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Package Holidays - by Darren Cronian |
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For those that are regular readers, you’ll probably realise that I’ve
not had a good ole rant for sometime, so after surfing the net to find
a cheap Winter break in the sun for my friend, I knew it was going to
end up in a rant, it usually does when I’m searching for a holiday.
I wonder how travel operators get away with breaking the trade
descriptions act in the UK, because it’s been said before that travel
agents use tactics to get you interested then let you down when you get
to the final price.
I visited a travel site today, I won’t name the company in question,
because to be fair, there not the only company doing this - on the
homepage it said £114 for a weeks holiday in Costa Del Sol from Leeds
& Bradford International airport - I thought yay.. cheap as chips!
The flight was early in the morning, and on a Wednesday, which didn’t
bother my friend, and the hotel was 3 star, and looked very nice .. I
clicked on the ‘Book this holiday’ button, which took me to a screen
that told the final price for the holiday, and it had INCREASED from
£114 to £264 for the week.
At first I thought it was an error, clicked the back button on my
browser, and clicked the button again, but no to my disappointment the
price had increased. Taking a closer look at the bill I realised that
because he wanted to go on holiday by himself, and get some relaxation
after a stressful period in his life, he was charged an extra £80,
which always annoys the hell out of me, because why should you pay more
for a room just because you are travelling on my own.
Then the next charge was for airport transfer, yes, they were charging
him £70 to take him to the hotel from the airport, oh and there nice
enough to take him to the airport from the hotel on the way home. What
the hell happened with package holidays?! It’s gone crazy, not only do
you have to pay for meals on a plane, you have to pay for someone to
pick you up and the airport and pay because you want to travel alone..
Crazy!
Anyway, I looked on Worldwide Holiday Homes site, and found a nice
apartment for £110, the flight was £49 return and the owner is going to
arrange for her friend to pick him up at the airport for FREE, so
that’s £159 a BIG saving, plus he’ll take some sandwiches on to the
plane with a few cans of cola and it’ll end up been a cheap holiday.
If travel operators think they will be around in 10 years time they
need to seriously look at their business model because if you can save
£100 for a holiday for one week in Spain then people will start to look
at alternative holiday sites and ditch travel agents before you can say
’soggy sandwiches’
Article written by Darren Cronian from Travel Rants
http://www.travel-rants.com |
