Beating the credit crunch on your next holiday
By Darren Cronian on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

For the last three years I have thought about travelling to the US and it’s never materialised due to the lack of funds. This year I have saved enough to be able to book my flight and hotels for three weeks and I was thinking about booking next week.

Beating the credit crunch on your next holiday

Financial crisis affecting travel plans

Imagine my frustration that the pound to dollar has dropped to £1.50, where as six months ago it was £2.00 to the dollar.

It does mean that if I want to travel across the Atlantic that I am going to have to save more money and with price of living increasing month by month that’s not going to be easy. The travel rants consumer poll last month highlighted that 45% of readers thought that the financial crisis would affect their holiday plans for next year and 32% were not sure.

I think a lot of travel consumers will hold off booking their summer holiday in January and wait till later on in the year. I am thinking about waiting until February before booking my trip to the US, and in the meantime I’ll continue saving whatever money I can.

When will you start searching and book your summer holiday?

Budget transatlantic flights

Ryanair have said that they hope to offer transatlantic flights for as little as €10, between its base at Stansted, and New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and cities in Florida. It sounds too good to be true and probably because it is.

Love them or hate them, Ryanair have been extremely successful in Europe, so watch this space.

Can you see this happening?

Credit crunch travel toolkit

Next week I will be launching the ‘Credit Crunch Travel Toolkit’ a PDF e-guide to help consumers beat the credit crunch when planning their holiday. The e-guide is free, but, you will have to subscribe to the travel rants newsletter. More on this next week.


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8 responses to “Beating the credit crunch on your next holiday”

Andy Hayes | 19 November, 2008 at 8:41 pm

You do realise that photo of the airport being empty is also too good to be true? :)

I’m sure there might be a teaser, launch price of 10 euros transatlantic, but there is no way that Ryanair can sustain such a rate.

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Jared Salter | 19 November, 2008 at 8:51 pm

As an American I can’t share your dismay at the Pound to Dollar exchange rate. I can finally afford to go out to dinner on my next trip to London! My thought on the credit crunch is that it will mostly impact long haul travel. I think for many of us travel is a necessesity, meaning it’s something we cut back rather than cut out. Instead of going to Thailand we will go to France (or NY with Ryanair).

Best,
Jared
PS: Let me know if you need any US travel ideas.

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Darren Cronian | 19 November, 2008 at 9:14 pm

@ Andy

Me neither, I cannot see them sustaining it. We’ll see if it even gets off the ground.

@ Jared

True, for American’s it’s a good time to travel to Europe and the UK. I should have taken advantage of the £2 to a dollar rate earlier in the year and exchanged a chunk of money. Oh well.

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Dean | 20 November, 2008 at 9:47 am

I think the Ryanair annoucement is another piece of great publicity by them. if you follow the way they work, they always announce some new scheme or headline grabber, when they have some bad results to announce as well. Great way to deflect attention.
It’s very clever, and part of the success of Ryanair is their self publicity, because in my opinion the product and service ain’t great. The estimate is that they get millions of £’s in free PR through these announcements, risky adverts, or mis-leading adverts.
You can buy a fare to the US for £40 at the bottom now, but with taxes at £240 and then add it all up.
So it’s not really going to happen, the majority of people will still pay the same fare as now. Some have tried and failed to bring in low cost transatlantic, if it’s that lucrative for Ryanair why have they not done it yet?

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Murray Harrold | 20 November, 2008 at 5:43 pm

Amazing, lowest published fares (excluding taxes) for 01 December to New York are Virgin £100, British Airways £100, American, er….. £100, United, Yup, you guessed it £100, Delta (this is getting boring now…) £100.

So it looks like competition across the pond is alive and well. RyanAir could come a cropper if they try to go to the USA. Their model is short haul, relying on short flights and fast turnaround.

This route is very tempting for many yet is also littered with good intentions from Sir Freddie Laker’s Skytrain through to Silverjet. I see no reason why RyanAir should fare any different.

I believe, to a greater or lesser degree, legacy airlines tolerate these low cost people but if one should encroach on what, for the legacy airlines, is still one of the principal profitable routes, the reaction could be swift and hard.

By the way, what is this thing called “a summer holiday”? I seem to remember many years ago going somewhere for a weekend – Exmouth, I think it was – is that what people are referring to?

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Andrea Wren | 20 November, 2008 at 7:03 pm

Yep, the exchange rate of the £ to $ now really is a bummer! Especially as the US has for some time enjoyed a position as a better holiday option than Europe for UK travellers, because we can’t afford to turn our pounds to Euros!

I was in NYC in March this year and my teenage son bought loads of cool designer gear from Yellow Rat Bastard at not cheap prices, but damn reasonable. I picked up a few bits and pieces myself, of course (different choice of store, however).

Still, for those looking for a good value option with regard to the exchange rate – South Africa makes a great place to head for. You’ll get a lot more ZAR for your sterling again at the moment.

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Anna | 21 November, 2008 at 9:09 am

Transatlantic Ryanair? They’ve been talking about it since last April, IIRC. And I suspect that’s all we’ll get from them – talk.
As for the dollar, I’m not complaining. I live in Europe but get paid in US$ so I’ve been getting cheesed for the past two years or so. Now I can finally afford to buy stuff again!

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Nick | 21 November, 2008 at 10:52 am

the ryanair new york deal looks good but when you currently have £30 fares to new york is that good? Of course by the time you add all the taxes and fees to it comes out at around £299 but this is Ryanair meathod as well low fares hi taxes and fees.

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