Package hol worked out better value!

choccyface2006

Last year my partner and his 2 kids and my 2 kids and I went on holiday, we shopped around for ages on the internet and thought we had a good deal. We bought our flights (no inflight meals), accomodation (S/C) and transfers seperately for £2880 for 14 nights in Menorca beginning of August getting the very best prices we could. (resort should have been Cala Santandria but they double booked so we were moved to Calan Blanes!)

Trouble was the apartment we got was on a small, very quiet complex with no other english speaking children or adults so the kids only had each other to play with and that put quite a strain on us as a family, plus it was not really suitable for a party of 6 so two fold up beds had to be brought in which meant it was very cramped. there was no air-con and bedding & towels were only change twice per week, no entertainment or food of course which added quite alot to our spends. We could find no reviews about the apartments before we went away.

For this years holiday we have gone for a package deal in Majorca (Palma Nova) same time of year. We have booked two triple rooms so we should have more space & two bathrooms (that will make a HUGE differance!) air-con, daily towel changes, half board, inflight meals and transfers, kids clubs and evening entertainment for £2935 (as we got two child free places) so we are getting loads more for our money this time round (just £55 more!) and our spending should be much reduced. :j

We also read hundreds of reports on the hotel and it had great reviews so even 7 months after we booked it, I am 100% happy we our booking.

I thought the best, most money saving way of going on holiday was to book each bit separately but I don't think we'll be doing it again, I think its just about planning well in advance to get the best of the early offers.

What do others think?

Sarah

Labradoodle11_2

I have got to agree with you Sarah. I always book a package holiday and get all the high street travel agents to compete to give me a better price. I went away last year to Gran Canaria for a week before Xmas and priced it up as a package and for independent travel. The package worked out far more cheaper.

budgetflyer

Swings and roundabouts. Im going to Turkey this year on a package.Couldn't even get the flights alone for what we paid for the whole lot!
HOWEVER on many occasions "self packaging" has saved us a fortune.

gregg1

budgetflyer wrote:

Swings and roundabouts. Im going to Turkey this year on a package.Couldn't even get the flights alone for what we paid for the whole lot!
HOWEVER on many occasions "self packaging" has saved us a fortune.

Quite agree - we go to menorca regularly and always do it ourselves simply cos we know someone with an apartment and rent it off em and book our own flights and car hire although we could still get a package deal probably for a bit less but not where we want to go. I would also say that Menorca does tend to cost more than a lot of other places including Majorca (simply cos Majorca is bigger and so there is more choice).

tightrs

what you have to do is book your flights as early as possible,i am e mailed by jet2 as soon as they release their flights,for being a regular customer.your accommadation should be booked as late as possible unless their is somewhere specific you wish to go.
i too am going to majorca in august and paid £311 for return flights for a family of 4 but i booked these last year , the prices quoted now for these flights now is about £1000.

choccyface2006

Thanks for the tip!

saveapenny

I find with self packaging is to ALWAYS book an early flight. It stand to reason if your flight arrives in a mid day and the hotel is over booked thereis more chance you will get the 1 room left over the person who's flight arrives in a 6pm.
On our last holiday we saved over 1200 self packaging, The one before we had 2 weeks for the same price as our friends paid for 1 week and because we got there early we had a decent room they got there late and had what was left

sloppychops

budgetflyer wrote:

Swings and roundabouts. Im going to Turkey this year on a package.Couldn't even get the flights alone for what we paid for the whole lot!
HOWEVER on many occasions "self packaging" has saved us a fortune.

Same with us.We are off to Icmeler a week on Friday for 2 weeks and the flights were alot more than what we actually paid for the holiday.But then again we have gone on alot of DIY holidays and saved a fortune compared to package deal prices.