MSE News: Get 65% off package holidays

dear oh dear. whilst i used to have great admiration for Martin Lewis, i feel that he should honestly stick to the area's he is good at (financial services), and keep well away from the travel industry. I work in travel, and have done for over 20 years, and have seen things affect travel in those years.

one of the major developements over the last number of years is the advent of the LCC (low cost carriers). great alternative to holiday & costly scheduled flights, allowing much more flexibility with travel plans. with the LCC came what was known as DP (Dynamic Packaging), where companied booked a LCC and then PACKAGED & BONDED it with accommodation to produce a holiday. Then we have MSE who, in the article above, state

Otherwise, it's usually best to book flights and accommodation separately (see the cheap flights and cheap hotels guides).

My eyes watered when i saw that comment, and could not believe what MSE was recommending people to do. Do you not remember the Ash Cloud, where hundreds of thousands of people could not fly to their holiday destinations, however many had already paid for accommodation they could not then use. There were also many thousands who could not fly back at the end of their holiday, and had to pay for additional accommodation, often at increased prices from greedy hoteliers. Now where is the money saving in that.

Recently we have had 2 very high profile company failures in Goldtrail & Sun4U. Whilst goldtrail sold mainly packages and was ATOL bonded, if you had booked just a cheap flight with them, and then booked cheap accommodation seperately, you now have to find a new flight in order to use your accommodation, and i gaurantee you will find it very difficult to find a flight at the prices goldtrail used to sell at. Then with Sun4u, i have already heard horror stories of clients who are now stuck overseas with either no accommodation, or having to pay AGAIN for their accommodation.

We also have the pending possibilities of 2 seperate strikes that will affect travel. Both BA & BAA are in the middle of industrial action, and could have a serious impact on travellers, especially those that have followed MSE advice and booked flights & accommodation seperately. To those who have been / will be affected, i wish you luck!

I would like to point out that whilst the comments above are purely my own thoughts, i know that a lot of 'professional' travel people will echo what i say.

It's Icesave all over again. Nice one. Hopefully this time the sheep won't get a bailout.