the curator of questions, which ever since I've worked out what the acronym is, I'm now calling you every time, podcast producer Matt.

• 2:26Speaker 06

  Brilliant. Thank you very much for that. I'm sure that's not going to stick and people aren't going to start shouting it at me.

• 2:30Martin Lewis?

  They're not. Maybe instead of addressing their questions to dear Matt, they can address it to C... No, no.

• 2:36Speaker 06

  No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Putting my foot down there. Absolutely not.

• 2:40Martin Lewis?

  So Matt, what questions have you chosen for me this week? What's your first one? Let's get straight into it.

• 2:45Speaker 06

  Let's get into it. A good one from Stuart to start with. He says, hello Martin, thanks so much for talking more about investing recently. I'm finding it very useful. You've often talked about the FSCS cover.

• 2:57Martin Lewis?

  Well done.

• 2:57Speaker 06

  Thank you. Cover for savings. Should your provider go out of business? You've thrown me now. However, what is the position if you hold investments such as a share ISA with a provider that goes insolvent? Are your investments protected under the same scheme? And what if your holdings exceed the 85k cap?

• 3:15Martin Lewis?

  Okay. Well, look, that's a really interesting question because we've just learnt that the savings safety protection, that £85,000 per person, per financial institution that you're protected on savings is due to rise to £120,000 on the 1st of December, which is good news for savers. Now with savings, it's pretty clear. You put your money away, you get deposit protection. That protection is backed up by the FSCS scheme, which is backed up by the government. So in the unlikely event the UK regulated financial institution that you've put money in goes bust, you get your money back up to that level. Though in reality in savings, they would also probably take the savings book, the amount of savings that that company has and just move it to another institution.

• 3:57Martin Lewis?

  Investments, as far as I'm aware at the moment, that limit is staying at £85,000. But it's important to understand exactly what that £85,000 is covering. The most important thing to understand is it doesn't protect the underlying thing you are investing in. When you make an investment, what you are doing is taking a risk that to hopefully get higher growth than you would get in savings, you're willing to lose some or all of your money. Now, most people are investing in funds unless they're specialised investors, and a fund has a broad spread investment, so you're unlikely to lose all of your money, even if things drop, because that's the point of not having all your eggs in one basket. But let's take the example of you investing in an individual share.

• 4:41Martin Lewis?

  You buy a share in the company, that means you're a part owner in that company. You gain if the share price goes up, because other people are willing to pay more for it, because the company becomes more valuable. You also gain if you were to get dividends, that's an income payment per share from the company. But the price of that is the investment risk. And just as if you set up your own company and it went bust, you would lose all your money. If you've got a share in a company as a part owner, if it went bust, you would lose all your money. So that isn't what the FSCS is protecting. What it's protecting you from is if the investment platform you invested through were to go bust. So they can't accept any claims for poor investment performance,

• 5:25Martin Lewis?

  but they may be able to protect you if a provider, a platform, goes out of business and there's a shortfall in the money or the assets that it's holding for you. And that limit is currently £85,000 per person, per firm. I'm not, don't think that that is changing, I will double check afterwards. You're, of course, it has to be a UK-regulated investment firm. If your claim is about bad advice, the FSCS may cover you too. But just to be plain, if you have a complaint about bad advice, and it's ruled that you were given bad advice, the firm would have to pay you, the FSCS would probably cover you. If the firm that you complain to had gone bust and it owed you money as compensation. For bad advice. So that's the type of thing that we're talking about.

• 6:10Martin Lewis?

  I mean, the truth is, as long as you're investing through a UK regulated platform, you should hold and you should be the owner of the underlying assets anyway. So the real problem is often if you're struggling to get those assets back, if it were to go bust, that you would be protected. But it's meant to give you some extra certainty about the platform going bust, not the investment itself. A little bit long-winded, but I think we got there.

• 6:31Martin Lewis?

  Right, Matt, I'm done on that one and you're about to bring me the second one. And under the curator of questions format that I know you like to use, I think that means this is a caller.

• 6:40Speaker 06

  It is. We need to get rid of this curator.

• 6:43Martin Lewis?

  No, it's sticking.

• 6:44Speaker 06

  Needs to go.

• 6:44Martin Lewis?

  It's sticking. We could do a poll on it.

• 6:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, do a poll and see what people think. All right, we've got Theo in East London. He's on the line. Hi, Theo.

• 6:53Martin Lewis?

  Hi, Theo.

• 6:54Speaker 07

  Hi, Martin. Hi, Matt.

• 6:56Martin Lewis?

  Can I just ask you, Theo, what do you think of calling Matt the curator of questions? Are you in favor or against?

• 7:01Speaker 07

  I think I'm going to have to be in favor.

• 7:03Speaker 06

  Oh, Theo.

• 7:05Martin Lewis?

  Sorry, mate. Right, what's your question?

• 7:08Speaker 07

  Okay, so I've got another lifetime ISA question, but this time specifically London related.

• 7:14Martin Lewis?

  Yep.

• 7:15Speaker 07

  So for context, I've had a LISA for the last three years and I've been prioritizing maxing that out, the kind of 4K contribution limit. And then any leftover is going maybe in other ISAs or any savings accounts. So I think the goal here really is I do need to have a deposit for a flat in London, together with my partner, and maybe in three years or so, I'll have, you know, a bit of a wage increase and then club together a deposit to actually put something down.

• 7:43Martin Lewis?

  Yep.

• 7:44Speaker 07

  So, yeah, our site is set on London primarily because we both grew up here and Clammy family are close by. But if it doesn't add, if it doesn't add up, then we will absolutely have to rethink. So with, with the LISA, the maximum property price I can get is 450,000 and that's only in London. And I don't think that aligns too well with the current flat prices. So I think it was maybe it was Ryan who reported that the average London flat sold last year was 530 grand.

• 8:14Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 8:14Speaker 07

  So there's still plenty of flats below that threshold, but I'm more concerned about what the picture is going to look like in a, in a couple of years' time. So with that, my question is a two parter. It's really, should I continue contributing to my ISA first and foremost? Or shall I opt for just kind of more general ISA or other savings options, which which don't really have this risk of the 450 grand limit? And then secondly, based on that, should my partner open an ISA? Is it is it still it's still a good option?

• 8:45Martin Lewis?

  So it's a really interesting timing of this question. Absolutely, I would not be putting another penny into a lifetime ISA until this Wednesday. Because I would say I think there is a plausible possibility that we will see a change to the lifetime ISA in the budget, which is on Wednesday. Now, I gave evidence to the Select Committee on, the Treasury Select Committee, talking about lifetime ISAs earlier in the year. They have reported to the Chancellor that they think there are some fundamental problems in the lifetime ISA. One of them is that the threshold has not been increased since 2017, even though house prices have gone up.

• 9:25Martin Lewis?

  So on the back of that and on the back of the lobbying work that I've been doing, I think there is, I'm going to put it at 50 50. I think there's 50 50 chance one of two things will happen in the budget this year. Either the Chancellor will follow my recommendation, which I would like it to, which is that if you buy a property above 450,000 pounds,

• 9:49Martin Lewis?

  then the penalty for withdrawing your money that you normally pay if you take your money out for not buying a quality owned property, you won't pay the penalty. So you'll be able to get your money back. You won't get the bonus, but you'll be able to get your money back. And that's my suggestion, which would be a relief to you, wouldn't it? Yeah, I mean, it's not what you want. You'd prefer to get the bonus, but at least not to lose any money would be a relief and you'd still get any interest that you had earned.

• 10:11Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 10:12Martin Lewis?

  The alternative is that she puts the threshold up. Now, I probably think there's more chance of that, maybe it going up to 500, 550, 600. I think there's probably more chance of that just because it's simpler. You know, you can do that at the stroke of a pen. You can change the limit. Whereas changing the penalty is slightly more technical, or you never know, we could be super lucky and get both. Unlikely, but hey, we can always hope. So the first thing I'd say is let, don't do anything now because I think, you know, I'm not saying it will change. I'm not privy to that information, but I think it is, it is strongly possible that something happens more than plausible. It's definitely possible. It's plausible, but I'm not saying it will happen. And so if we take it as, if it does go up to 550, let's say, just to, you know,

• 10:57Martin Lewis?

  plug, put the middle one out of the three, then I think that probably gives you more room and gives your partner more room. Now, look, no one can predict house prices over the next three years, but I, no one is currently looking at huge, rapid house price inflation. Even if there is house price inflation, we're probably looking at the low digit single percents rather than anything bigger. So you're not going to see too much price difference. We've already had that baked into the London market and London is moving up slower than anywhere else. So i- if that were to happen, I think then I would probably still go for your licenses because you sound like someone who will be able to find a house under 550 quid. That's pretty reasonable. You maybe go, you move out a zone or two and you still get something. If it doesn't happen and we're still stuck at 450 with nothing else coming

• 11:40Martin Lewis?

  in, then I think you're right that the conservative thing for you to do is to say, you know what? I can't afford to put any more money in licenses if I'm going to have to pay a penalty on it and that my, my, I don't know your partner, whether girlfriend or boyfriend, whatever, that they probably shouldn't be putting money in a LISA right now because there's too big a risk. You're going to buy a property over the threshold. And that, by the way, when I have, and I think I'm allowed to say this, when I have spoken to the chancellor in person about this, and when the answer that often comes back from politicians is, yes, but it's a lot of money for 50,000. Is that who we want to help? The biggest thing I say is you have to understand this is a deterrent and it's not just a deterrent to people like

• 12:25Martin Lewis?

  you who are close to it. It's a deterrent right across, especially people from lower social economic barriers who that when you say there's a risk, you know, because I have to caveat, you've heard me, I know you've, and I'm glad you've got the message. You understand it. You hear, I have to caveat when I say, I can't say a license is a no brainer because there's a risk, even if you're going to buy a property, you'll lose your money. And that puts so many people off. That's why my argument is you have to change the structure or you're actually unnecessarily putting risk averse people off doing it. So let's fingers crossed something will change. Have I answered all your questions? Sorry, I went off on one. Sorry.

• 12:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, super helpful. So really, sit tight. Wednesday, let's see what happens. And then actually, for the moment, that will really affect whether it's worth it going forward. And definitely kind of a pause on my partner opening one.

• 13:09Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, unless they put the barrier up, in which case go for it.

• 13:12Speaker 07

  Yeah. Okay. No, super helpful, Martin. Thanks, Matt.

• 13:15Martin Lewis?

  Cheers, mate. Welcome.

• 13:16Speaker 06

  Cheers.

• 13:20Martin Lewis?

  One more thing to add in. Theo's gone, but worth remembering on lifetime ISAs, you can only get the bonus if you've had it open a year. So for his girlfriend, it was a girlfriend, wasn't it, I think?

• 13:30Speaker 06

  I think, I did call him and I think he said girlfriend. I don't, yeah, I'm gonna say girlfriend.

• 13:35Martin Lewis?

  So for his girlfriend, the key is she won't be able to buy within the first year. Actually, if you're listening to his girlfriend, as you probably are back on the podcast, just go and put a quid in a lifetime ISA now. You put a quid in a lifetime ISA, then you've started the clock ticking anyway for that year, even if you don't put any more money in. And if you aren't going to use it and you take it out, well, yes, you'll have to pay an effective 6.25% penalty. But you know what? I believe you can afford the risk of six and a quarter pence. So put a quid in now, whatever, just to get that clock ticking.

• 14:03Martin Lewis?

  Are you sitting there thinking, oh, I know what I wanted to ask him? Well, this is your opportunity. If you've got a question, then just send them in to [email protected]. And please do start them, Dear Martin.

• 14:17Speaker 06

  No, Dear Matt.

• 14:18Martin Lewis?

  Dear Martin.

• 14:19Speaker 06

  Dear Matt.

• 14:22Martin Lewis?

  Right, Matt, what do you have next for me?

• 14:24Speaker 06

  A question from Dan, who's emailed in to the podcast, [email protected], if you didn't know. I like the way he started his email. He said, Dear Martin, and then in brackets, and he who shall not be named, which I think you called me in a previous episode, didn't you?

• 14:39Martin Lewis?

  Well done. Right, Dan, I'm gonna give you the best answer I can possibly give you. That's it. Put Matt in his place. The curator of questions himself.

• 14:48Speaker 06

  Rude. Let me read his email. A number of bank accounts offer cash back on groceries, bills, et cetera. Does this cash back count as interest for the purposes of tax? Started listening to the pod this year and now regular.

• 14:59Martin Lewis?

  Well done.

• 15:00Speaker 06

  I thought you were gonna say something more. Thanks for all the hard work you do. You've already saved me loads of money.

• 15:04Martin Lewis?

  Oh, well, that's very kind of you, Dan. It's a really good question. Not enough people ask it, but there's a good answer. No is the answer. Cash back does not count as interest. Interestingly, if you do a bank switch, that does not count as interest. They count as rebates or discounts and therefore they are not taxable income. And you can have all the money tax free and you do not need to declare them. It's actually, if I can get super nerdy for a second, there are some bank accounts that do have deals like you must pay us a five, a three pound monthly fee and we give you five pounds back. And I believe that is probably done so that there is clarity that that is a rebate.

• 15:49Martin Lewis?

  Because of course, if you pay a three pound monthly fee and you get five pound back, then you're two pounds up and therefore you're gaining two pounds. And one of the reasons I suspect it's structured that way is so that that is seen as a rebate on what you've paid and therefore is non taxable income. So Dan, rest assured, you are absolutely fine to get as much cash back as you like or bank switching bonuses as you like, and you do not have to tell HMRC. It's none of their business because it's not taxable income.

• 16:17Martin Lewis?

  All right, now Matt, at this point, because I have understood the, your structure, we go question, caller, question, Matt's funny question from a listener. Is it funny question from a listener time?

• 16:30Speaker 06

  It's not funny question from a listener. It's funny slash question that I want to ask you question.

• 16:38Martin Lewis?

  You're building your own, mate.

• 16:39Speaker 06

  I know, well, it's because a lot of them are about food and I don't always want to talk about food. I want to, I want to get to know you a bit more. I want to understand you as a person, not just as a money saver next, but as a person. So what kind of music are you into? And what song is at the top of your on repeat at the moment?

• 16:57Martin Lewis?

  Okay. Now there will be some people out there who are substantially older than you, Matt, and will know that back in probably 2003, they did a week on Radio Two, when I used to appear on the Vine programme on Radio Two, dedicated to people choosing what music I should listen to as I don't listen to music.

• 17:23Martin Lewis?

  So, I don't really have an answer. And at the end of it, it was like, people had to choose. If you were going to buy me one song to start off my music collection, and it obviously became a hotly contested debate by all these musical people. I mean, there's a reason I do radio on Radio 5, it doesn't have music on it, right? And so, and, and they came up with, it was actually Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland, which is quite interestingly, is something that my daughter now sings incredibly beautifully. So that does have real meaning to me. I, I'm not a music atheist, I'm a music agnostic. I don't mind music being on, I quite enjoy music being on, and I used to dance quite a lot bizarrely, I used to probably go out and dance quite seriously, and I enjoyed the

• 18:06Martin Lewis?

  rhythm, but I never put music on. When I wake up in the morning, I put Speech Radio, generally 5 Live on, that's what I like to listen to, that's my night. I've got Claire, who's one of my two, sitting in here, she's giving me a funny look, you give me a dirty look Claire, is it just weird?

• 18:19Speaker 06

  Not a dirty look, it's just... A confused...

• 18:22Martin Lewis?

  She's surprised and confused. So I don't really have a playlist, or most of the stuff I do, my daughter's very into musical theatre, and I hope not giving away, she's an incredible voice, we don't know where it's come from, she's an amazing singer. So I tend to, the things that I'm listening to at the moment will tend to be things that she is singing. But generally, music does pass me by a little bit.

• 18:40Speaker 06

  Ah, interesting, interesting.

• 18:42Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, and so, the funniest is, I did Desert Island Discs.

• 18:44Speaker 06

  Oh god.

• 18:45Martin Lewis?

  And, and, and of course I had to pick Desert Island Discs, and I remember saying to my wife, I was, what am I gonna pick, like, what are the, what are the songs that really, you know, you love most? And so in the end, I did it differently, I picked by songs that were sort of like thematic to my life as I'd gone through it, that reminded me of a point in time that I was gonna be talking about.

• 19:05Speaker 06

  You've always gotta be, you've always gotta be awkward, haven't you?

• 19:07Martin Lewis?

  I have, and I believe that also on BBC Sounds, people can go and listen to that Desert Island Discs if they'd like to. Look at me cross-plugging the BBC, that'd be a never-nor.

• 19:15Speaker 06

  Well done.

• 19:16Martin Lewis?

  I believe we've got a caller now, have we?

• 19:20Speaker 06

  We do, we do, we have Mark, Mark's in Dorset, hi Mark.

• 19:24Martin Lewis?

  Hello. Hello. Is that Matt?

• 19:27Speaker 06

  It is.

• 19:28Martin Lewis?

  And this is Martin, hello. Hello, hello Martin, nice of you to be there. Do you know what I'm off on here, it's my podcast. What can I do for you mate? Um, I have a...

• 19:38Speaker 07

  A problem with a holiday.

• 19:40Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 19:40Speaker 07

  That we booked um to go on independently, um so not through any uh any sort of um travel agents.

• 19:49Martin Lewis?

  So you booked the flights and accommodations separately and paid for them on a piece of plastic, yeah?

• 19:53Speaker 07

  Correct, yes. So that was back in September. We booked the flights in February, I think it was. Uh and it was our thirtieth wedding anniversary, so we thought.

• 20:02Martin Lewis?

  Congratulations.

• 20:03Speaker 07

  Out and go for a, thank you, a two centre holiday uh in Athens and a Greek island.

• 20:09Martin Lewis?

  Nice.

• 20:10Speaker 07

  We um we arrived at the airport on the night before because um because it's quite a journey from here to Bristol Airport. If you've got a six o'clock flight, you need to be leaving here at half one in the morning. So we we thought we'd stay over. Um and when we got up, we'd we'd received a text message from EasyJet to tell us that our flight had been cancelled. And what did we want to do?

• 20:35Speaker 07

  Um being three thirty in the morning, we weren't quite as with it as we thought we probably should have been, but.

• 20:40Martin Lewis?

  I present Good Morning Britain sometimes. That's when I get up. I'm never with it at that time in the morning.

• 20:45Speaker 07

  That is an early start. Um so uh we decided that because there weren't to be more flights from Bristol to Athens. For two days, uh that we would cancel and abandon the holiday. Um cancel the flights, get the money back, claim the compensation. And go and have a nice little tour around the southwest down in Dartmouth and in a couple of days in Wales. Um just to carry on with our um plans for our wedding anniversary.

• 21:12Martin Lewis?

  So, okay, so as I understand, you use UK Regulation two six one slash two thousand and four, which is the flight delay compensation. And you got your fixed amount of compensation on top of your refund per person. So probably about two hundred quid per person on top. Is that correct?

• 21:26Speaker 07

  It's three hundred and fifty, because it's.

• 21:28Martin Lewis?

  It's Athens, it's it's over fifteen hundred kilometers, yeah. Okay, so so you've got seven hundred quid on top of the flight. Uh well done. I'm slightly concerned because no, I was expecting this to be. A flight delay cancellation, so I was going to go through the cancellation rules and say they cancelled it within fourteen days of you travelling. And uh you would have got there over three hours late, therefore you're entitled to fixed compensation, but you're ahead of me. And that makes me slightly nervous because it means the question's going to be more difficult. Carry on.

• 21:54Speaker 07

  It is going to be a little more complicated. When when we returned, we obviously, we we had, when we returned from our holiday, we had um already booked our travel insurance at the time of the other bookings as recommended by you.

• 22:10Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, you got, as soon as you book, A S A B, you've got your travel doing everything right. It's getting more and more concerning for me.

• 22:19Speaker 07

  Um, we we then contacted the travel agent, sorry, the um the insurance company, who told us that because the flight had been cancelled by the airline. The there was and there was a clause in the um in the insurance, uh they would not pay anything out to us.

• 22:38Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 07

  Is that a normal situation?

• 22:42Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, I mean, generally airline failure is one of the things that some travel insurance policies are specific that they do not cover.

• 22:54Speaker 07

  Right.

• 22:55Martin Lewis?

  And there are add-ons where you buy extra airline failure cover. Now, we're in an interesting position here because we're talking the knock-on effects. You're not asking them to cover the airline, you're asking them to cover the consequential losses, what a lawyer would call it, of of you not going on the flight.

• 23:12Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 23:13Martin Lewis?

  That would depend on the policy and the policy terms. Have you have you interrogated those policy terms?

• 23:20Speaker 07

  Um, no, because we we sort of accepted that they had a um a clause that said if the flight was cancelled by the airline, then they were not responsible for any further um losses, as far as I remember.

• 23:34Martin Lewis?

  I'll tell you what I would do. I'll give you a quick tip. I don't know. How tech savvy are you?

• 23:39Speaker 07

  Well, yeah, I'm very tech savvy.

• 23:40Martin Lewis?

  Perfect. I would I would go, I would get the policy terms and conditions, and you know, it'll be long, it'll be seven million pages long type thing. Cut and paste that into an A I chatbot, like a chat G P T or a Google Gemini.

• 23:56Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 23:57Martin Lewis?

  And then I would say, here is my policy. Can you tell me what it says about this circumstance? Get it to super quick read it for you and bring out the relevant paragraphs so you can have a read of those.

• 24:09Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 24:09Martin Lewis?

  Just to check what the wording is.

• 24:11Speaker 07

  Certainly.

• 24:12Martin Lewis?

  Uh, my suspicion is, look, we never know, uh and and you could always, you always have a right to take any travel insurance case to the ombudsman. My suspicion is that you, they're going to be right. Yeah, but I think it's worth the five minutes.

• 24:29Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 24:30Martin Lewis?

  Just to read that wording. I presume you're also thinking of section 75, are you? Because I reckon already, I'm not going to be telling you anything that you don't know on this.

• 24:38Speaker 07

  Yes, we've, since that happened and we've tried to claim some extra things from EasyJet and that didn't work. We have contacted our credit card company and had a reply today saying, yes, please send us all the relevant information and we'll look at it. My concern is that the booking was with booking.com rather than the hotel itself.

• 25:04Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, and that's an intermediary that will probably break in section 75. I have another concern, I'm sorry to be negative. Right, my other concern is, you know, I often phrase it this way, and you're a sophisticated man, but I'm going to use my same phrasing because it makes it clear for everybody listening. People often say to me, you know, if I can't go on a flight or I can't go on a, why can't I get my money back? And I say it's a bit like if you buy a tennis racket and you break your arm, you can't claim the tennis racket is faulty. The problem is, the hotel was there for you. Right, you couldn't get to the hotel, not that there was anything wrong with the hotel. And that's where it gets tricky. And under section 75, the credit card company is jointly liable with the retailer.

• 25:45Martin Lewis?

  Ignore the potential intermediary breakdown of the fact that you went through an agent and that could stop section 75. But you don't, you know, you don't really have any consumer rights with the hotel. So you wouldn't have any consumer rights with the credit card company either because it's a mirror right situation. So I think, I think that is unlikely, unlikely to, to help, but I would try it anyway. Is my understanding. By the way, I was just thinking back, I said scheduled airline failure earlier. It's actually travel disruption cover in this particular one. Scheduled airline is where the airline goes bust. Travel disruption is where you have travel disruption from an airline not delivering. So it would be the travel disruption part of your policy that's actually relevant. Look, this sounds really weird when, when I haven't managed to help you.

• 26:31Martin Lewis?

  But if I can, the one thing I think I might be able to do, because I sort of, I think you seem a similar person to me. Mark, I think you've done everything you can possibly do. And I hope that me saying that to you gives you at least some peace of mind that you've tried everything.

• 26:46Speaker 07

  Yes, absolutely.

• 26:47Martin Lewis?

  That's probably the best I can do, if that makes sense.

• 26:49Speaker 07

  That's absolutely fine. That's all I could really wish for, isn't it?

• 26:52Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, you've done everything you can do. You've got seven, you know, you've got £700 back due to the compensation, so that should hopefully limit the total amount that you are out of cost. But you've tried everything and then just, you know, it's a bit of a, you know, stuff happens.

• 27:07Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. Eventually it comes around.

• 27:10Martin Lewis?

  Yes. Take care and I'm glad you enjoyed your lovely UK holiday instead. Sounds like it was beautiful.

• 27:16Speaker 07

  Thank you very much, all of you. Cheers, mate.

• 27:18Speaker 06

  Cheers, Mark. Thank you.

• 27:21Martin Lewis?

  So, look, Mark was very knowledgeable about all those issues, but just for those people who aren't, if ever your flight is delayed or cancelled and it is an EU or UK regulated flight, what does that mean? That means any flight leaving a UK or EU airport or any flight arriving at a UK or EU airport, but on the second one, if it's arriving, then it has to be a UK or EU airline. Then there is a fixed compensation scheme and that's what Mark got. If your flight was delayed, usually over three hours and the max exact amount that you get paid depends on how far you're travelling and exactly how long you're delayed, or it was cancelled in a relatively short time before you were to go away and

• 28:05Martin Lewis?

  the replacement flight you were offered, even if you didn't take it, the replacement flight you were offered would have meant that you arrived delayed compared to your original booking, then there is fixed compensation available, provided it's the airline's fault. To make that very simple for you, if it's due to a storm and it was not safe that they couldn't fly or that the airport is closed down, it's not the airline's fault. If they didn't have the staff or they had a knock on delay and it was late, the prior flight was late getting in, so they didn't have the plane, then it's probably the airline's fault. And so what you just need to know is you need to have that in your head in case it happens to you. That's the point. You go and check the rules because as well as your money back, if you ask for it, you might be entitled to £200, £300, £400 per person fixed compensation.

• 28:52Martin Lewis?

  That's it for this week's Question Time. Don't forget to subscribe so you know when we release a new episode. We put out a new Question Time each Monday alongside the regular podcast that goes on Thursdays. Aren't you lucky? Two doses of money-saving tips and tricks a week. Do make sure you send in any questions you want to ask me to [email protected].

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Martin Lewis is the founder of moneysavingexpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing [email protected]. The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand, it's worth double checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the third century? I'm Misha Glennie and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  It's one of the first times really that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  In Our Time. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Tea or coffee? Love a cup of tea.