Any one used "Florida for less" to book their holiday?

[nosleepwithworry]

Ive been on the DIBB and it is mentioned,
Thing is, they are asking for a huge deposit. More than we have ever paid when booking before, is this a new thing?
We want to book for in 10 months time.
Its making me a bit suspicious thats all.

Have to say I've never heard of them. Link?
What sort of deposit are they asking for? Is it for booking a package/flights etc?
I have to say, it seems like we are paying much larger deposits now when we book our flights than we used to. If it is to secure flights then it may be reasonable. What sort of figure is it?

Was wondering what sort of figure they are quoting as well in terms of percentage of the final cost.

These people seem to do what you can do yourself i.e arrange the flights and accommodation. No harm either to double check as well if they are still currently ABTA and ATOL registered with the relevant organisations concerned.

March/April can be an expensive time to travel to Orlando as BA and VA are the only two UK airlines that fly directly into Orlando and thus can charge a small fortune. Also with continuing increases in fuel duty and APD (air passenger duty) fares have indeed risen in the last couple of years in particular.

Yes, totally agree with you there Attila. We were going to go at Easter but flights were almost 1k each. Silly money.

OP, if you are thinking of organising it yourself, I'd recommend you think about getting quotes into Tampa (with BA) as well as Orlando. We are flying into Tampa this summer for the first time and flights are over 1.5k cheaper for 6 of us than Orlando.

For villas/condos, have a look at Loyalty Homes, a company owned and managed by an english lady who only manages luxury properties, (most with pools and gamesrooms) within 4 miles of Disney. You can get some from $100 per night. www.loyaltyusa.com

i used them last year for my accommodation. i would definitely use them again. they are part of the co-op.

just for your info. virgin will price match. i just got £400 of my accommodation for this Oct.
Ba website also has good prices for accommodation.

we are flying into Tampa as its loads cheaper. then having a couple of days at the seaside before heading to Orlando.

Thanks all,
They are part of the co op, and are ABTA ATOL members.
Its flight, (American airlines, one stop NY) accomodation & car hire, £3.3K deposit of £600 pp. Thats for me, DH & DS aged 9.

Thanks for the tip ihatethecold re Virgin price match, will look into that.
Thanks MOSagain, will also look at Tampa landings, think it would be lush to spend some time at the beach.....EXCITED

so its 3.3k for all three of you? Depending on where the accommodation is that is not too bad assuming its easter when the flights are a lot more expensive.

With regards to accommodation, to give you an example, at easter, a 4 bed with a private pool would be around 550 pw, a 3 bed around 450 - 475. Not many (if any) 2 bed villas but you'd get a condo a bit cheaper. You have to bear in mind if it is easter, then the prices do go up. In my experience villa prices go up by between 50 to 100 pounds pw over easter.

ihatethecold do you mean you got 400 pounds off? seriously? that is really good

Yup £3.3K i thought that was a good price as we have trawled and worked out the cost of booking each thing seperately, and it equates to more.

Its a villa in Kissimee, so central, but staring off at the beach sounds good.

The downside is the stop off at NY airport, but its not a very long wait and now ds is older, its not too much of a difficulty. (did the stop off flight a few years ago when ds was 3, and it was hard work)
Direct flights are about £1K each..more than we are willing to spend.

So think this company are k, ive done other searches on them and all seems ok.
I jsut cannot remember paying that much for a deposit on previous occasions, which is why i posted.
Thanks again x

The deposit does sound an awful lot but think airlines are taking a much larger deposit than they used to do years ago so you'll probably find that the majority of the deposit is the flights. We have a property that we rent and charge 100 pw deposit which seems to be about the average although some do charge a lot more.

We went away last Easter and booked a package through a travel agent and I was shocked at how much we paid at the time of booking last summer.

We go every 3 years or so, and its consistently increased in price, but then its worth every penny to us, we save and budget for it iyswim.

The villa has a pool etc. I think we have a fair price all things considered. Because we are paying a large deposit, we wont have as much to find to pay the balance....whcih is due 22nd December !! We didnt time that too well did we!?

Yes I got them to match the prices I found on the BA website. Came to £400 cheaper plus with virgin I get free parking at the hotels and breakfast included. Double bonus

Hi nosleepwithworry,

re this part of your recent comment:-
"The downside is the stop off at NY airport, but its not a very long wait and now ds is older, its not too much of a difficulty".

You need to bear in mind that the clock starts ticking the moment this plane lands. You will need to clear both Immigration and customs at the first point of entry into the US and lines can be very long. If you do miss the next flight they will try and put you on the flight after if there is one but its a PITA you do not really need.

How long is the duration between the plane landing from the UK and the next flight to Orlando?. If it is 2.5 hours or less I would think twice about doing a same day internal transfer as in the US in particular you need bags of time. This is especially so particularly if this plane from the UK happens to land at JFK.

TBH I would always fly direct if at all possible; same day internal transfers within US airports can be time consuming and often the terminal you arrive into is not the same as the one you will be departing from.

Hi Attila, our transfer time is 4 hours, i think that that is ok, i wouldnt like it if it were 7,8 or 9 hours.
4 hours is enough to cater for any delays too i hope.
We have stopped off here before and its quite an easy airport to navigate...although of course it is absolutely huge.

Its the cost of the direct flights that is difficult to swallow, £1K each is just too much...worth every penny when ds was little it has to be said. To save the extra means dosh towards our park tickets.

I think we are ok, its coming together now so looking forward to it now