Booking flights and tour separately

MissMayflower27

We're looking at booking our honeymoon for next year and want to do an organised coach tour across america. If we book the tour and flights as a package from the tour operator it will cost us around £5.4k. However, if we book the tour and flights separately it will cost us £4.5k - its quite a big price difference.

Does anyone have any advice as to which way would be best. I know we won't be covered for the cost of the tour if anything happens to our flights but i'm not sure of how this would work.

The flights are with american airlines.

Any advice on whether its a good idea or not to book things seperately would be appreciated.

Thank you
May

stuartroberts

I have done it a few times but at the moment I would stick with the package. especially for that amount of money.

jillie1974

the only thing with booking it seperately...if for some reason the departure date of the tour was changed or the tour itself was cancelled you would be left with flights that you may not be able to change the dates for or get a refund.

Doshwaster

jillie1974 wrote: »

the only thing with booking it seperately...if for some reason the departure date of the tour was changed or the tour itself was cancelled you would be left with flights that you may not be able to change the dates for or get a refund.

Yes, there is a small risk that could happen but is that security worth an extra £1100? As long as you have decent insurance then your money is not at risk.

MissMayflower27

if we have full insurance and there was a problem with the flights so we couldnt make the tour, we would not be able to claim the cost of this on insurance would we?
the tour is a month long so I'm guessing we'd be able to catch it up effectively as it moves along?
It's so confusing how this whole insurance thing works!:mad:

jillie1974

insurance would not cover for the change of dates.

if the flights are a lot cheaper booking them yourselves, then make sure they are changeable tickets. the cancellation charges on these are usualy lower than the usual 100% charge.

HXDave

must agree with the quotes above, where they advise that it is much much safer to book something like that as a package. imagine if the organised coach tour do not get enough passengers on the tour, and then cancel. i presume by booking flights seperately that you have booked (or looking to book) an open jaw ticket (eg flights into new york & out of Los Angeles). with this, if the tour was cancelled and you still had the flights booked, you would need an alternative that fitted more or less exactly with your original tour, which will be difficult to find. Next, providing that the coach tour does go ahead, have you put any flexibility into your travel plans - ie are you arriving into america and joining the coach tour the same day? if so, what if there is a delay with your flight. equally, if you plan to disembark the tour coach and travel back the same day from america to the uk, again what would happen if there was a delay in the tour bus, and you were late arriving at the airport for check-in on return.

as mentioned above too, holiday insurance would not normally cover for this sort of thing either.

Yes, i know you are thinking 'well this chap is a travel agent, and he's bound to reccommend doing it this way', however we do actually care about people having a good holiday too. personally, its upto you as to if you book a full package through me, another travel agent or even a tour operator direct, however i would definately reccommend, whichever way you book it, to book it as a 'package'.

Vikki_74

I would normally sit completely in the book separately and save money camp, but in this case have to say I would probably stump up the extra cash and book the flights and tour together.

My parents have been on quite a few organised coach tours in the US through various companies and on more than one occasion have had their travel plans changed by the tour company after booking - as I think someone suggested already, if they don't get enough people on a particular tour they can cancel it or change the dates around to combine a couple of tours into one. That would be bad enough on any holiday but if it happened on your honeymoon it would be even more upsetting, and one more thing to stress about when you already have enough on your plate with sorting out a wedding.

Have you priced up the trip with a few different companies to see if you can save a bit on the price that way instead? Not sure who the price you quoted is from, but there are various companies that offer this type of trip - Archers and Travelsphere are a couple that spring to mind immediately, I'm sure there are plenty of others too.

MissMayflower27

Thanks everyone - we are thinking maybe we should be more cautious and book it as a package.
I hadn't thought about the coach tour being cancelled, I'd only thought what would happen if the flights were cancelled but I suppose as this is a month long tour it may not be that popular - not a great start to the honeymoon if it was cancelled though!!
The tour we are looking at is through Archers - does anyone know if we can only book the tour direct through them or if a travel agent might be able to get us a better price through booking with them?

HXDave

Archers are the direct sell side of Cosmos Tourama, and ultimately will always (99.9%) be cheaper.

however it may be worth going to an agent to see if they can offer another coach company (someone like connections, Titan Hi Tours, Collette tours) who may so a similar tour.