What's the point of a package?

interstellaflyer

busiscoming2 wrote: »

I have only booked 2 package holidays (our first two abroad). The only thing you seem to get with a package is an annoying rep trying to sell excursions!

I've only had this happen once and that was with Thomson at the Vista Blanes apartments in Menorca, the so called welcome meeting was nothing more than a front for selling excursions, have to say that we have never found this to be the case anywhere else, the welcome meetings tend to give the local information and advice first and do excursions at the end of the meeting, anyway, no-one is forcing you to attend the welcome meeting.

As for booking everything separate, we've found you have to be flexible with times, dates and accommodation, I tried to book everything independently this year, however we wanted the same hotel we stayed in last year and the same 2 weeks and by the time we'd added transfers and baggage the cost was not far off Thomson price and the Thomson flight times were more convenient, I also tried Travel Republic etc and for the dates we wanted we couldn't get flights to Reus, they were only quoting for Barcelona, which again by the time you added in baggage, the cost of getting a bus from Barcelona to Salou and then from Salou to Barcelona there wasn't much in it.

jackieblack

shaunskankdog wrote: »

Must admit to being a bit wary when the volcanoes kicked in although I always take out insurance whenever I flit away from UK.

We usually book a fly-drive package, for the protection, and then book our accomodation independently. I always check the fly-drive package price against the price of booking these independently as well, the difference is often negligible and on one or two occasions was cheaper.

When the volcano erupted we were in California, on a Virgin Hols fly-drive package. Virgin were excellent - put us up in two very nice hotels (nicer than we would usually book for ourselves) and got us home 8 days later.

Other peple we know who had booked their flights independently spent hours in phone queues to their various airlines trying to rearrange flights. Some got home within a couple of weeks, most 2-4 weeks, one couple we know couldn't get home for 5 weeks!
Many travel insurers (including ours, Mondial) didn't want to know - claiming the eruption wasn't a covered risk.

tomkil

hanwellmike wrote: »

Are Expedia providing transfers from arrival airport to the hotel ? And transfer for the return ? If they are, then there is at least that advantage in using them, especially if you are arriving somewhere new. Otherwise there was little value in using them other than they booked your hotel for you. I am usually a single traveller so I haven't booked a ''package'' trip for years. Booking separate flights and hotels has always been a necessity for a singleton. As for flight prices then it is so easy to check for flights from the internet that I can't have much sympathy if you did not ascertain a target price first before taking the plunge.....

No, Expedia have simply booked the flights and the hotel. They are providing nothing else.

As for sympathy, I shouldn't expect any: my wife did the booking without any reference to me because she was worried I'd book some cheap and cheerful (or, more likely, cheerless) accommodation for us!

ManchesterMark

Package holidays can be both good and not so good value. In any case they do offer a convenient and easy way to book a holiday, with most things included rather than booking them all separately.

In my experience, I find a package holiday is usually much better value for holidays to seasonal destinations which are not usually served by low cost airlines, such as the Greek Islands. Here, due to the limited amount of flights, most of which are charter flights, prices just for flights tend to be pricey. However you can often get a package holiday, on exactly the same flights as a flight only booking with accommodation and transfers included for a lot less than if you booked everything separately. (I guess this is because the charter airlines only allow a certain amount of flight only bookings as the flights operate primarily to take people on package holidays.)

However, if you are going to a more popular holiday destination where there are lots of flights and competition between companies, such as Spain, it is often cheaper to book flights and hotels separately due to the huge amount of options available. It is in these circumstances where a package holiday is less attractive when you see how much money you can save by booking each element on its own! Though you aren't protected to the same level as on a package holiday. It's a risk you take and so its always wise to take out travel insurance too!

Indout96

This year we have booked our first package in around 15 years to Miami because it was far cheaper than I could put together myself (and I spend hours at it LOL) Normally I can beat packages by £250 - £300 per person but not this year.
Technically I could have got the car hire cheaper but only by £15 so opted to do it all together.

richardw

Are you going to get a shock with the compulsory car hire excess insurance?