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As the pound plummets, Dom Littlewood discovered why rejecting brochures and going it alone may no longer be the most cost effective way of booking your holiday.
To prove this, Dom compared two holidays to two popular destinations - Florida and Majorca - and discovered that on both occasions the brochure price beats the DIY price. But the benefits don't stop there.
Package holidays - the advantages:
* Perhaps the biggest advantage of booking a package holiday is the protection you receive from companies involved going bust.
* Under the ATOL scheme (Air Travel Operator's License), you are protected from losing your money or being stranded abroad. It does this by carrying out checks on the tour operators and travel organisers it licenses, and requiring them to take part in a financial guarantee scheme managed which provides the funds to protect customers should a firm fail
* A package doesn't have to be an all singing all dancing all in holiday - it can just be a flight and a hotel booked together on your behalf by the tour operator (ATOL does not cover flight only bookings).
* Make sure when booking to confirm with the tour operator that your holiday will be covered by ATOL, and that they give you an ATOL receipt.
* You can double check that your tour operator is ATOL covered by looking at the Civil Aviation Authority's website.
There's more information from the CAA here.
Secret week of summer holidays:
According to the tour operators, the 2009 high season ends on August 29 - the last week of the summer holidays.
Of the 175 local education authorities (LEAs) in England and Wales, about 80% have scheduled the autumn term to start on Thursday September 3, according to the department for children, schools and families.
However, a significant number of schools within each authority have scheduled teacher training, or 'inset' days, for September 3 and 4, meaning that most children won't actually start school until Monday September 7.
By exploiting this bureaucratic anomaly, canny families who gain that extra, secret week of the summer holidays.
What do you think? Are there still package holiday bargains to be had out there? Or would you still prefer to go your own way? Add your comments.
Comments
I was really looking forward to the item about package holidays but as I looked up you went straight into a boxing feature with some awefull music, so I turned off. Will it be on another time please?
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I checked about paying by credit card to a travel agent as I thought it would be extra security, but found that paying a third party (the travel agent) doesn't give you the same rights as paying direct by credit card. The travel agent would have charged me over a hundred pounds for paying by credit card and when I discussed this method of payment with the travel agents they didn't disabuse my thoughts.
Did they know there was no extra security when paying by credit card or were they simply ignorant of this fact as was I until I'd researched it?
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I watched the item on package holidays on last nights The One Show. I may be mistaken but I didn't hear Dom mention that a good way to keep your money safe is to book with an ABTA/ATOL bonded travel agent! If you book with an idependent travel agent e.g The Co-operative Travel, they can put flights and hotels together to suit you (inc low cost flights) but you will still be bonded so your money will be safe however you pay. In reply to happyjdk123 - most agents will charge a fee for the use of a credit card but if they were a reputable agent your money would be protected anyway, however you pay.
I am a travel consultant and we are getting more people saying that they would rather book through an agent as they feel more secure (we also do all the work for you) so felt that it would have been appropriate for Dom to have even just mentioned agents.
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This is a timely piece from Dom. Myself and a number of my friends have booked our holidays by this methodology this year, we were just a bit fed up of getting ripped off. As mentioned in the article, i think people are a little reticent to book a package as they feel that they will be tied down to an agenda without any flexibility. However, i can assure them that this is not the case. There are a number of blogs (i.e. http://cheapukferries.wordpress.com) and websites (i.e. http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/) out there where you can find some very useful information and opinion. Well worth a look before you book.
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Yes I think so even with holiday package you should apply for insurance.Even I applied here http://www.holidaytravelinsuranceuk.co.uk on my last holiday in Malaysia.
Thanks
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