Gift Vouchers - travel/flights?

pimento

It's a milestone birthday for me in September and I'm having a bit of a do.

Several of my guests have asked what I would like as a present and I was thinking about gift vouchers.

Do any travel companies of the Expedia type do gift vouchers and are there any pitfalls to buying/using them?

Thanks for your ideas!

Piggles12345

Hi there

I was bought Thomas Cook travel vouchers a couple of years ago. I would not recommend that you get Thomas Cook vouchers.

Basically, I have £400 worth of vouchers.
My holiday on thomascook.com is around £1,200
My holiday in-store is around £1,600

You can't use Thomas Cook vouchers online, so if you use them against the cost of your holiday booked in store, you're still only getting the internet price.

I am having to book online and then post my vouchers to Thomas Cook HQ to get them to off-set the value of the vouchers against the cost of my holiday by way of reimbursement. This involves me taking some time of work to go to the post office, paying for insured postage and having to fork out the entire cost of the holiday to then be reimbursed.

All minor niggles, but still worth bearing in mind!

pimento

I think there's a definite gap in the market.

stephb34

I have used thousands and thousands of Thomas Cook vouchers over the past few years no problem what so ever. They can be used on anything they sell other than currency ie Theatre breaks, sport breaks, uk holidays, airport parking, airport lounge etc not just overseas hols. Most Thomas Cook shops will match an internet print off from their website as long as its not another tour operators or Direct holidays, just dont mention the vouchers until you have a price as they know you need them more than they need you so dont need to match the internet.
Im not 100% sure but you maybe able to book on the internet and take your vouchers to a Thomas Cook shop and pay them for the holiday, they wont like it but i think it can be done.
Also unless you've booked a last minute deal i would have thought you could send the vouchers off anytime before payment is due for them to be deducted off your booking so you wouldnt need to pay anything upfront.
I think thomsons also do gift vouchers, i dont know of anyone else but there will be others.