Cheap package holiday guide discussion area

bluep

Sigh, we waited last year hoping for a last minute bargain and got zilcho. However, as you say, the economic situation is a bit different this year so hopefully there will be more last minute school holiday bargains.

laurob

we are looking for a all inclusive holiday in august for two weeks for a party of 9, occupying 4 rooms can anyone help. the cheapest we have found so far is £7500 as the wife doesn't fancy turkey or egypt.

hannah09

Hi,
My boyfriend and i are booking a holiday to egypt at the end of june and was wondering if anyone used otbeach.com and beatthebroshure.com. These are coming very cheap, but wanted to make sure that these were ok to use!

hannah

sloppychops

hannah09 wrote: »

Hi,
My boyfriend and i are booking a holiday to egypt at the end of june and was wondering if anyone used otbeach.com and beatthebroshure.com. These are coming very cheap, but wanted to make sure that these were ok to use!

hannah

Just be careful with OTBeach as there has been quite a few bad reports on here about them lately(do a search and you will find them all).

wannaberichbtch

Have never heard of beatthebrochure but had a bad experience with otbeach.com as have many others on this forum, also see holidaywatchdog for otbeach reviews.

hannah09

Thanks soo much..
Yeh i checked out that holiday watchdog website and read the reviews. there pretty bad! cheers again and i read the review on beat the brochure and that seems alright.
thanks again

koru

For my last few holidays, I have consistently found that DIY is considerably cheaper than an equivalent package. I have found this to be true even if we are going to mainstream hotels in mainstream resorts for standard holiday lengths of seven or 14 days.

If there are any differences from the package equivalent, the differences are usually in favour of the DIY option. For instance, I usually book on British Airways, which is generally a lot more pleasant than a charter flight and I need not wake at 3.30 am to check in for a very early morning flight. And I often have to book private taxi or minibus transfers, which are at least as comfortable as the tour operator bus and are usually much quicker because there is no need to wait for stragglers or to drop off at half a dozen other hotels or even resorts. These are benefits that would be worth paying a little extra for, but I usually find that I am in fact paying less than the package, overall.

My most recent experience was booking a ski holiday for next Easter for eight people. I called into the local travel agent to see if they could tell me about prices for flights with the tour operators, and the agent confidently told me that if I gave her the chance she would be able to come up with a price for a package that is cheaper than my DIY. After a couple of hours of ringing around she seemed genuinely surprised that her best price, even after rebating most of her commission, was 40% higher than my DIY price. As far as I know, I was not getting any special deal from the hotel -- it was just the standard price on their website. (There is no way that hotels in top ski resorts are going to discount their prices during the Easter school holidays, except at the last minute.)

Perhaps the explanation is that my family has to travel in school holidays and the tour operators boost their prices at peak periods to take advantage of the excess demand from UK holidaymakers in school holidays. Whereas if you go direct to the hotel they base their prices on overall demand from all their clients from a range of countries, and so their prices may not spike as much as through a tour operator.

However, even with a break during term time for just me and my wife, I found DIY was 20% cheaper.

Edit: By the way, I never travel RyanAir. I am talking about being cheaper even with better flights or hotels. I do, however, spend a lot of time shopping around for my DIYs. I could save a lot of time by just booking a package, but it would not be as nice a holiday.

joirish

Hi - I am interested in booking the Holiday Village in Sharm-el-Sheikh for Oct 2010 ( 2ad & 2 ch ). I know it's a long way off but it will be our 1st "proper" holiday in a long time and it will give us time to save up. Anyway, as the Holiday Village is exclusive to First Choice is there any way I can haggle on the price or will they be fixed ? I've looked on their website and when booking now I can get 1 free child place and an online discount of approx £170 - I was hoping to maybe get a further reduction or would that be wishful thinking ?

Jo

DETOMLINS

We recently spent a week in Cyprus at the Queens Beach hotel. On booking the holiday through First Choice, I enquired about a room with a sea view and was quoted a cost of £29 per head per night .We declined .
On arriving at the hotel , I enquired there about a room with a sea view .The Manager replied that there were 2 available and gave us the keys to look at each to see if we had a prefernce .The cost? 5 euros per night for the room .What a difference . it seems that this is yet another area where holiday companies are milking added costs .
Incidently we went to the same hotel last November and First Choice gave us a room with a sea view ,and at that time .with no additional cost .

Georgina_J

Last Minute Deals for Single Travellers?? Without Single Supplement??