First Choice & Thompson Discounts on Holidays

worb

Hello, does anyone have any ways of getting the price down on First Choice or Thompson holidays. They always say their website is their lowest price but is it? Any ways of getting the price down as they seem to of gone up quite a bit this year. Thanks.

aaroncaz

Try booking it DIY, separate flights, hotel etc.....or book through Travel republic/On the beach....... This year I booked my holiday, flights with Ryan air, hotel with Hotels4u, 10 nights Spain, saved abt £500 on Thomsons prices.

talktalktobt

aaroncaz wrote: »

Try booking it DIY, separate flights, hotel etc.....or book through Travel republic/On the beach....... This year I booked my holiday, flights with Ryan air, hotel with Hotels4u, 10 nights Spain, saved abt £500 on Thomsons prices.

The problem with this is you do loose some protection offered by booking a package deal.

There are travel comparison sites:
https://www.travelsupermarket.com/Holidays
https://www.travelrepublic.co.uk/Compare
https://www.gocompare.com/holidays

To name a few.

stephb34

Try a rival travel agent ie Thomas cook they can usually do a better discount than on their own products.

Archergirl

Read the reviews about On The Beach before you use them...............We have used Sunshine.co.uk several times.

SW17

You can self-package, of course taking some risk regarding financial failure if what you book is not ATOL protected. However, in the case of Thomson and First Choice, it is less easy to book the exact same product (hotels in particular) through someone else. They have a strategy of differentiation, meaning that much of their product is exclusive to them for sale in the UK. No doubt similar hotels might be available, but finding the exact same will be more difficult.

They also are heavily focused on direct distribution, making it harder to get discounts elsewhere. You could try seeing if Thomas Cook or others have a similar holiday cheaper and getting them to price match it, but the differentiation strategy is designed to prevent them getting into price discount wars.

ibizafan_2

I have tried pricing up our favourite hotels separately, by the hotel website and booking our own flights, but have never been able to beat Thomson/First Choice/Thomas Cook prices, especially when you add taxi transfers etc. One hotel that we used to frequent, actually told us that it was cheaper to book with Thomson as they had a monopoly on the rooms, than booking direct with the hotel, and although I checked, they were correct. I'm not saying this is the same with every hotel, but I've never been able to save with the hotels we go to.

Obviously_the_best

TUI own Thomson and First Choice, and also another website called https://www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk , which often offers TUI holidays at reduced prices.

worb

The problem I have is my children want to go to the same hotel again as the last 2 years. Last year it went up £300 with First Choice and next year its gone up another £450. Seems they have a monopoly on their hotels and are exclusive to them so cant go elsewhere which is a real pain. I was just looking to see if anywhere was able to offer their prices cheaper :-)

steven07968

I'm looking for the same as you at the moment too.

Just rang a Thomson's Travel Agent, asked if they can beat online prices, was told that they'll match it, and add £25 to it, for the comfort of them booking it for you... I thought she was joking, apparently not.

jhe

Try a different Thomson travel agents. some charge some do not,