I totally agree with you and it’s one of my pet peeves at the moment. I also travel a lot as a single person and have abandoned tour operators and package holidays for that very reason. The only suggestion I can make for why they charge such huge single supplements is that perhaps they reserve a ‘batch’ of twin/double rooms in hotels and therefore have to charge the double rate, regardless of how many people occupy it. You can nearly always book rooms cheaper direct with hotels and they are usually advertised as single rooms. However, you often find that when you get there, they’ve accommodated you in a twin/double room but at the single price. Maybe the travel agents don’t have to flexibility to do that.

However, that is definitely not the case with flights as one person can only ever occupy one seat… and I’ve tried booking a fly/drive, without accommodation, which was advertised at a very good price, only to find it increased substantially for just one person and I can’t offer any suggestions as to how they can justify that.

So perhaps single supplements are purely a way of making money by exploiting solo travellers who either don’t have the time, confidence or the facility to organise all the components of trips themselves. I’m sure older people who don’t have access to the Internet are victims of it all the time. However, as more and more people are doing things alone these days, I can’t imagine this makes up for the business they must be losing from people like us who are going elsewhere to get better value for our money.

A good example is lastminute.com who advertise a great range of holidays which, at first glance, are very attractively priced. However, as soon as you change the box from two travellers to one, either the price virtually doubles or you are told that the holiday is not available for single travellers. If you dig around on the site, they do have a section purely for single travellers but the range of holidays on offer is small and they never seem particularly competitively priced.

In the past few years I’ve travelled extensively in Europe and almost without exception, have found it much cheaper to book flights and accommodation direct with the airlines and hotels. Doing it this way, of course, does mean that you have to find your own way from airport to destination but in most places it’s quite easy and with the vast amount of information available on the Internet, it’s usually possible to have your route and method of transport worked out before you get there.

I said “almost without exception” and the one exception has been Expedia.com who have once or twice managed to beat the price I can find for myself. They deserve credit for being just about the only company that doesn’t penalise (exploit) single travellers and it’s always worth checking what they can offer. From my experience, booking is an easy process and they have been very reliable.

End of rant… now perhaps someone from the package holiday industry can shed some better informed light on the subject.

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That baffles me too…one less person in the room and I have to pay MORE? Bizarre.

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Solos is a Direct Sell Operator ( Shame), there are also some Companies such as Explore, Exodus, Peregrine etc for adventure travel that attract a lot of like minded single travellers, I believe there are a few new set ups that will Match people up ( No their not dating agencies Darren!!!!!) and avoid the Single Supplement, or using a good Independent Travel Agent, will try and find you the best deal. By the way Darren, on your Kos booking the Studio is 1/3 people and No Single Supplement for a Single althought the Studio is large enough to take Three.
Good deal or what.

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Darren, I agree with you regarding single supplements. As a working, web-based travel agent I have disappointed so many potential customers over the years because the prices they have seen bore no resemblence to the final price that a single traveller would pay.

In fact I wrote on a number of occasions about some of the possible solutions that exist on our blog very recently. There are a number of “travel companions” websites that have sprung up to help single travellers team up with potential travel companions. Here’s one of the links, if this helps:

http://travelonline.typepad.com/travel_online/2006/09/match_and_go_ne.html

Now I know this is not the perfect answer as some people would not fancy this idae at all but I think it shows how big a problem this is if such sites are now in existence.

I have been a travel agent for over 30 years and I have to say its’ always been the same. At least the web allows some kind of solution with these types of websites.

It will be intersting i anyone can come up with any sort of long term solutions.

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While the single room supplement may be annoying, what I find even worse is that nearly all holiday offers I try for are based on 2 people sharing, and rarely is there a price for a single. When booking online if I put in for 2 people, up comes the reservation, but if I enter 1 person….Sorry not available.

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i have some experience of ski trips where i have shared with friends some of which ski some which don’t with varying levels of activity.
wanting to meet more likeminded ‘ski all day types’ i went skiing with solos holidays only to find out that although they advertise 30-55 age range most are retired or rounding on that age and their activity levels are rather low – forget about apres ski dancing in town it ain’t gunna happen. to add insult to injury they stick £300 premium on the cost of the holiday and boast about how they don;t charge you a single supplement – how very generous!
then i tried speed breaks – much more reasonable prices and to save even more to can sort out your own ryanair etc flights – this company is easily the best value of any of the single operators but once again there is no organised apreas ski activities – it would appear to be common sense to ensure that all the travellers have a good social time, unfortunately it was left to a matriarch and a few predatory chaps.
a company will no doubt come along that organises the same common sense apreas ski activities as every other normal package ski holiday company – until that day i wait with baited breath and keep an e-mail list of good skiers with a sense of humor and apreas ski mentality for the odd trip i organise. unfortunatly i like to go three times but the mainstream do not like splitting double rooms so i either book direct with the hotels or potter along with the pot luck of whoever comes along on the single traveller trips

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Couldn’t agree more about the scadal that is single person supplement. A tv prog recently covered this issue and a travel agent attempted to justify it by saying that hotels still have to service a room as if two people were in it. 1) I’ve just booked into a hotel in Italy in a SINGLE room yet am paying £115 more than the advertised price so how is that justified 2) If I were in a double room, I would use on set of bedding, one set of towels etc so where is the additional burden?

It angers me! Discrimination against single people, the industry is clearly run by smug marrieds!

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I am a healthy elderly lady, new with the internet and I am fed up having to pay single supplement every time I wish to travel. Is there any travel agency, airline, hotel who encourages single, older person travel without having to share with a complete stranger. It doesn’t always work to have to do this.

I wonder why travel agents don’t worry about single travellers like me. I have the money to travel but not to pay a single supplement all the time. I would like to travel to France and Italy also within Australia -all State, especially Tasmania, WA and Northern Territory.

I also adore rail travel.

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I too am a single traveller – in my early 50′s – for the reason that none of my friends want to ‘see the world’ – just the inside of a bar. I am also fed up of the single supplement saga – but if you look hard enough and are prepared to go on certain dates you can get holidays without the single supplement rip off. Most of these holidays are usually out of season – eg april may and october but if you choose carefully you can still get good weather. It takes a lilttle more research and time but its all worth it for me because when I book – I’ve won.

Booking direct with Hotels and airlines is also good as you get more favourable rates because there is no middle man to feed!!

Hostels are also good – many these days have single rooms with en suite facilities and even if you have to share washing facilities – I have never had to use unclean ones.

Travelling in my eyes is all about what you want out of it – I am not a 4* person but I do have principles and your room is afterall only somewhere to put your head at night and as long as it has clean sheets and I’m not sharing with cockroaches – that’ll do me.

I have just booked 2 weeks touring around croatian adriatic isles – single room with balcony , full board, flight inclusive for under £ 700. The down side – I have to travel from Gatwick – hey! book well enough in advance with Virgin Trains and you’ll get return journey for £40 – less than National Express – the positive side – its in October – still good weather and it won’t be packed with tourists.

Good luck to all you single travellers – put in the effort and do the reasearch and you can go anywhere you want.

Rose

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Having travelled a few times on my own,to a sunny location, this is the first time I have tried to book a skiing holiday. It annoys me when I spend ages on the internet getting excited that I have found a good deal only to click on to the next page and find out that it is twice as much.One company I called the other day added on 50% for having only one person in a room. I think it is a complete rip off and penalises the single person. It also makes me feel like some kind of reject, because you want to travel on your own!

I do hope that someone catches on the the single traveller market in the future and has a successful business,charging people a fair price.

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I agree absolutely. I travel alone 90% of the time. One thing that angers me is that they make me pay the single supplement at “all inclusives”… BUT I am only eating for one, drinking for one, I am only one person on the shuttle, one person using the pool, one person using the water sports equip., one person using the towels….etc, etc, etc….

I usually book my flight and hotel separately to avoid the single supplement, but it angers me that the world is set up for couples!

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Well Hi all fellow single suffering travellers. I agree, finding a singles holiday at any time of the year especially for the more mature (let’s just say over 55) is nigh on impossible without having to pat the dreaded supplement.

As a past regular traveller to the US I have been rather lucky in having friends there and have had company on my travels, however one cannot live by friends alone and am now looking to visit other parts of this wondrful world of ours.

In my younger days I enjoyed many excellent holidays in the Med, mainly Greek Islands, with the Villa Party type of vacation, good company, passable food and plenty of activities, watersports etc.

However for a now ‘over 45′ there doesn’t seem to be anything around especially if one is sociable and enjoys good company’.

So what I am suggesting is that maybe we can organisre groups of like minded single people to e-mail each other via this website and arrange to travel together. For those who have to travel alone but don’t really enjoy being alone on holiday it may be a good idea.

Will be interested to receive your comments…so don’t be shy

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I would like to register the strongest objection to single supplements – they are a formof discrimination and should be outlawed.

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Yes, the single supplement bugs me too. Also does the trying to book for your b-day celebration when it happens to fall around a major holiday. Not far to those that can’t help what month/date they were born. There are times that I’d rather not do the big holiday or b-day celebration with a whole group and just get away on own, but there’s always the extra charge of the “double occupancy” or holiday extra charges! Not fair. How come they – travel business don’t give some breaks to those that have to always deal with this each time they would like to celebrate their special occasion on their own?????

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OK, I’ve found a great singles holiday flying from Manchester, other airports also available no extra charge. One week cruising the Turkish Med Coast on a Gulet full board and one week in a hotel half board £880 approx and NO supplement. The company is Solitair. Age range of the group apparently 35 – 70 yrs. They also do other destinations. I’m heading out 22nd Sept – 6th October

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I always thoght the supplement was due to one person taking up a double room – and there weren’t many hotels with single rooms! Must be wrong there then. Anyway, yes, is really annoying – and has actually prevented me from going
Some of these agencies (Solitair/Solos. etc), even though claiming no supplement, still manage to charge alot more than it would cost if going as a twosome.
When following up advertised holidays here in Norwich, you find the price either nearly doubles or is suddenly unavailable. Something has to be done! Greg – the emailing thing sounds good to me – maybe next year! Jane
PS. Have a great time in Turkey – sounds pretty good (watch the bottled water on the gulet – make sure not refilled!)

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Well, that’s another year’s holiday over and done with, got back from Turkey yesterday afternoon.

The flights with Onur were OK, just another means of getting ‘cattle’ to their destinations, to be fair the outward flight was pretty good, but drinks and very poor food were exhorbitant. The flight back left at 6am which meant leaving the hotel at 2am after just a couple of hours sleep, so I wasn’t in any kind of mood to appreciate the lengthy line ups at security, passport cotrol and at boarding, but hey, one has to have something to complain about being a Brit, as well as the legroom on the return flight.

Now to the good part and the accolades, Solitair didf a fantastically excellent job of co-ordination. We were met by a friendly and efficient agent and transported to the Gulet in a modern and safe (the brakes worked very well) mini coach. On arrival the skipper welcomed us aboard and supplied a takeaway dinner of chicken and chips as there were repairs being carried out on the fresh water tank.

The cabins were double berth, a bit on the small side but with ensuite shower, toilet and washbasin which all worked well. Very comfortable and clean for a boat.

We started the cruising the following morning after a nice Turkish breakfast and over the week we visited some lovely bays, islands and a couple of villages. The swimming was first rate and the food was very good, 3 meals a day, fresh fish, vegies and some meat, the crew looked after us very well, just the 2 guys, skipper plus one male crew member, both worked very hard. All drinking water and ice was bottled fresh water available on board…expensive drinks.

The second week was in a small hotel in Ulu Deniz, 16 rooms, a more lovely hotel would be hard to find, half board and again the food was very good, the service was excellent, the rooms were a decent size, doubles with twin beds, with clean ensuite facilities and cleaned every day, fesh towels daily and the beds made. The location was nice and quiet at night. The bar prices a little on the high side but the drinks were good with a good selection. The pool was very well maintained, very clean and lovely and refreshing.

The staff at the hotel were friendly and efficient and did an excellent job of looking after us. So all in all a very satisfactory holiday, rating 8 out of 10 for value for money.

So a very well deserved ‘WELL DONE’ to Solitair and all involved, would I book again with this company?…you can bet your sweet bippy I would, Thank you all.

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Who can travel with me? I have travel extensively and want
to travel more, but I do not want to pay the single supplement.

I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.
Retired and traveling by myself-on a budget! I have been to Paris twice before on very short trips.
I am making arrangements to stay in Paris for a month.
I am still flexible on dates at the present time. I am coming just for fun. I would like to take cooking and art classes. How can I best use my time?

Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions

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How reassuring to find a website that shares my disgust at SRS’s! It absolutely incenses me. I’ve paid it loads of times because if you really want that holiday you’ve no choice, but NO-ONE will take responsibility for its implementation or can explain why a single person occupying a single room costs more than 2 people in a room made for 2. The rooms are usually tiny and much inferior to the twins and doubles. Who do we complain to? Travel companies say it’s hotel policy (even though they use lots of different hotels) and if you try to complain to the hotel it’s the travel company to blame.

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Oh don’t get me started! It’s absolutely disgraceful that as a single person you end up paying double! We are not all in couples.. Why are we treated as if we are some kind of Alien? The single travellers market is huge and some of us actually chose to travel alone as we dont always want to depend on someone else to come with us! We have a sense of adventure and don’t want to put our lives on hold by waiting for someone to travel with us just so we can pay half as much!
We should be valued far more!!!

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I can’t believe that none of the big name Travel operators and hotel chains have still not cashed in on this niche market. Are they doing their market research?, don’t they realise that people are staying single longer!!!?? I’ll always book seperatley, still MUCH cheaper than a package despite what those so called tv money experts and travel writers say (you know who you are!)

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I am in the process of booking travel to Turkey and am appalled and the excess I have to pay as a single traveller. Does if really cost more to accommodate me than it does for a couple????

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I have just become a single person at the age of 69 and allthough haveing many friends who are single it has never affected me, NOW that it does I wish to do somthing about it.

This site is all good and well but moaning doesn’t get it changed. Lets tackle the right people and to do somthing about it (ie) is it discrimination does it come under our human rights someone out there must know, so come on lets get together and save our hard eared money to have yet another holiday.

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I too am sick to death of single supplements, I have just enquired about a cruise on offer to the Med advertised at £ 589 but with the supplement this comes up to nearly £900. I travelled with the same company the year they started and had no single supplement then. At that time they were pleased to have me, and I go off season anyway.

I have seen the site that offers to find a person to share with, but that is not something I would consider because I like my privacy.

Now I tend to book hotels directly if possible. Unfortunately there is no other way if you want a cruise.

Any helpful suggestions would be welcome.

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it isnt just holidays that this supplement applies to — join a gym its cheaper for two than one and countless other examples the whole thing is a scam.

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I quite often go on coach holidays as I don’t like driving and don’t fancy the hassle of airports on my own.Most coach companies do charge a SRS;National’s is only small but I went to Scotland with Diamond Holidays in August and was thrilled there was no SRS at all. Nothing else was compromised,so I would recommend them to singles.

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This is the response I got from a question on equality for singles.

Thank you for your email of 6th September addressed to name removed. He has asked me to respond on his behalf.

Unfortunately, single people are not currently covered under Equality legislation, and so fall outside the remit of the Commission. I understand that representations have been made to government on this issue. You may want to contact the Government Equalities Office regarding this issue – their contact details can be found on their website at http://www.equalities.gov.uk/.

Regards,

Name and address removed

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Graham. That is the typical govermental bullshit that every single can hope to get. If it affects ethinc minorities then they’re covered, homosexuals would be covered too, even religious groups would be covered, but when it comes to the single (pun not intended) most numerous minority group, we’re not covered. What should happen is that every single should get together in one large pressure group and force the governments to take notice. Ethinc minorities did it as did Homosexuals, but singles don’t. Well it’s time that we did. Goverments don’t notice single people (but require us in order to bleed us dry to pay for their mistakes and to cover benefits paid to couples) but if we formed a pressure group then they would have to take notice and then hopefully the last legal discrimination would end.

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Have just tried to book an 8 day cruise to the Ffjords – holiday cost displayed at £749 but they want to charge me £850 single supplement. What a rip off. It’s time something was done to stop this greedy practice.

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I have now started referring to it as a fine rather than SRS.It doesn’t cost the hotel or tour company anymore for one person to sleep in a tiny room made for one,so they are actually punishing us for not having anyone to travel with. What I’ve yet to work out is WHY.

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Last year I was looking at Virgin Cruises and saw a cruise for around £1200 per person, I phoned and asked for a price for a single person and was quoted £2300. I told them that I regarded this as discrimination against singles and hung up on them. 10 minutes later they phoned back and said they agreed with me and offered me the price of around £1300 however they were prepared to include in this price a return flight Manchester – Heathrow and a hotel room at Heathrow as the Virgin flight to make the ship connection left at around 9:30am. So it can be done but by how many companies I just don’t know. If they had offered me this price at first I would have gone on that cruise.

OK I have just e-mailed this address http://www.equalities.gov.uk/. about the SRS and request that if you have posted a complaint about its unfairness and the annoyance and effectively ‘blackmail’ that it appears to be, that each of you does the same. Only in numbers are we going to get anything changed in the Equality Bill. In your e-mails please give the Gov’t the link to this site and tell them to take a good look at how we all feel.

So please don’t just ‘moan’ about it in here, HELP DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

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Just to add another perspective to this, I run a specialist tour operator. When we started, one of the things that we wanted to do was make it cheaper for solo travellers but it’s extremely difficult.

With our private tours, our prices are based on 2 people sharing, this includes the costs of the rooms, private transport and activities. If a single person want to book one of our private tours, then clearly there isn’t the benefit of sharing these costs and therefore we have to charge quite a bit as what some on this thread would call an ‘unfair single supplement’. But really, in terms of costs, the only thing of significance would be the flight on the other person, the hotels don’t discount much and we have minimum commitments to guides and local people. The only way to avoid this ‘single supplement’ would be to have much higher prices and then discount for couples. We could do this, but then would but then be putting off a lot of couples with high lead-in prices.

Also, given what I said above, there isn’t that much to discount save a flight, so other price reductions comes out of our profit, and we have fair prices to start with. We do of course reduce our profit for solo travellers but it’s the same amount of work to us whether it’s one person or two people travelling, and we’re not some ‘greedy company’, this is the money that is our bread and butter. And due to the special nature of our private tours, once we have sold to one person, nobody else can have that exact same holiday on the exact dates, so if we sell this trip to a solo traveller for a discounted price we have most probably lost more income from a couple.

Also, I know Darren particularly says he wants to go on his own, but we find that most solo travellers don’t want to go on their own, they request to go with a group.

So with all this in mind, we spent months putting together a couple of itineraries aimed at solo travellers specifically, but trying to remain as close as we could to local interactions and I think we did a great job, people get their own rooms, no single supplement etc. But this has has been really difficult to run – whilst those who have been on the trips absolutely love them and think they are amazing value for money, it’s just hard going. You need to get in front of enough people and the overall acquisition costs on a solo traveller are the same as a couple or a family (but the profit is obviously a lot less) and for us at least, solo travellers don’t seem to plan as much in advance or make decisions as quickly, so another risk we run is when we’ve committed for example to take a whole of a 9 room hotel out for a group that we could end up seriously out of pocket. So as a company regardless of what some solo travellers say the demand is, it doesn’t necessarily make that much commercial sense. And Darren I noticed that you say special solo holidays cost way too much, but seriously even if we put the price up 50%, the rest of the business would still be ‘subsidising’ it.

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@ Darren
That’s really interesting, for us, I would say 9 out of 10 solo travellers who have contacted us want to join in with a group. Maybe it’s to do with type of holiday?

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None of this really stacks up if I go to a supermarket and by a weeks food for one I still have to queue the cashier has to do the same for me as someone shopping for six (except I don’t take so long) I only occupy one seat in a bus or aircraft and of course one bed the hotel still have to clean the room and change one bed be it single or double all the bedding gets washed together, I sit with others in a dining room I need a single room that’s the only difference the reason I suspect we take so long to book is that we really are sick with being charged for two people. how can a company for a holiday costing £390 justify charging £85 single supplement?
even my local council are at it they give me a 25% discount for being single NOT 50% half of what a couple pay.

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Apart from the lack of punctuation,Graham makes very good points. I book a coach holiday as I don’t like driving; all I want is a seat on a coach and a single room. I don’t tend to do the “included excursions” so I am actually saving them money on admission prices,seats on boats or whatever. How does Dee justify me having to pay the SRS?

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As I said, I just wanted to add another perspective into the pot, I’m obviously not in a position to say what’s right and wrong across the whole travel industry, and as anything in life, it’s unlikely to be black and white! I thought I’d share as it may give a hint on why there aren’t more solo traveller trips around.

As I hinted in my previous post, in our case, I don’t see what we charge on the odd solo traveller who takes one of our private tours as a ‘single person supplement’ but the the other way around – a couple travelling have the benefits of sharing costs on transport, guides etc etc which someone taking the trip on their own doesn’t. In the case where we have 3 people who want to go on a private tour which happens quite often e.g. a couple and another friend or an adult child, then we don’t charge a ‘single supplement’ for the solo person because we don’t need to (although in most cases, we don’t pay much less for the solo person’s rooms than the couple’s rooms, it’s balanced out by the other factors).

In regards to the booking cycles on solo travellers, again only our experience. Where there is a direct comparison, e.g. our Thai cooking trips, the price per person for a solo traveller on the group tour is about the same as a per person price for a couple on the private tour, even though the solo travellers get their own room. We’re able to do this because we can share other costs and have more leverage, e.g. committing to say 9 rooms (though obviously it’s risky financially for us). So the difference in booking cycles can’t be because our price are ‘unfair’ to solo travellers compared to those in a couple, I have an idea on the factors but I won’t make this post even longer!

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Pam I didn’t know my comments were being scrutinised for punctuation and grammar. When I was at school, pupils that were slow were called thick and didn’t get help so I do the best I can but sometimes when in a hurry I do forget,

As my school report used to say must try harder, I will in future.
bye the way I left school in 1954

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Hi, I totally agree with you here. I think that the way hotels charge the single person occupancy fee is ridiculous, out-dated and makes absoloutely no sense. I cannot see how they are allowed to charge this. So let’s see, they may tell us that if there were two adults in the room, they may take more money if both adults were to dine in the hotel. But that is to assume that the guests are going to be dining at the hotel. So that argument falls flat on its face.

So what other reason could there be? I honestly cannot think of any. Maybe we need to ask them?
I don’t think it’s right, and I think we should be doing everything we can to avoid paying these ridiculous fees. As another comment said, it is discrimination. What if they were to charge fees based on nationalities, religion or sex? They just couldn’t get away with it.
How can we take this further??

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The single supplement is fair enough… Think of it this way… A baker makes two identical loaves of bread, each loaf of bread has a sale price of $2.00. So a lady goes in and buys one of the loaves and her husband and herself eat it for lunch.The averages price for each of the diners is $1.00 each (still based on two dollars in total). I (as a single guy) also buy the same loaf of bread for lunch and it costs me $2.00 for the bread, which I eat on my own. Surely you don’t expect me to get the loaf of bread for $1.00!

Now substitue bread for hotel room and you have your answer as to why single supplements are prefectly fair, and yes again I am a single guy who does pay supplements.

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