Booking a Late Holiday Deal
By Darren Cronian on Saturday, June 3rd, 2006

I’m sounding like someone who is anti-travel agent. I’m not, and I realise package holidays can be cheaper, and less hassle than booking your own DIY holiday, but they are a number of things that annoy me about travel agents, and I just feel that I have to blog about them.

I would love to get away for a week, somewhere warm, where I can sit on the beach or next to a pool and unwind, read my books, and listen to music on my iPod. So off I went to the Thomson.co.uk website tonight.

I know that Egypt has had a lot of press of late, but I really fancied the idea of a boat trip on the Nile, and viewing the Pyramids, so off I went searching. Straightaway I found a great late deal at the Mercure Luxor Hotel, in Luxor for 7 nights B&B, flying from Manchester airport, for a web price of £110, and with a saving of £209.

Fantastic I thought so I clicked on the details button to go and book this fantastic late deal. First I was told that I had to pay a single supplement of £10 per night, which took the total up to £180, still not a bad deal I thought.

I was then directed to another page asking if I wanted travel insurance - I clicked on ‘own insurance’ as I have annual travel insurance. I then choose that I wasn’t bothered about food on the plane, and a few other options - then it was time to click on the continue button to get the full price.

The price quoted that I had to pay by credit or debit card was £235 - um, where did it jump up from £180 to £235, no mention of any other payments, other than they would be a credit / debit card admin fee - but of £55?

By this time I was baffled, and decided not to go ahead with the holiday, because what was originally £110 had over doubled in a few clicks of the mouse. What happened to easy pricing of it’s packages that the trade description act requests? Maybe someone could help me out with this confusion.


Related Posts:





Subscribe to RSS Submit to StumbleUpon Bookmark page

One Response to “Booking a Late Holiday Deal”

Lee Harrison | 5 June, 2006 at 8:58 am

First of all it’s important to distinguish between What is a Travel Agent and What is a TOUR OPERATOR. Thomson in this example IS THE TOUR OPERATOR.
The Basic Price quoted is mostly based on Two Full Paying passengers and with the larger Tour Operators they changed the system so that Transfers, Meals on Flights etc were no longer included in the basic price, but could still be booked on paying a supplement. In this case a Single room supplement has been added.

The Credit Card Charge is added as Mastercard, Visa, American Express etc actually make a Charge to the Travel Agent, Tour Operator if the Client wants to pay using a Crediit / Debit card. And so these Charges are passed back to the Client if that’s the method they want to use to pay. If you go to a Supermarket you will find that a charge of 2.5% is actually incorporated into the Pricing System of goods you purchase, whether you pay by Cash or Credit Card. Most Supermarkets now include this as a statement on your bill that 2.5% is taken, but you have no option to dispute thisas you have already paid the bill
A Travel Agent or Tour operator cannot do this, and cannot mark up the cost of a holiday, and so if a client wants to use a Card instead of Cash, usually a 1.5 or 2% charge is made to recover the Cost imposed by the Card issuers.
What Annoys me is that The Credit card companies also charge us a Monthly Rent for the Machines they provide to be able to accept their Credit Cards

At the end of the day it’s up to the Client, If they want to avoid a Charge then pay by Cash.
Mind you even then Banks charge us 69p for every £100 we pay in, whereas for us to pay a cheque in is only 35p.