Holidays

[Cautiontothewind]

Posting for traffic really I guess but I'm looking at holidays for this year and I am shocked at how expensive they are! I knew they'd be a bit more but for 2 adults and 2 children in a family friendly hotel (some slides, a kids club etc) all inclusive it's well over £3000 for the likes of Spain, canaries etc for a week. It just seems extortionate and I know it's a luxury to go on holiday but we've never been and I'd love to take my kids before they get much older.

I did find some great ones on first choice yesterday morning for under the £3000 mark but when we went to look again that evening they were either gone or had gone up by a significant amount.

Anyone got any tips to finding a more affordable weeks holiday abroad?!

NB. Travel insurance cost me the princely sum of £3!

Go to headforpoints website- it’s dedicated to exactly that
wait for a good BA amex offer - a couple could get enough for return club or 2st flights to USA without ever flying

don’t sign up without a referral as you get extra points through that

do the same with Virgin Atlantic credit card

This year we are flying to
boston in 1st
texas in 1st
texas again in lst
India in club
all with BA credit card points and 2 for 1 vouchers . But you do pay ‘tax’ which is high at the moment due to fuel. Typically was about £600 which given a 1st class flight to sfo Is £5-10k at the moment isn’t bad

@MarieIVanArkleStinks thank you - that sounds great!

I tend to fly somewhere cheap on a budget airline and get an air b&b for holidays. It’s worked out well so far.

It’s not the ‘family friendly family resort’ experience though. I think you do just have to accept it will cost a lot if you want a package holiday to a hotel with pool (with children’s pool/water slides), kids club, play areas, next to the beach, food included etc.

Thanks @SomePeopleAreJustIdiots . I have an Amex card ( the free one) and am on course to get a free companion flight by August, but am utterly clueless on how to use it, so hopefully that site will give me some ideas.

It's normally early week during the day that's it's cheaper to buy a holiday. Look on incognito mode. Weekends and Friday evenings tend to be the most expensive time

You have left it far too late for this summer! £3,000 is about right for a package holiday in peak season for 4 people.

you need to book a long time ahead for a package, or book easyjet/Ryanair flights as soon as they are released to get the best price. Then do apartment or Airbnb.

This what we used to do when we needed to go away in school holiday.

I guess I was very naive then as assumed last minute holidays were still a thing 😂
We want to go may half term as we've just had our passports through and thought why not, couldn't book before as didn't have passports but maybe we won't get away. Will look at August and October though but I worry August will be too hot.

I completely understand its more expensive in the holidays... I guess I wasn't prepared for them to change so quickly and absolutely I wish I'd booked yesterday morning but my husband was at work so thought would wait till evening to show him.

I'd rather do a package personally for peace of mind and would like all inclusive as its our first family holiday and I'd just like it to go smoothly!

Thanks everyone for their advice, I am having another search now and different holidays are coming up so it obviously moves very quickly!

Gosh we always book flights and accommodation separately, I’ve never heard of package holidays taking precedence on flights!! Is this actually right?

I wouldn’t have thought package holidays took precedence. In fact, I suspect you are more likely to get bumped onto a different flight on a package than someone who has just booked a ticket on that particular flight.

Holiday companies do often piss about with your flight time after you booked because all the planes they are flying are all booked out with package holidaymakers. That’s harder to do when your main business is selling flights to people who want to choose the departure time when they book. And probably aren’t going to be happy with you deciding that they’ll be arriving at 9pm instead on 10am.

If you book flight tickets with a standard airline (even if they offer packages too) rather than a holiday company, they’re just running scheduled flights. You book a ticket, you fly. Unless they totally bugger it up. But that is buggering it up, not some sort of policy generally.