Covid and travel discussion

[kinkyblue]

Hopefully booking Sunny Beach for a week - 10 days for the start of June and again in September as wanting to have a good look around the resort with a view to buying an apartment there (5 or six weeks holiday each year for the next 9 years and then retire there),

Friend of mine has a couple of places out there and spends a lot of time there. Also arranges transfers from the airport to sunny beach

 

[Two Gun Bob]

That's the sale.

50 quid off a head for bookings made until around the 20th I think it is.

Decent but not groundbreaking.

I disagree and would definatly call a 7 night package holiday to the Med @£120 groundbreaking.

I remember well our first overseas Jollie back in 1979 for a week in the Dorm at £130 so achieving a saving of ten English over a 43 year period would have had Phileas Fog knashing his teeth with envy. I even remember the airline that we flew on called Aviaco with ashtrays in the seats so you could have a tab at 30,000 to steady of the nerves.

As mentioned the £50 blazing sale discount is fully usable with any other discount schemes they are running so well done Jet2 and whilst the inhabitants of Bluemoan are never happy we thought it was well worth the mention.

And the 28 day package in Spring for £279 for a 4* is also groundbreaking but obviously more a sign of the times.

 

[Two Gun Bob]

''I'm led to believe that the holiday companies prebook and pay for their accomodation from the hoteliers for the full season so need to cover their flights to stay abreast''

This might apply to some specialist accommodation types but it's quite the opposite for most hotels.
Generally speaking, tour ops won't actually pay for the hotels until the guests have returned home.
TUI are notorious for not coughing up until weeks after the event, but they have the contracts to do so.

You might recall when Thomas Cook went bust and a hotel in Tunisia tried to lock some guests in....this was because Thomas Cook was another company that didn't pay until after the event, and the hotel owners knew that with their demise they were never going to see that money owed to them.

Tour ops will get room allocations but particularly in this climate won't be financial liable for them until people have travelled, as late cancellations will continue to be a thing throughout the year.

I was informed from the managers of a few large hotel groups that Thomas Cook Thomson and Jet2 prebooked them all year. So as you mention maybe not paying for them immediatly but is that not the case with most business transactions in the world where a supplier has to wait for payment ... usually 1-3 months?

It benefits both parties in that the hoteliers get guaranteed bookings year round albeit at a reduced rate and the tour operaters can safely sell their holidays without fear of the hoteliers selling them direct to the open market.
If the rooms remain empty then surely the tour operators are still contracted to pay regardless of fufillment.

I may be wrong as you work in the industry so apologies if incorrect but this is what we were told by certain hoteliers and guest houses.

 

[feedthegoat27]

I disagree and would definatly call a 7 night package holiday to the Med @£120 groundbreaking.

I remember well our first overseas Jollie back in 1979 for a week in the Dorm at £130 so achieving a saving of ten English over a 43 year period would have had Phileas Fog knashing his teeth with envy. I even remember the airline that we flew on called Aviaco with ashtrays in the seats so you could have a tab at 30,000 to steady nerves.

As mentioned the £50 blazing sale discount is fully usable with any other discount schemes they are running so well done Jet2 and whilst the inhabitants of Bluemoan are never happy we thought it was well worth the mention.

And the 28 day package in Spring for £279 for a 4* is also groundbreaking but obviously more a sign of the times.

Yeah that is pretty good to be fair.

It is indeed cheap, but I would interpret groundbreaking as something unlikely to ever been seen again (£50 return flight to New Zealand, for example)
Deals similar to yours above have been kicking about since the pandemic kicked off.
Last year I got 8 nights Jet2 package in Zante over the August bank holiday for £255.
TUI have been almost giving away some of their hotels...I picked up the 5* TUI Blue Lagoon Princess on an all inclusive basis for £19 a night back in October 2020.
Wizz have done return flights to the Canaries for £4.

Prices will eventually level off and ultimately rocket so people taking a punt whilst the uncertainty remains can be rewarded accordingly.

 

[feedthegoat27]

I was informed from the managers of a few large hotel groups that Thomas Cook Thomson and Jet2 prebooked them all year. So as you mention maybe not paying for them immediatly but is that not the case with most business transactions in the world where a supplier has to wait for payment ... usually 1-3 months?

It benefits both parties in that the hoteliers get guaranteed bookings year round albeit at a reduced rate and the tour operaters can safely sell their holidays without fear of the hoteliers selling them direct to the open market.
If the rooms remain empty then surely the tour operators are still contracted to pay regardless of fufillment.

I may be wrong as you work in the industry so apologies if incorrect but this is what we were told by certain hoteliers and guest houses.

I wouldn't be surprised if TUI still had the odd property on their books whereby they guarantee the hotel X amount of business and will have to cough up regardless of what happens, but TUI do some in house hotels that are either owned by them or exclusive to TUI, so if that model is still applicable it will likely only be to hotels of that nature, or possibly some small, family run gaffs in places like Greece.

I think this will be much less prevalent though in the Covid world we now live in.

I can guarantee you Jet2 and Easyjet holidays don't work on that model, and as mentioned TUI for the most part won't either.
They will receive allocation, as will loads of bedbanks (Expedia, booking.com etc) and tour operators in Europe.
They won't be financially penalised for not selling through their allocation though (and can obviously request more if they sell through)
They might be subject to a lower initial allocation for the following season if they have struggled to shift rooms.
Kinda similar to away tickets policy in the Premier League.

 

[Chrisja1000]

I’ve just been looking the hotel we stayed pre-pandemic the Bahia Fantasia in Tenerife. I was skeptical, but reading this thread I do feel more confident and I think it should be fine for June. Also £200 off with Jet2 helps. I was tempted to take the kids out from school for a week as the price drops a huge amount, but the Mrs was having none of it!

 

[Two Gun Bob]

Yeah that is pretty good to be fair.

It is indeed cheap, but I would interpret groundbreaking as something unlikely to ever been seen again (£50 return flight to New Zealand, for example)
Deals similar to yours above have been kicking about since the pandemic kicked off.
Last year I got 8 nights Jet2 package in Zante over the August bank holiday for £255.
TUI have been almost giving away some of their hotels...I picked up the 5* TUI Blue Lagoon Princess on an all inclusive basis for £19 a night back in October 2020.
Wizz have done return flights to the Canaries for £4.

Prices will eventually level off and ultimately rocket so people taking a punt whilst the uncertainty remains can be rewarded accordingly.

Some good deals mentioned there and remember well the Lagoon Princess offer which was beyond ridiculously cheap. How can you even begin to break it down into the sum of it's parts with accomodation food and unlimited drink at only £19 a night so I'm happy to nominate this as a groundbreaking deal.

If anyone else is aware of any groundbreaking deals then shout them on out and share the love. I dislike paying for airport parking and even more so since Jetparks have fallen by the way side. This afternoon we travelled to Style Road to check out a new kid on the block called NCP Flightpath and it looks a very good secure gated compound currently offered for pennies. Newly tarmaced with painted lanes, 24 hour surveilance and on site staff.

If you enter the comparison parking sites through the martin lewis webstite https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-airport-parking/ then you get extra negotiated discount above and beyond what all the other comparisons are offering.

Quoted £31 for 8 days which seems reasonable, scoring well on the reviews and just like Jetparks you get to keep your keys. Transfers are included and take around 5-10 minutes. We did ask the on site manager of Flightpath NCP what had happened to Jetpark and he said the're still a viable company owned by Manchester Airport but don't appear to be taking online bookings at the moment.

 

[Del_Bosque]

Missus still won’t have a jab, so think i’m looking at Mexico realistically

 

[comiskey33]

Missus still won’t have a jab, so think i’m looking at Mexico realistically

whats the story with mexico? in and out as normal? (old normal)

 

[blue44]

Thailand looking impossible atm
thailand pass suspended till further notice till feb 1st at least

we were due to depart 3 weeks today ,jan 30th and arrive monday 31 st
1 day before they'll announce anything new

so for the 2 nd time we're fkd

can't get through to the travel company i booked with ( net flights )
they promised to phone me via direct messages on twitter,iv heard nothing

really don't know what to do
me and mrs both had 1 month booked from our respective departments
me 1 month unpaid,think i will still stay off,iv had my mind set that
i wouldn't be working in february,and god knows when we'll be able to go
anyway.