Large group and free child places

kirkofski

We are looking at booking a holiday with Firstchoice and currently they are offering a free child place when a child is travelling with 2 adults.
There are 6 adults and 2 young children(same parents) going. I looked at booking as a group and they only offer 1 child free child place but if we book as 3 groups(2 adults & 1 child, 2 adults & 1child, 2 adults) we get 2 free child places.
Are there any issues with doing this?
Thanks

jimd-f

if you make 3 separate bookings and something goes wrong like the hotel being overbooked etc then it is perfectly possible that your party could be split between 3 hotels or even a holiday cancelled if there is a problem with the flights and one party gets offered an alternative. the only way to all be treated as one party is to book as one party

richardw

Are they really free, or is the cost included in higher prices for adults, do a comparison with a diy holiday.

stephb34

kirkofski wrote: »

We are looking at booking a holiday with Firstchoice and currently they are offering a free child place when a child is travelling with 2 adults.
There are 6 adults and 2 young children(same parents) going. I looked at booking as a group and they only offer 1 child free child place but if we book as 3 groups(2 adults & 1 child, 2 adults & 1child, 2 adults) we get 2 free child places.
Are there any issues with doing this?
Thanks

Its what most people do no problem at all. The problem occurs if the other 4 adults drop out further down the line and the rooms left only sleep 3 people and not 4. If a room for 4 is available you would then have to pay for the 2nd child. I presume you are doing just the 1 booking and not separate booking references so there will be no problem of you being split up if an issue occurs further down the line.

lea2012

When booking, you should be able to allocate children to whichever room you wish. So if you allocate it as 2ad 1ch in room 1 and room 2 and then 2 adults in room 3 it should give you the two child prices.
However the booking systems are usually set up to give you the best possible price by allocating people to rooms in the cheapest way.

For example room 1 is 2 adults 2 children (one free child place, 2nd child at a reduced rate). But that room is then full more or less so no under occupancy fees. Put the other 4 adults in 2 rooms that each only sleep 2 and those rooms are then full too with no under-occ fees.

Do it the other way and you could find that in room 1 and 2 you have 2 adults and 1 free child in each room, but the room actually sleeps 4 and therefore First Choice deem that room to be under-occupied and charge you a supplement for the missing person, making the overall total higher. Does that make sense?

Or third scenario is that you split as above but room 1 and 2 only sleep 3 people so one of the kids has to sleep in a different room from the parents, or you try and squeeze 4 people into a room for 3 and end up wanting to throttle each other by the end of the break!