Booking a package holiday yourself

[AnxiousAnnabel]

Hi all,

Posted here for traffic instead of the Travel board :-)

I want to book a short haul, all-inclusive hol for October, but everything is coming out so expensive!

Might be a silly question, but if I book my flights separately to an AI hotel stay, is the extra legwork potentially worth it? (Bearing in mind I'll also need to source transfers etc?

Is AI even possible if not bought as a tour operator package?

I'm clueless!

Yes you can book AI direct with a hotel.
It's easy enough to compare. Look up the hotel website and put your dates in and choose the type of board you want. Then fiind a flight for your dates and add the costs. You would need to arrange your own transfers which can be expensive if the resort is a long way from the airport.
I always check the prices but in my experience tour operators always work out cheaper. It may be because I want a particular flight at a civilised time?

Try looking at Jet2. Try different airports and antisocial flight times to bring the cost down.
Bottom line - holidays are more expensive like everything else.

I think it's usually cheaper to book as a package because the tour operator will block book a large number of rooms at the hotel at a big discount. I've often found a hotel on jet2holidays for example, then looked direct and found it more expensive.

If you just want the warm AI hotel, I'd suggest looking at the deals section of jet2holidays, select dates, departure airports, any place you're willing to go, party size then filter for AI, and a Trip Advisor rating of 4 or 4.5 and above, sort by price and see what comes up.

Do you have any date flexibility or is it the school holidays you're looking at? A lot of people might have booked for then over a year ago, or even had COVID cancellations still outstanding.

Does it have to be AI? If you're looking at high end AI to avoid endless buffets, it might be less expensive to go B&B in an apartment and plan to combine daily eating out with easy food and stocks of drinks, snacks, ice creams etc from a supermarket.

Hi, we are fairly new converts to an all inclusive holiday but we did one after covid and found it quite relaxing. Wouldn't do it for all my holidays but it's perfect for an easy week and we have booked for October for 1200 pounds for week for two people, flights are going to work out about 400. Booked via hotels.com