Right it was the time to book my summer holiday and my partner was leaving it up to me to book the holiday, typical man but any way. I had settled on my hotel and when I wanted to go but wanted to get the best price for my holiday. So my next job was searching the web, ringing travel agents and going to travel agents to get the best deal.
It seemed the best place to book my holiday was with direct holidays as no one could beat or match the price they had given me for my holiday. I had never booked with them before and none of my friends and family had either but on the other hand I had not heard or read much bad information apart from the general moan about travel agents, I checked that they were ATOL protected which they were, so I gave them ago.
Was it easy to book? Well yeah I had booked the whole holiday from start to finish in 10 minutes, it could have been quicker but I went through every page very slowly to ensure that I did not misspell anything or put the wrong digit in anywhere as I know this can be expensive to change.
There are two ways you can book your holiday. If you know exactly what area you want to stay in you can search the hotel for avaiablity for the time you want to go – method 1. If you are unsure what area you want to stay in you can search the whole of that country/area – method 2
Method 1 Using the tab at the top, click on “Guide”. Then click on the relevant country
you would like to go to, it will give you information about the country and a list of areas that the company has hotels in. This was the method I used at I knew exactly what area I wanted to stay but was unsure what hotel I wanted to stay in.
Method 2 When you first load the page you will see loads tabs along the top and current offers dotted around the page. You will also see on the right hand of the page a search facility. You just use the drop down bars to fill in the information tell it to search and it will list all the hotels that have available rooms.
Either way you get a list of hotels, the price per adult, what the outwards and return flights times are, what board it is and the beginning of the short description of the hotel. If you click on the hotel it will bring a pop up window giving you a quick outline about the hotel, for instance what facilities are at the hotel, how far it is the beach, how many rooms there is, how near it is to the shops, etc and etc.
Once you have decided on which hotel you would like, click on quote and it will bring the price up of your hotel. It will state the price, your discount (if any) and then the final price you pay. You can click on the price and it will give you a break down of the cost, like adult price, child price, fuel charge, supplements, etc and etc. All in-flight meals and transfers to the hotels are included in the price. Though you have to pay extra if you want to have a taxi, or want to prebook your seats so you can sit together at £10 per person, I decided not to do this and when we go to the airport we were able to sit together so it was worth the risk. Though if you have a large group it might be worth paying this to ensue that you sit together. This does not have to be paid for when you book; it can be paid for at a later date.
The only problem I have with this company is that the price of your holiday can go up and down on a daily basis so what you see one day on your screen may not be the price you see the next day. When I first started looking at my holiday it was £200 pounds more than what I final paid and when I checked again it dropped by £100 from what I had paid the following week. Though on an upside I have checked with other travel agents since booking my holiday and none of them are able to beat my holiday price so I have not totally lost out.
Paying for your holiday can be done online or via the phone. I paid my deposit online when I booked but had problems paying for the rest of my holiday online and had to ring up to pay for the rest of my holiday. This was an automated system, annoying but it worked at least. When I made my last payment it state that I had paid my holiday in full, so I did not have to ring to speak to someone to check with them it had been paid. Be warned though they do charge for credit card payment, it is a charge of 1.5% of the transaction.
Like most travel agent companies the balance has to be paid by 8 weeks before you are meant to go on your holiday. If you are unable to do this you can make arrangements with them according to their terms and conditions though I did not have to do this so don’t know if this is a good service.
They do have times when they have offers of low deposit, like £20 per person, which was available when I booked be warned the actual deposit is needed shortly after this. Though they do send you a letter telling you when this amount is due nearer the time and it is also stated in you email confirmation you receive.
They do offer a brochure and they will send you one of these of you ring up. Also if you have booked with them before they will automatically send you a brochure as soon as it is available, so I have already received the brochure for next year. Though the brochure does not show all hotels they offer but this is the same with all companies.
You can also book over the phone and they do charge the same amount over the phone as they do charge over the net, which I feel is a good thing as not everyone has access to the internet or does not trust the internet to make payments over the net using their cards. I have rang them also to get a price for someone who was thinking of coming with us and my broadband service was down. They were very helpful and polite over the phone and informed me there was only one room left on their allocation at their hotel. This was not hard sell and I think was the truth as when I went to look couple of days later on the net, that hotel was not available to book the week we were going.
They do not send you any tickets; instead you are sent an email with all the details on it as a PDF file, which is starting to come more common with holiday companies now. You do need this when booking in at the airport so you just need to print this out, they say they will send it 4 weeks before you go and right on time might turned up exactly 4 weeks before I was due to go. You will also need this when booking in so keep it at hand when checking in both ways.
Will I use them again? Well the answer is yes and I am already trying to decide when and where I want to go next year. I will still compare their prices with other companies before booking with them just in case they can be beaten price, but I doubt it.
Would I recommend them? Yes, their website was easy to use and they are polite over the phone to talk to.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Good review - glad you had a good experience - makes a change these days!! i think their credit card charge is cheaper than most though as most now charge 2% so looks like that was good too!!
x
DeniseKelly40 21.09.2007 03:25
Great review! Ive used these people before and think that they have gotten slightly more expensive than what they used to be. x
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Aug 19th, 2007
very helpful by (100%):
