Sorry to heaa of your problems, it sounds as though you bought separate elements and not a package holiday at all. If you were told this is what was happening and received two invoices, one for the flights and one for the accommodation, then it is correct you will only get the flight cost back, it defeats the purpose of trying to save money in the first place. However many agents never told people what they were doing and the first anyone heard of Goldtrail was the day after they failed, if that is your situation then the agent has acted as the tour operator and you are entitled to a full refund. Perhaps name the agent and contact ABTA for advice if they are a member.

The agent can only have acted as the principle, and packaged the holiday, if they hold an Atol licence. If this is the case you will have had an Atol receipt with your paperwork. Where the agent is the principle the refund in full, would have come via the agent.
You can have paid your booking off one invoice, but if the price is broken down it is not a package booking.
I don't think this was a package, just separate elements.
I take it your travel insurance didn't cover you for this?

The agent was Holiday-mate. They never told me when I booked it that it was not a complete package. I only got one invoice for the whole holiday. I didnt have insurance as I was going to buy it the day before departure. I have learned my lesson and will never book with one of these small teletext companies again

I presume you had a price breakdown on your invoice (separate costs for flights and accomm etc).
As regards insurance you need to make sure you have the correct cover if you book a non package holiday in the future. Also a good idea to buy it when you buy the holiday, as you have no cancellation cover otherwise.
Hope you get your refund soon.

If they failed to disclose you had a booking with Goldtrail, then I very much doubt you are going to be successful in making a claim against the CAA. It sounds as though the agent may have been illegally putting together packages without explaining what they were doing, this failure has exposed just how many were and the government announced changes last week which should prevent this happening again in the future. I see you paid by credit card, my view is that having waited and been refused a full refund by the agent you now report the situation to your credit card issuer and make it clear you want to make a claim under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act on the basis that you were not supplied with what you paid for and the company has refused to give you a refund. They will write to your agent and give them 14 days to give an explanation, if they do not, the money will be taken back and you will see a credit on your next credit card statement, good luck

The OP is getting his flight refunded from the CAA, it is the accommodation he is going to lose.
I don't think he will have a chance of getting a charge back against his card. The accommodation was available for use, so he cannot say he paid for something he didn't receive.

A lot of people have suffered the loss of accommodation in the last 12 months, between supplier failure and ash cloud.

He booked a holiday, he did not choose to split the contracts, the agent did so without any explanation, I think most banks when pushed will admit he did not get what he paid for.

Hmm just google Holiday-Mate and it looks like they supply Package holidays. They also have an ATOL number.
Do you have have the reciept still?

Actually saying that there selling as a package holiday and then showing a price breakdown which is very misleading. But you have to try dummy booking to find that out,

Yes, they are Atol protected. If the OP received an Atol receipt along with his paperwork it is a package. The was a change of ruling on what constitutes a package a few years ago. The CAA introduced a clause that said the fact there was a price breakdown shouldn't exclude it from being a package. Abta challenged this, and their challenge was upheld.
Holiday mate terms and conditions state that unless otherwise specified you are entering into a contract with the supplier, so unless the OP been told otherwise, it would be deemed that he knew he had booked a component holiday.

San diego. I really don't think that the OP had paid for something he didn't receive or wasn't as it should have been.
The accommodation was available to him and there is no way of proving it wasn't as it should have been. Unfortunately as he agreed to the terms and conditions where it clearly states about package holidays, I really can't see how he can say he didn't get what he paid for.
If he is able to do a chargeback, then so could anyone that suffered problems with the ash cloud. We had many stories on here, and on various forums, where people had tried to do this and failed.
I think we will have to agree to differ on this. I hope I am wrong.

Cooper - Have you contacted your credit card company about this?

As far as I can see, he never received an ATOL Confirmation Invoice from Goldtrail, only from the agent who also has an ATOL. It looks and smells like a package which the agent put together. The agent is legally obliged to provide what was paid for or offer a full refund, neither of which he has. I would certainly contact the credit card company, its amazing what a threat of a chargeback does to companies who have been hoping customers will just give up

If the agent sent an Atol receipt it would be because they had packaged the holiday and became the principle. If that had been the case he would have been asked about alternative flights and been given a full refund (including flight) directly from the agent if none were available/suitable. He is getting his air refund from the CAA so I suspect no package. As per their terms and conditions he would have been informed if it was. As the OP has never mentioned receiving an Atol receipt from the agent I presume he didn't receive one.

Unless the OP specifically asked for a holiday covered by the package regs the agent did provide what he paid for. Goldtrail's failure was not the fault of the agent. Neither was the fact he couldn't use the accommodation.

There is little point in two people arguing what was sold, the poster says he had no idea of Goldtrail before the failure, that suggests he wasn't told and didn't receive a Goldtrail invoice. Thousands of people are in exactly the same situation, the travel agent failed to tell the customer what he was doing and customers cannot tell the difference between packages and parts of packages, until it is too late. I have offered my advice, it is up to the person to decide what to do with it.

If someone sold you flight+hotel ( even without transfer) and if they hold ATOL and if they send you an ATOL invoice, they are fully responsible to you.
They probably bought your flight from Goldrail on ATOL to ATOL basis, which mean you are covered under Holidaymates ATOL.
So they need to make you a full refund. If not my suggestion as follow:
1- Contact credit card ask for full refund
2- Write to ATOL and make a complaint

I am very suspicious that you could get a refund from ATOL as they have already denied any payment for ATOL to ATOL sales.
PS: we are running a similar business and we have refunded all our customers from our pocket and lost all paid flights to Goldtrail.
So honest people always loose.
Good luck with your claim.