Has anyone been "dishonest" and booked a holiday abroad paying child prices although your child was older?

[Fimbo]

I.e. brochures state child prices apply for 2-12 years old.

My dd will be 13 when we go, so we will need to pay an adult price for her. Also they seem to change room configurations and change from family rooms to 2 twin rooms, which is not ideal either.

If I was 'dishonest' and put her age as 12, would anyone ever pick up on it? Thinking more the hotel when you hand in your passport really.

I can only comment on the hotels in Disneyland Paris, but I know that they check all passports on arrival, including kids' ages.
It goes by the date that you arrive , so it does not matter if a child has a birthday once you are there, and would now be of paying age or adult price.

Well backinthebox, maybe you could ask why travel companies say a room is for 4 when it is actually only has two beds in the bedroom and two fold down thingies in the lounge. Or worse still, not even a separate bedroom but two twin beds and two fold downs.

Personally, if you are paying for 4 people I think you should have four proper beds. Who's is being cheap there?

We're going away in May and are having to pay adult prices for DDs 1 and 2 - they are 12 and 7

Apparently you just have to have 2 adults per room. (There are 5 of us so we need 2 rooms as the hotel doesn't have a family room to sleep 5.) God knows why, just another way to rip you off I think. I can't believe I'm paying an adult's price for a 7 year old (and a disabled one at that!)

Well, I have phoned the company and I need to organise the holiday through them instead of the website, as dd will be classed as an adult on the flight and then they will change her to a child for the hotel. (think someone mentioned this further up). Still waiting for a costing as apparently their system "is not working well" today. I wonder if they will call tbh as I only wanted a quote. They did try to fob me off at first as the call centre person didn't reckon they would be able to cost a holiday yet for next Easter, I had to tell her otherwise.

I couldn't comment at all about rooms, as I am in the flights side of things. But a bum on a seat takes up a seat, regardless of how old it is.

Tbh the flight cost is not the issue, as you say BINTB a seat is a seat.

Well surprise surprise Sovereign did not call me back, think I will just book the hotel directly and organise my own flight with hmmmmm Ryanair. Cheap as chips

But the tax/apd on an airticket for a child is cheaper than for an adult so in that case a smaller bum is cheaper.

We have always had to pay full price for our children on charter flights since they turned 2, they still pay the same tax too. It is different on scheduled flights though, children are sometimes cheaper then.

If you book a hotel directly you just pay the price for the room, so age doesn't come into it. That's whay we don't do packages, they work out so much more expensive.

Different airlines operate differnt policies re child flight prices - a seat is a set, but some charge less for the seat for children nevertheless. And at different ages. Airlines do need to know the age of their passengers (decsions about who sits in the emergencu exit row etc) - and they look at all passports on check-in, so can't see how anyone could lie.

Re hotel rooms - surely the price should be the price - it doesn't cost less to run a hotel room for children that it does for adults, so presumably the pricing is actually worked out so that for 'family' bookings the adult prices are slightly inflated and the child prices look like a good deal. A room for 4 where 3 of the places were cut-price child places would possibly not make the needed amount for the room as a whole.

We always book independently - but if you do that be aware of the travel industry benefits / guarantees that only apply to a package in the event of a company going into liquidation.