To think it's far more expensive to book holidays separately.

[Laura221]

Ok, so we were meant to be in greece today but as thomas cook have gone bust I'm sat at home trying to book another holiday for may half term. I've seen a lot of tweets surprised (and almost blaming) it's due to the fact it's cheaper to buy everything thing separately. However I've looked at flights to get to zante and it's almost £2.5k when the full holiday all inclusive with tui is just over £3k. What am I doing so wrong that I cant find all of these components of a holiday for less than a travel agent?

If any of you want to find me a nice holiday in may half term for 5 all inclusive for £3k then please be my guest haha

Book flights on skyscanner and then use booking.com, air bnb, hotels.com - theres loads of other similar sites!!

We always book separate - I find it always nearly more affordable to go further away though as Europe tends to be expensive! we did Mexico last year & India at Christmas - it was so cheap once there and accommodation was so affordable! (this isn't for everyone though!)

For Europe though you can still do well but it's just a bit more effort - I am not into all inclusive though so maybe thats harder to find outside of a package situation??

Depends on the holiday.

I know someone who booked a TC package to Spain and had no intention of stopping in the Benidorm style hotel which was part of the deal. They booked a nice villa independently but it was cheaper to then book a package with a flight rather than booking a separate plane.

So they hopped off the plane, said thanks very much to the rep see you in 7 days and got a hire car.

Flights are v expensive today. We booked a Ryan Air flight from Palma to Newcastle for next Tuesday just 2 days ago, my sister was panicking about TC and as the back up flights were only £39 each we booked. Today the same flight is £171, obviously due to demand following TC collapse. Hang fire and better prices will come

Also just checking OP that you mentioned that you were supposed to be in Greece today and the cost of doing the same holiday independently in May half term is more expensive than the package than the package you had booked? If this is the case then it's not a direct comparison as going in May half term is 'peak season' whereas travel in September is not.

So sorry that your holiday plans have been messed up. Hope you can get something elsewhere.

We usually find the opposite, especially this yea, for both long haul and short haul.

For February next year I have been getting up around £1000-3000 cheaper to book some long haul destinations individually booking same hotels and sometimes the exit same flights.
For short haul in April around £500-1000 cheaper to do a short haul break ourselves rather than via a package online.

Its been ages since I have managed to get a package cheaper than individually booking - last one was about 3 years ago to go to DisneyWorld booking with Virgin, but even then it was cheaper to book the park tickets with Disney direct rather than Virgin.

Much cheaper to book separately.

Look at Skyscanner for flights and booking.com for hotel/villa, or somewhere like Expedia for flight & hotel combo. Or look on booking.com/Expedia for a hotel that you like and then look directly on that hotels website and its often even cheaper still.

Today is not the day to book flights or accommodation.. If you can avoid it.
With the demise of Thomas Cook.. The demand is outstripping the supply at the moment and travel companies are merciless.. Prices are sky high

You will not get a nice hotel cheaper.

Pretty much every hotel I have looked at recently - all 4+ / 5 star hotels long haul - and it has been cheaper to book separately than as part of a package. Often by a substantial amount, and with a better choice of rooms available to choose from.

Not 100% on topic but if you do book again, pay the deposit (minimum £100 on a credit card if you can) and and pay the rest however you like e.g. Monthly installments. Then the entire holiday is covered by the credit card company if something happens x

I genuinely had no idea people still used places like Thomas Cook. I’ve booked everything myself for at least 15 years as it worked out cheaper and I would get exactly what we actually wanted.

I am of the "it's cheaper to book separately" brigade but I've been price comparing for Florida for next May and actually it's not that much cheaper to buy a package than to buy the constituent parts separately. I'm not sure if the extra time involved for me, the stress of price-watching, and the invariable risk of delays / mismatched timings are worth the difference in price.

My holiday seperate was 600 cheaper then a package.

It depends on what you want. For myself & DH We like a decent hotel so 4 or 5 star . We don’t want to have to cook or eat out every night so we like AI we have done them mainly in the Caribbean and in Europe
For me self catering and scrimping on food and drinks isn’t my idea of a holiday . I would rather stay at home

If you want AI then I don’t think you can beat a package deal as the rooms are often block booked by the tour operators
I looked at a week in Gran Canaria in Nov at the Rui Vista
Hotel on it’s own no flights or transfer was £1400 approx

Package including flights and transfer was £1350
Plus £100 of so £1250 This was with TUI

However if i was doing self catering it would work out a lot cheaper than a package
We did Vegas and payed £1100 each for two weeks inc flights and hotel
A package was around £1500 for the exact same hotel but because we did indirect flights on the way out it was a lot cheaper

You’re now looking at a school holiday period - peak - when the holiday you had planned was off peak

Exactly this. Obviously you know that school holidays are more expensive than term time?

I've seen it either way, no consistency.

And packages don't necessarily have to involve 'Benidorm style' hotels, you can get villas as part of a package, or the last one we did was in a boutique b&b on an island that has neither an airport or any AI hotels. As well as being cheap, Jet2holidays arranged the taxi, ferry, taxi transfer.

We've had packages cheaper than the exact same accommodation and flights booked independently. We've also done it separately for less. There are advantages to a package, if your transfer goes wrong and you miss your flight home, that's the package company's mess to sort out not yours.

I think it can be cheaper either way depending on where you are going, when & what you want from your holiday.
I certainly would compare both.

Have a look at first choice OP - It's all AI and there were quite few under £3k for random 2a 2c. Some were grim looking so TripAdvisor with care😁

Sometimes the package companies can get a deal with the hotels and airlines for mass purchases. But then if you're booking last minute the hotel may want to shift rooms and will take a lower price - and airlines may put prices up. It just depends.

To me the main plus of booking a (good quality) package is (a) transfers are included and you don't have to worry about not making the plane home and (b) if it all goes wrong as with Thomas Cook, you do eventually get your money back. Whereas if you book all the bits separately and someone goes bust/you use a dodgy website you could be out of luck.

For me it's not comparing like with like. I've tried a package deal a couple of times but the flights at least one side were evil times. There's no way I'd sign up to landing at midnight with two small kids.
And transfers always seem to take twice as long as a taxi.
So for me buying separately means:

• Fly out sat back sun to maximise use of time off work vs weds to weds flights
• fly out at 10am and back at 5pm vs out at 3pm and back at 10pm
• transfer by cab in 30 mins
• return transfer by cab leaving 2 hours before the flight departs vs package bus wanting to pick up in a 4 hour window.

It's sometimes a bit more than the package deAl (often negligible) but worth it to me.

Jet2holidays do mostly daytime flights and you can upgrade to a private transfer Think. Usually really good prices and flights most days to popular destinations.

We used to fo to florida book a fly drive and accommodation seperate or all seperate used to save us about 40%

Thanks Barber but Jet2 only go from stanstead which is an hour further than Heathrow or Gatwick and always seems to take hours to get through in summer.

Flights have gone up and are currently more expensive because 'suddenly' there are more people wanting to book them last minute to replace lost Thomas Cook holidays I would imagine.

I have been going to Turkey for the past few years much more cheaply than a package - even allowing for booking a private taxi transfer (which is my big extravagance that I find well worth the money - especially with late flights)

We go skiing with a package as the difference is usually in the order of £100 and the airport's are miles from the ski resort so a package makes life easier.
We've never gone on a package holiday at other times. Owners Direct is a great website for villas etc (we hate hotels) and Sky scanner is good for flights.

For a resort type holiday I find sites like travel supermarket best. It'll search flights and hotels. Although that is a good point about comparing days of the week and airports on a different site as that information wouldn't be so obvious

It depends on where you are going and what type of holiday. I’ve only once found an AI type holiday cheaper separately. That was to Lanzarote, flights with easyjet and hotel with booking.com.

We book a variety of holidays each year and for AI I tend to book a package with tui, jet2, letsgo2 or Thomas cook (not now!) and for city breaks and long haul/self-catering type holidays we use skyscanner or Expedia and booking.com most of the time and occasionally Airbnb. If those options don’t show it up as cheaper than a package then I’ll generally go with the package.