What's been your biggest problem when planning a trip?

InsideInsurance

Balancing wanting to go everywhere and see everything with also wanting to stay in one place and get a really good feel for the culture/ atmosphere/ customs etc


Agreeing on where to stay and again a similar choice about simply paying for the best hotel but knowing its likely to be as slanted towards their visiting customers than the locality -v- spending a lot of time and effort to find a small quirky place to get a real local experience but is still "safe"/ reliable etc

Doshwaster

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Having to pay a single room supplement. :mad:

You would think, in this day and age, with so many people staying single, they'd build hotels with plenty of single rooms.

That's because most people when travelling on their own prefer a double room. I don't sleep in a single bed at home so why should I on holiday? Hotels which do have some single rooms always have them in the worst part of the building

In all of my years of travelling I don't think I've ever paid a single room supplement.

dawyldthing

LindaSa wrote: »

Thanks everyone!

Does anyone else experience this (or something similar): you want to book a trip online, but all booking websites want you to search by destination - but what if you don't really care where you go, you just want somewhere sunny on fixed dates, for example?

That's a problem I've had when I wanted to plan a holiday with friends... we ended up not going anywhere in the end

Travelsupermarket is good for this as you just put in the date then it shows you what's available from cheapest first and gives you an overview of what's there.

I didn't like booking through travel agents as I hate the hard sell. Been booking things myself for a while and find although sometimes it's a ballache putting it together the savings can often pay for the following years holiday

EssexExile

Now we have the internet most of the problems have gone away!

We used to go to the library (big one in a big town) & look in the ABC of airlines for flights. That's like three telephone directories covering every flight in the world for the next year. We'd spend hours working out routes we could afford. Flights settled, so then you'd write off to all the hotels or motels for brochures. No Trip Advisor to tell you whether they were any good, you just had to trust the brochure. Only a few car rental companies about all with unintelligible price structures so you never knew what you were paying until it was all over. Then get all your travellers' cheques sorted, more than enough because there was no way to top up funds once abroad.

Or you could go to the travel agent & get the holiday that gave them the best commission.

SW17

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Having to pay a single room supplement. :mad:

You would think, in this day and age, with so many people staying single, they'd build hotels with plenty of single rooms.

Understand the frustration, but not generally economically viable to build too many rooms that could only be sold as singles in a new property, hotels are all about occupancy.

Hotels price per room, but tour operators divide the cost and price per person sharing to advertise a more attractive price, hence "single supplements" to get back to a per room price. There are operators (more commonly those focused on the group tour market for older people) who negotiate minimal per person increases for singles, tends to be in low season.

InsideInsurance

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Having to pay a single room supplement. :mad:

You would think, in this day and age, with so many people staying single, they'd build hotels with plenty of single rooms.

What do you define as single rooms?

Single Supplements typically come from tour operators and not hotel companies. A hotel charges £100 for the room (RO basis) irrespective of how many people are sleeping in it but because tour operators like to advertise a per person fee they will calculate it at £50 per person and "kids go free". They're still going to have to pay £100 for the room so if a single person books it they must add a supplement

The star rating system will stop hotels being explicitly built with rooms only suitable for a single person. I remember watching one of these "hotel inspectors" programs ages ago and they advised the hotel to close their box room as this instantly meant they went from 2* to 3* because the average room size is one of the factors of star rating and the small room was dragging down the average thus limiting the star rating they could achieve.