Haggle Down Your Holiday Costs Discussion Area

jadesarah1

So glad found this thread im looking to haggle a holiday, will keep you posted.

cuedini

I have just been on the Travel Supermarket website after seeing it advertised on here, I could not purchase via the website so I phoned Thompson only to be told the price was over £60 more than the several that were advertised on TSM.

Why does Travel Supermarket advertise false holidays and why is this website, which is a complete waste of time, advertised on here?

Chris.

richardw

Did you haggle Chris?

clivepeh

Hi all,

having undertaken the process as described, it turns out that a holiday to Dubrovnik dep 11 Jul for 7 nights Half board from BHAM is coming up on the teletext.co.uk website at 484pp which is ok. Ringing round the 4 destination specialists, the quotes range from 600-800pp, so it seems like this is the best deal. How are you calculating the "retail brochure price" - where are you guys getting the benchmark from? :cool:

thanks for your support guys and Martin ... well done for some great tips

One suggestion - a train fare megabot ... that would be awesome!

gifford4671

We (2 adults, 2 kids) went to Disney Saratoga Springs for 3 wks, flew with Virgin from Gatwick. Dining Plan inc, tix for 2wks and car hire for 1 week cost £5k.

Disney site has the same offer this year on its site with 15% off if booked before Nov 2010. No matter how I try, can't beat it. Accomodation at Saratoga Springs (Disney Deluxe Resort), free use of Disney transport, 2wks Disney tickets for price of 1 week, Disney Dining Plan for length of stay. Book you flight separate, we are looking to go from Manchester with Virgin and train down on the day of flight. We have looked and so far it is around £4900, then just spending money on top, remember that includes food and tickets.

Check out Dibb http://www.thedibb.co.uk/ for useful ideas and tips

poet123

I wanted a cheap short haul all inc break with sports facilities, but I am only happy with a good standard of hotel/food. So, I used TA and google to come up with Mar hotels in Majorca, and settled on Ferrara Blanca Aparthotel.

I got various costings around the £2200 mark from Travel republic, Co op, Alpharooms and First Choice for 3 adults (our youngest is 13 but classed as an adult) for 1 week all inc in a sea view suite. Then I realised that TR and AR were using Easyjet......and that they are having serious delay issues, and the flight times were not particularly good either.

So, with a bit of haggling I managed to get First Choice down to £2050, and was about to book. Then I decided to go down the DIY route, good daytime flights with Jet2 came in at £550, and I booked direct with the hotel for the same accom and board for £1000, and guaranteed sea view room. So total spend £1550 for a week in late August, as opposed to £2050.

My insurer covers all the component parts of the holiday so no issues with it not being a package and I have saved £500.

geduramah

I looked at teletext and travelsupermrket. Found some corking deals...too good to be true!

I tried to haggle but as others have experienced, the holiday was no longer available or there were too many hidden extras and basic flights so no luggage or transfers.

In the end I booked with Thomson. I booked my holiday on the 1st August to leave 7th August to Dorada Palace, Salou.

I am soooooo glad that I used Tomson as whilst on holiday Sun4U collapsed. This is one of the companies that I was tempted by, I cant belive it! There is NO SUCH THING AS A CHEAP HOLIDAY! Lets be real you can only give away these cheap holidays for so long before they realise they are not making enough profit. I paid an extra 100 PP and tbh it was worth it just for that piece of mind that your tickets will arrive or be waiting for you, someone will be at the airport and that there is a minimal chance of them going bust too.

People plan all year for their holidays, so why would you trust a company that has just popped up on the net that you are unsure of? Teletext can be a good thing but I just dont trust anyone anymore. Its like handing £500 to a complete stranger hoping they wil return with the goods. ABTA protected maybe, but you will have a fight to get ur cash back and you still have to replace the holiday.

This will not be the last company to fold, it makes me sick that they were taking bookings the day before they went bust, its disgusting.

monkey_the_pig

Errrr, haggling proved to make things worse!

I found a couple of different companies offering the same holiday to Minorca, one for £349 each, one for £359 each inc transfers. So spoke to the first again to ask if they would reduce the price, only took off their card charge. So went to the £359 deal, paid for it for the 2 of us....AFTER they had taken our payment, they said 'Oh the flights have gone up by £60'. Understandably I wasn't happy about this, because we had just paid and they wanted more money.

Ok, so got a refund from them. Went straight back to the £349 deal, 'oh the flights have gone up by £50' (though before taking payment this time). Apparently because I had gone back and forth and discussed the holiday with a few companies, the flight company they deal with automatically recognised this and put the tickets prices up! I tried to argue the case that I was already offered £349, no luck.

So if they were correct with the flight company automatically putting prices up, then trying to haggle actually cost me £50 more in the end and we had to go with the company that didn't provide transfers!

Any thoughts on whether they were being genuine about this price increase? I probably should have argued about the additional charge with the first time I paid, as surely, a company offers you a product, you pay for it, deal done, surely they can't turn round and say, oh actually it's more money?

busiscoming2

I have heard that onthebeach do this to people quite often.

stevenc123

Found this site online, the cheap holidays seem to be priced as well as it gets online.

Just booked up to go to Florida next year

Roll on 2013!!