Experience of haggling with high street travel agencies

[suddenlysix]

So I posted a question on here about the cost of eating out abroad or whether all inclusive is my best option for a holiday with a lot of children and had a lot of helpful replies. Now my problem is how can I get the holiday for the best possible price. I was basing my budget on the prices that come up on icelolly.com each day but since then I've seen some really bad reviews online. People are saying that when you ring up the price practically doubles and then all the trip advisor reviews for those hotels are really bad anyway! I can handle a bit of extra cost ie, admin fee or baggage etc but if the hotel is awful anyway I'm wondering whether its worth my time to try a high street travel agent and try to haggle a big discount. I've seen some holidays on the bigger name websites that are a good £500-£1000 more than I wanted to spend. I'm happy to spend a bit more if its a really good hotel but is there any chance of getting several hundred pounds off or am I just kidding myself? I don't want to waste my time or the travel agents time for that matter. If I go with my husband I'm sure we'll be able to just get up and walk out if they won't help but I don't want to try it if its not something that they usually do. I'm thinking if you can do it on the phone you must be able to do it in store? I'm hoping that if I sit and look the person in the eye when they're trying to sell me a hotel they won't in all good conscience be able to flog me some derelict hellhole!

Any thoughts or experience very, very welcome - or suggestions of good websites, hotels etc. Looking online for a holiday has become my new full time job!

Oh and I'm still waiting on the arrival of 3 of the 5 passports I applied for so holding off on booking although I'm looking at leaving around the 24th of August so may risk it for a good deal. Passports have been with them for 4 weeks already and the other 2 came last week.

Which Tour operator were you thinking of using?

I hadn't really got anyone in mind. I was just going to pop into all the travel agents in town. I haven't got a destination in mind either, we're happy to go anywhere sunny within a few hours flight.

Have a look at jet2 holidays website.
I generally find that high street agencies can't offer anything that can't be found cheaper online. Thomson are usually the dearest but Thomas Cook website includes search results from Airtours / First Choice / Manos etc so a bit more varied.

What were your dates / airport / passenger requirements? Board basis? I love a challenge!

Well you're in luck then! I have 2 adults and 6 children, 12, 11, 11, 9, 9 and 2. (Didn't have to give birth to all of them - have acquired some along the way!) We need to be home on the 3rd of September, preferably the 2nd and can't go until the 23rd of August. We would like all inclusive and have seen holidays coming up at £200pp so around £1600, although I was hoping we'd get some fantastic deal at the last minute and get it for £1400ish. If there was something self catering that was a few hundred less though we'd consider that, as we'd have what was left for eating out. I don't mind where we go but don't want clubbers central, I'm happy with no entertainment at the hotel even if it means no kids clubs. DH and I don't really like all that, prefer an evening on the balcony with a drink and kids in bed so cheap villa would probably suit but it'd need to be near enough the beach to walk to, don't want the faff of car hire. We live in Essex so any London airport is good but we have Southend and Norwich near enough to consider.

Hope I'm not kidding myself with this budget. I will have to just spend the extra if we can't get it under that as I've set my heart on taking all the kids away. It'll be the first foreign holiday for some of them.

backs away slowly
That's quite the challenge. 45 minutes of searching and all I could find was some easyjet flights to Ibiza on the 25th for £1300. Hit a sticking point with the accommodation though. You could try owners direct and skyscanner if you had the time?

Good luck - hope you get fixed up and all have a lovely time!

Have you looked at lowcost holidays? We got a really good deal with them to the canaries a few years ago.

I'm a travel agent and we have a % discount to work too when negotiating a holiday cost. You'll always get cheaper prices online as you're cutting out the middle man and doing your own legwork, the main downside being your premium rate numbers to do any amendments, ask any questions etc.

Your budget is extremely tight for school holidays tbh. I would question how good the food will be in a AI that can feed you for a few quid a day. Even a Keycamp holiday would cost about that in august. Out of the low cost online ones I would go with On the Beach and avoid holiday go and holiday genie as their pricing is dubious to say the least.
Good luck :)

so what is your budget for 8 flights, accomodation and transfers?

I've seen a lot around the 200pp mark but obviously I'm questioning the standard of the hotel for that price and I know there will be some add ons, extra fees etc. I was hoping that maybe there would be some discount for the children as thats adult prices but I suppose thats pushing it on an already very cheap holiday. I can just put more on the credit card if I have to but I just feel that I can haggle things down to somewhere between the rock bottom budget hotel prices of £199pp and the top quality last minute £400pp that I've seen on teletext etc. If I could get somewhere in the middle I'd be happy. Ie, get £100pp off the more expensive ones I've seen.

Thanks for the suggestions/recommendations/advice people. Haven't booked such a large family holiday before or so last minute!

How are you splitting up the family re. rooms? Some sites won't let kids have a room without an adult?

I'm not sure yet, we were thinking 2 rooms with 1 adult and 3 kids. We have 3 girls and 3 boys so girls in with me, boys with their dad. Or even better would be an apartment with enough rooms and maybe sofa beds in living area etc. I've found some lovely holidays now - just need all our passports back!

The £200 pp you have seen is that an actual quote you have had for you with specific flight times, kids ages etc??

Most of these deal you see dont really exist. Like you said when you call there is money added on for all sorts.

We booked 6 hours prior to departure last week with Monarch and got AI for £300 a head - genuine final price. £1200 for the 4 us.

I would recommend looking a websites that give you an actual price to book with than one that says £200 3* AI please phone.

Holiday Hypermarket website is good and if you google you may also be able to find a voucher code. HH sell mainly thomson, thomas cook holidays but you can then take their price online and if its a Thomas Cook Holiday get a TC quote online from TC website then phone your local TC shop and see if you can haggle the price down that way.

Also phone Hol Hypermarket once you see something you like and ask if they can get the price down. It may be they can reduce the amount of bags, put you all in 1 room/apartment etc. These little things can knock a surprisingly large amount of money off the total. Also check out other flights - of they quote 9am out of Gatwick ask if there are any other London flights - a 3am out of another airport may be cheaper.

I'm dubious about a £200 per head holiday during August. a) I doubt if they exist and b) I would be very worried about the standard of accommodation and what the food would be like.

It sounds like a number plucked out of thin air to entice you to contact the company.

I've spent about 12 stressful hours online the past couple of days looking at holidays and then checking trip advisor and then phoning the company. I'm still suffering with AI versus SC options - I think you have to pay a lot more for good AI as you're stuck with that food so you better make sure its good, whereas even if the SC hotel you end up at is not great you can go elsewhere to eat. I have found a few SC hotels that have really good reviews and when I've phoned up I've been quoted for example £189 inc bags and transfers after the advertised price being £119. I'm expecting there to be a good £70-80 added on to these low advertised prices as I know adding a bag is usually about £50 on other websites. The other quote we had was £149 with 10kg of hand luggage each but arranging our own transfer. I like the hotel but the flight is from Leeds Bradford which is a 4 hour drive from us. Even if we added on a 20kg bag each for just me and my husband its only £140 for both so that still works out at a very low price but I don't know if I can add such a long drive on to each end of the journey and I've not yet checked out transfers but I know resorthoppa is one I can look at.

Feeling very stressed about all this now - its sucking the joy out of the whole thing! When I started looking at holidays I was so excited and now I just want to smash my face into my laptop!

I think the issue is that the holiday at the price you want to pay probably doesn't exist.

Would you consider lowering your expectations and renting a large house for a week in the UK instead?

I have found a couple of things but I was just posting somewhere else about how we received a letter today saying they need my step childrens mothers birth certificate now. They've had them in examination for 5 full weeks. I was even told on the 0300 number yesterday that they were about to be sent to print and I'd have them in 6 working days. I can't believe what complete liars they are. Looks like we're going to struggle to find anything by the time they come back. It's our wedding anniversary today as well and I spent the trailers of the film we were watching at the cinema typing an email on my phone to my MP. My mum agreed to babysit 6 kids all day so we could have a bit of time together - which we never get - and instead I've been stressing about the passport offices total incompetence most of the day.