Buy a package or hotel and flights separately?

[BanginChoons]

I'm a single parent and I want to book my first family holiday abroad eith my 3 children. I'm looking at going to Corfu. I've found a hotel which ticks all the boxes, but having looked up the prices of booking flights and hotels separately it comes up significantly cheaper. A taxi for the transfers is significantly cheaper than the bus also.
Has anyone done this? Is it risky to book separately? I don't want to spend all that money and something go wrong!

I have done this before several times and it worked out really but not in Corfu. I would maybe ask the questions on the Corfu Trip Adviser forum people may be able to recommend a company for transfers and may know more details about the accommodation/owners/location etc.
I would book accommodation with several positive reviews, speak to the owners on the phone and only pay through the recognised site I.e. holiday lettings, Owners Direct etc.
good luck.

I always book separately but it of course depends on the cost of the hotel. We are going to Corfu in July, I got flights for £79 return (in school hols - I am a teacher) each. So separately worked out much better. Lots of good value accommodation in Corfu but I don't know about your particular hotel. Always make sure your bookings are protected and pay by credit card to ensure this again if you can.

i always book seperatly as i cant afford to waste money on middlemen.

You have ATOL protection with a package, usually nothing with booking separately. So if one bit eg the airline goes bust like Monarch last year, you lose out on everything.

I always do separately but there are more risks involved. You can mitigate some of them by having travel insurance and paying by credit card.

Can anyone recommend who you go through if you do a package? We have always done it separately.

Jet2 do decent packages

We always book separately - much cheaper and we’ve never had a problem. Plus there’s the benefits of avoiding any reps trying to flog you stuff. Always check out a hotel on Tripadvisor before booking just to make sure it’s not godawful. We usually book transfers through Hoppa (check online for discount codes). Having done it this way for years, I can’t imagine using a tour operator again as the price and quality is so much better.

Yes it is risky. Packages have two levels of protection. The first is ATOL - tour operators pay a (large) fee to be members. In the event of the company going bust, you get your money back. Or if you're on holiday you get brought home. See Monarch last year. Low-cost who went bust the year before did not have ATOL protection.

The second level of protection is legal. Under package holiday regulations, if something happens to your flight or hotel, the tour op has to sort it out. Let's say the hotel has a fire or floods and has to close for a couple of days, you can't stay there, the tour op has to find you something else.
Or you book now to travel in August, but the hotel gets a massive group booking and cancels your booking because they need more rooms. The tour op has to find you something else.
A volcano erupts and a cloud of particles floats over Europe cancelling your flight home. Your tour op has to pay for you to stay in your hotel and sort you alternative means of getting home.

Chances of any of these happening? That's the risk you take.

We always book separately. I look on skyscanner first for cheap flights and then i find accommodation to fit in. I look on trip advisor for advice on transfers/car hire. I’m keen to go to corfu too but thought it looked expensive to fly to this year. I saw some good prices to Preveza which I thought was interesting fir next year :-)

book seperatly but use credit card for extra protection. Also I think i get travel insurance with my bank account,

Would never personally go near either a travel agent or a tour operator. I worked for airlines for a few years and never came across a useful travel agent

If you’ve the right travel insurance the atol thing can be a red herring.

So for me always book independently but I also love the challenge of finding the best deal that suits.

Also a single parent here and I book seperately. I have annual travel insurance and pay by credit card.
My friend was booked on a Monarch flight home when they went bust. She only booked flights and got put on a different operators flight without a problem so I don't see it being an issue.

I have never found massive price differences. Obviously most holidays don’t go wrong but we tend to use a tour company if we are travelling around because they do the considerable legwork and we are happy to pay for that. City holidays intend to book flight and Hotel together.

It’s better to be safe then sorry in my view so it depends what risk you want to take. Ryanair having no pilots springs to mind.

It's worth looking at some of the travel sites like Expedia, onthebeach, etc that allow you to book accomdation and flights together so will count as a package (and hence give some protection) but not include transfers or reps at the hotel.

Another single parent who always books separately, I usually go for apartments though, have had huge 3 bed flats with roof terraces etc much cheaper than any hotel, private transfers are almost always cheaper too and much quicker, plus the less people around me the better

If you book flight+accomodation via travel republic (and probably similar sites), you pay an extra small fee (£5?) for ATOL protection as it is considered to be similar to a package.

Sometimes booking separately is cheaper, sometimes it's cheaper to book a package. We've had jet2holidays packages that have been far cheaper than booking the identical flight and accomodation separately - they do villas and self catering apartments, it's not all what many consider a 'package holiday'.

Those of you relying on protection by travel insurance, check the small print very carefully. We also had flights booked with Monarch and were due to go on holiday a few days after they went bust.

We got the money back for the replacement flights from the credit card, but it turned out that the scheduled airline failure cover that was included in our travel insurance didn't actually cover our situation anyway, the only thing it would have paid out for was to get us home if we had already flown out and we weren't covered by other means - ie had paid by another method.

Monarch were not a scheduled airline though. The policy clearly didn’t apply to Monarch. It is very difficult to sort out what you are covered for when people don’t understand the nuances of Insurance and many of us don’t read the policy. Clearly a policy that stipulated it covered a scheduled airline wasn’t much good for a Monarch flight.

Eh? Monarch were a scheduled airline? How weren't they? Scheduled airline means not private or charter.

We weren't on a Monarch package, we had standalone Monarch flights on Monarch (also referred to as Monarch Scheduled, to distinguish from the package charter arm), along with a separately booked apartment, hire car etc.

A volcano erupts and a cloud of particles floats over Europe cancelling your flight home. Your tour op has to pay for you to stay in your hotel and sort you alternative means of getting home

My sister was on holiday when this happened a few years ago. She ended up having to have an extra 7 days away.

She'd booked with Thomson. Because of that her and her family got to stay in their hotel for the whole period.Their food and drink was covered and each room was allowed one large laundry bag of washing done for free.

Other people at the same hotel had booked flights and rooms separately. Only their return flights were covered. They were told to find their own accommodation, which they had to pay for in advance.

My sister thanked ALL the Gods for that booking!

If it is significantly cheaper I would book seperate.

In fact I have booked seperate for the virtually all my holidays sor about 15 years for all holidays including skiing, city breaks, or holidays in the sun. Over the years it's just been me or me and the kids or all of us as a family.
The only time I used a package in recent years was funnily enough when I didn't want one. I was traveling to the Far East and it was significantly cheaper to book a package and not use the hotel. Even when I paid for my accomadation at other places ( it was a back packing holiday ) the package was still cheaper.

Monarch were not a scheduled airline though

Monarch operated both charter and scheduled flights.

To the op who's sister got brought home - the government stepped in to repatriate those stranded overseas. Those who hadn't yet travelled may gave been able to claim on their insurance but for the original cost of the flight, not the (increased) cost of the new flight.