CD Traveller » Thomson

Catching a bargain

adrian — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:51:25 +0000

No, not on clothes or beds or sofas. I’m talking about the holiday sales. There are now sales on flights by British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and American Airlines. And there is the Ryanair £9.99 sale that seems always to be on!
TUI (owners of Thomson and First Choice) also has a sale which guarantees a 10% discount when you book Thomson online and £200 on Thomson summer holidays departing from London. First Choice has a similar sale to Thomson but also has deals on remaining winter holidays with up to £300 off. Its upmarket brand, Hayes & Jarvis has discounts of up to £1,500 per couple
Disneyland Paris is offering 30% discounts and Thomas Cook is saying it has 25% off cruises and up to £400 off summer holidays. The same applies to the Airtours and Direct Holidays brands of Thomas Cook as well. Trailfinders also have a cruise sale as does P&O which is promoting its 175th anniversary sale.
Virgin Holidays says that it is offering £200 off holidays booked to Florida in the school holidays and says on others you can save up to 40%. Onthebeach.com has deals with up to 50% off if you book by the end of the year and Cosmos is saying it will give free room upgrades.
Jet2 Holidays is offering an extra £100 off per booking whilst Balkan Holidays has deals of up to £320 per couple for the summer. Travel Republic has discounts of up to 35% and The Co-operative Travel is also majoring on a £400 discount. Shearings has an early booking offer whilst James Villa Holidays is only giving free travel insurance and car hire. Butlins are offering a third off in school holidays and Warner Hotels have a sale until the end of January.
You could almost say who isn’t having one. This is a crucial time for the industry and instead of the free child offers and upgrades that used to be the mainstay of the post-Christmas booking frenzy, tour operators and travel agents are working harder than ever to persuade you to book and buy now. A sure sign of how successful they have been will be how long the sales last. And how big the discounts grow!

Flying on waste cooking oil

adrian — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:28:31 +0000

A little while go Thomson flew one engine on one flight on one plane on a mixture of Jet A1 fuel and waste cooking oil as opposed to normal aviation fuel. It was a test to see the effect but you would have thought from the reactions that they had almost single-handedly caused the starvation of millions by using a resource that stopped food crops being grown.
All right I exaggerate but nowhere did Thomson say that they were going to always use cooking oil. They talked of using sustainable biofuels in the future of which are lot are under development. It was an experiment to find an alternative to aviation fuel. But Friends of the Earth got stuck in and pointed out that it would take 100 years for all the people on the flight to save their waste oil before they could have fuelled the flight. Action Aid said millions would be plunged into poverty and Plane Stupid was reported as saying that land would be stolen from the world’s poorest people. All good, subjective comment then! So why did Thomson do it? Was it a cheap publicity stunt as critics claimed?
A few years ago, when biofuels became the fashion, (Friends of the Earth were advocating them at the time as were many scientists) food crops were handed over to those that could produce biofuels. Food prices shot up and there were riots in impoverished countries. The world should have learnt its lesson; Friends did and now oppose biofuels. The future of airline replacement fuels and others has to be something that can be manufactured or is sustainable and doesn’t affect the environment or food supplies. Used cooking oil can be recycled and it could be used for aviation fuel but not entirely as there isn’t enough to go around. But shouting about the number of chip butties we might have to eat to produce recycled cooking oil to fly a short hop only makes for headlines for short sighted newspaper editors. Isn’t it important that engines can use a variety of fuels without having to have them stripped down and cleaned each time? Airlines need to know what effect different substances will have on their engines.
Air France has just flown from Toulouse to Paris using a mix that included vegetable oils but claims this has no impact on the sort of claims made by those charities listed earlier as it does not compete with the food chain or affect water resources.
But Virgin Atlantic’s use of waste gases from industrial steel production may look a better bet. In conjunction with a Swedish company, LanzaTech, they plan to use these gases and, after treatment, use them as fuel on their Heathrow to Shanghai and Delhi flights. But this is at least a year away and it might not work. But, as Richard Branson pointed out, the steel industry could provide 15 billion gallons of fuel each year and all, as a bi-product of its main business.
But what of other biofuels? Algae which is fast growing and renewable has been touted as an idea and research is continuing. But research has been continuing on alternatives for decades. It seems that it only takes spurts when prices rise dramatically or when someone believes that existing fuel supplies will end the day after tomorrow. Will this time be any different?

Summer 2012 holidays to cost more

Editor — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:51:09 +0000

First Choice and Thomson holidaymakers are to pay more for their vacations next year, owing to the rising costs of fuel and accommodation.

“We anticipate that in the UK, cost inflation will be just over five percent for summer 2012 and our prices are designed to recover these input costs in this competitive market” said the statement.

Given that the five percent increase is way ahead of rises in incomes, coupled with the fact that we’re all facing big increases in public transport fares in addition to everyday essential bills and the message is this: many of us face being priced out of a foreign holiday next year.

Our advice? Best make the most of the extraordinary weather this weekend – a welcome compensation, in light of the gloomy news, and following what has been a damp squib of a summer.

Tenerife: Comparing Flight Costs

Editor — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 05:27:05 +0000

Tenerife

With so many add-ons to your holiday flights, we thought we would look at what is actually the total price that you might face rather than the price quoted on the headline ads. So we picked on Tenerife in the Canaries, a hugely popular destination for all of us. We decided to select the flights from Manchester because it enabled us to compare seven different airlines for a family of four.
The price ranged quite astonishingly with Iberia being double the price of the cheaper ones. They were also the only non-direct flight in that you had to change at Heathrow. Despite all the charges that are laden on you by the no-frills airlines, Ryanair, easyJet and Jet2 were all within £40 of each other. At £1,133, Ryanair was the cheapest, closely followed by Jet2 at £1,149.77 and easyJet at £1,176.24. Yet the basic fare at Jet2 was two and a quarter times higher than Ryanair. What this shows is that Ryanair charges much more for add-ons than Jet2 does.
Thomson and Thomas Cook both charged the lowest for hold baggage at just £25 and £24 per person respectively and easyjet charged £30. Travel insurance for the whole party varied by as much as £20 with Jet2 being the most expensive and easyJet being the cheapest. The conclusion we reached was that buying travel insurance elsewhere was usually a better bet than buying it via the airline. And if you travel more than twice a year, an annual policy is probably a better buy.
Total charges for Ryanair amounted to £386 or 34% of the bill. Is this wrong? Ryanair – and all airlines – would probably argue that by giving passengers the choice of what they want they give us the opportunity to fly cheaply. If we want the frills, we pay. Except that in some cases you have no choice. You can decide to take no baggage, you can decide not to designate a seat but you can’t avoid administrative fees or charges for paying by credit card..
The Office of Fair Trading has warned travel companies to change misleading credit and debit card practices. It can commence proceedings but it has limited power. It can impose an enforcement order against those that – in their opinion – continue to use misleading practices. They can also name and shame the main and persistent offenders.
They have announced a 90 day consultation period to study the situation. As Cavendish Elithorn of the OFT says, “You can’t buy online with cash and people are being frustrated about being asked to pay for nothing.” It estimates we pay £300 million just to pay for using cards. It would like debit cards to be free as Monarch has recently announced it will be on bookings with them.
But what can the OFT do against administration charges? These cover all sorts of things like volcanic ash disruption, (in the case of Ryanair) handling fees, fuel surcharges, wheelchair levies and, for all we know, the flowers in the chairman’s office! The answer is that they can still be charged but it looks as though we will have to be told about them up front and not at the end of the booking. We needn’t necessarily need to be told what’s included. But at least in this way, we can decide whether to continue or go elsewhere.
Both of the tour operators charged quite a bit more but if you compared their package holiday prices (which would include accommodation) with what deals the airlines were offering for similarly starred accommodation then they look pretty much the same. Tour operators would also have a coach taking you to your accommodation rather than you having to pay for a taxi to get you to your destination.
What this research shows is that checking for the best deals was time consuming. We think of ourselves as reasonably knowledgeable but it still took one of us the best part of four hours to get the raw facts together. We also checked the British Airways, flybe and bmi websites to make sure we hadn’t accidentally missed any flights they had. For the traveller who only flies occasionally – say once or twice a year – many airlines are making booking tedious, unnecessarily time-consuming and downright off-putting. No wonder some people give up or just opt for the first or the airline they “think” will be the cheapest. Don’t fall into that trap. It is necessary to look around.
Be prepared to take some time. Then ask yourself a series of questions. Can the four of you get away with 3 bags? Make sure you include this when you book. You’ll be charged extra at the airport Can you take sandwiches instead of buying snacks or a meal on board? Do you need to sit together? Planning will probably save you more money than deciding at the last minute. In that way you might be able to avoid some of the costs we suspect will always be hidden as administration fees regardless of whether they are shown to you on the first web page or ten pages in.

Easyjet

The Research Brief
The brief was to check the total prices for 4 people, two of whom were children (but were over 12) leaving on August 1st and returning on August 14th. If there was no flight on the 14th, we took the 13th or 15th but if there was a difference in price we took the cheaper of the two. Each person in the party would take one bag to be stored in the hold and all would require travel insurance for the trip. Where reserved seating was available, we booked it allowing the mythical family to stay together. The seven airlines were easyJet, Ryanair, jet2, Monarch, Iberia, Thomson and Thomas Cook.
We should also point out that the “bookings” were made two weeks ago so prices might have changed since then. We picked booking six weeks in advance because that is the time at which tour operators want the final part of their bills paid. We “paid” using a credit card rather than a debit card. We did not include any meal charges that were levied.

Thomson and Thomas Cook Love Tenerife

adrian — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 09:09:55 +0000

Not only is Tenerife in the Canary Isles a popular summer and winter sun destination for us Brits and Irish but the tour operator companies who provide our holidays like them too. Last year Thomas Cook – whose brands include Airtours, Sunset and Neilson – had their annual convention there but this year, the other biggie, TUI- whose brands include Thomson, First Choice and Crystal – are having their big managers meeting there as well.
It’s easy to know why. So popular is the island that nearly a third of all their visitors come from the UK. Add the Irish visitors and we have a substantial impact on the place which explains why it sometimes seems to be like home but with that added Spanish something. Like good weather which has seemed non-existent in our countries this week.
As most of you will know, the south of the island is the most “touristy” part whilst the north has more of the feel of the old life. Increasingly though, Tenerife is attracting those who come for two other reasons. The first is to watch the sealife. 5 of the world’s 7 species of turtles live off the coastline. It is also home to pilot whales who can be seen all year round whilst cavorting bottlenose dolphins can easily amuse visitors. The second is the appeal of space. As we wrote about South Africa yesterday, but with having to go so far, the volcanic landscape outside the main holiday areas has little night light so provides an eerie backdrop to good views of the night skies. Little wonder that a leading world observatory is to be found in the Canaries.
So although it is a year round destination for us, Tenerife is working hard to provide us with extra reasons to visit them.

Staycations and Tour Operators

Editor — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:53:29 +0000

Both TUI (the parent company of Thomson, First Choice and Crystal) and Thomas Cook announced results this week. Each seems to have been hit by people booking later and by people holidaying at home. Eurodisney also announced that they had been helped by more French people visiting their resort outside Paris so it seems as though the staycation, whether you are in France or the UK, is having an impact on tourism and travel. And now we have David Cameron making a speech on tourism and urging us to holiday at home (More on this over the weekend, when I have properly read it. I can’t remember a Prime Minister making a speech on tourism before.)
The good news for us is that there are lots of last minute offers at prices that are lower than might be expected. Both TUI and Thomas Cook will want to dispose of as many holidays so if you can leave at the drop of a hat there could be some good bargains around.
Snap them up while you can because it probably means that both companies will consider cutting the number of summer holidays that they will make available next year in order to try and boost prices. If we are booking later and more of us are preferring to stay at home, will this also apply to the winter holiday market? Skiers had wonderful weather in Scotland last winter but that hasn’t happened for years. Can it be a good year for a second year running? For winter sunshine, you’d be hard pressed to find much at all in the UK or Ireland so it’s probable that there won’t be that many bargains over winter.
The collapse of Sun4U yesterday and that of Goldtrail a few weeks ago is also a clue to the fact that we are either holidaying at home or booking at the last minute. It is quite unusual for holiday companies to go bust at this time of the year as they should be flush with cash from their customers. After the summer period is when some collapse because they must survive on the takings from this summer until the deposits start coming in for the next season. Each collapse takes more holidays out of the overall market meaning there will be fewer for next season unless one company expands.
So the advice is probably, book and go as soon as possible after booking to get the best deals. And use an ATOL bonded agent or pay by credit card to give you some protection.

Using Travel Websites

adrian — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:03:29 +0000

The travel industry was one of the early adopters of the internet. These days searching travel and tourism websites is regularly listed as one of the top things to do. And obviously CD-Traveller readers have more interest in it than most since we are only available online. But how easy is it to use? Does a bad website put us off? Are some better at information than in accepting orders? Are pricing issues concealed until the last moment making customers wary of using them.
EDigitalResearch has provided some of the answers in their new study published this month. They have looked at 47 sites during the last two months and assessed them for first impressions (does it look easy/cluttered etc) how easy is it to use it, do the searches work easily, how does it handle bookings and finally how easy is it to contact them. It all boils down to one word “Easy.” You want things to be simple. The harder they become the less likely you are to return.
They have only examined websites covering airlines, channel crossings, cruises, hotel agents and chains, online travel agents and online tour operators. In the future maybe they can add tourist destination websites, train booking sites and attractions and then most of what, we as travellers want, will be covered.
Enough waffle; what are their conclusions?
The channel crossing sites are felt to be the overall best for all features, airlines are pretty good apart from poor customer service. Hotel online booking sites fare better than the actual hotel chains themselves. But overall, the website of Premier Inn is felt to be the best and is rated at 82.8%. In comparison, Ryanair’s website, the last of the 47, is rated at only 58.4% The leading holiday company is Eurocamp at 79.7%, the leading channel crossing site, Sea France with 79.3% and the leading airline, British Airways with 76.7%. For first impressions, the Thomson site leads and for customer service, the site of Voyage Jules Verne is out in front. Having said that, customer service is something that virtually every website needs to imrove say eDigitalResearch. Thomas Cook is the best online travel agent site.
But how do they compare for ease of us with websites outside the travel industry? Marks & Spencer have the most highly rated website with a score of 87%. The lowest ranking is that of Ing Direct in the finance sector is 53% so, on the whole, it seems we find travel sites fairly easy to use.
Unless you know differently. Feel free to tell us which ones you have found less than easy to use.

Easter Holidays

Editor — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:28:39 +0000

I was quite surprised to find yesterday that the first local school had just broken up for Easter. In my mind it was still weeks away but in fact Good Friday is only 2 weeks tomorrow.
After the winter we have had it wouldn’t surprise any of us if bookings to the Spanish resorts and warmer areas was the main appeal but personal finances being what they are, some of us will think of taking no breaks at all. And for those that do go, there could be quite a few handicaps to going away. First there are the railways. The RMT union is considering scheduling a nationwide strike because of what it says are safety issues that may occur when Network Rail lays off staff. . You probably need to be an expert to know if safety was an issue. Needless to say, Network Rail says there is no problem and you have to wonder whether if safety was the issue, the union wouldn’t have called the strike as soon as it legally could. By striking at Easter, the cynical amongst us begin to wonder.
So avoid rail and drive.
This means the motorway network and the main A roads will get even more clogged than usual at Easter. So we’ll go abroad but here we are beset by more strike issues. The next British Airways strike which starts on Saturday will be finished by Tuesday but there will probably be some planes in the wrong position so, as happened this week, there will be some disruption for another day or two afterwards. But Lufthansa and Germanwings pilots are planning a four day strike from April 13, TAP Portugal pilots were due to walk out on March 31 but have now said the strike won’t go ahead. Alitalia had a four hour strike and Air France narrowly averted one earlier this week. It seems almost everywhere you look, other than the no-frills airlines, disruption to the traveller is possible. And those not on strike making the most of it. The prices on some airlines have been very pricey during the BA strike.
Away from this misery and to where to go for Easter. Staycations still look to be very popular according to Visit England, a research company called BDRC and Skyscanner with London proving to be popular. Talking to two people who specialise in staving off bankruptcy amongst hotels, they say that London is managing to put hotel prices up but elsewhere there are bargains to be had as hotels struggle to fill rooms. On Skyscanners’ list, Spanish locations take 3 of the top 10 spots with Dublin, Amsterdam and Rome being popular. The number of enquiries about Spain is down on 2009 and, in February, visits by Britons were down by 7.7% compared to last year. Given that we were in the depths of the recession then, there has been little bounceback hence the launch of their big marketing campaign. On the other hand the big holiday group TUI (owners of Thomson and First Choice) and Thomas Cook are happy about Easter and Summer bookings.
What it all seems to mean is that there will still be bargains because the recession is still hurting some suppliers.

What’s hot

Editor — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:30:25 +0000

What’s hot
Whether you’re staycation-ing or vacationing, CD Traveller tells you what’s hot and what’s not in the travel world

Hot
Up in the Air
Juno’s Jason Reitman directs the big screen adaptation of the 2001 novel Up in the Air. Already showered with Golden Globe nominations, the film stars (and we mean stars) George Clooney as Ryan Bing – a corporate downsizing expert, drafted in by companies to fire their staff. He travels across America, living out of a suitcase and loving every minute of it. But when he falls for fellow traveller Alex (Vera Farmiga) and finds his job under threat, Ryan is forced to face up to what it might be like to live a ‘grounded’ life. If you see one Clooney film this year, make it this one.

Thumbs up to Thomson and First Choice
Why? Because these two tour operators are offering free redundancy cover for any summer 2010 holidays booked in Thomson and First Choice shops, around the UK. The redundancy protection cover is valid for departures between May 1 2010 and April 30 2011 but breaks must be booked by February 28 2010.

Keeping up with the Jones
Is there no stopping Nick Jones? The man behind some of the coolest clubs in the country (Soho House, Babington House et al), is back with a new venture: Dean Street Townhouse – a bar and restaurant with bedrooms that has already played host to Gywneth and Chris. The man with the Midas touch will be opening Soho House Berlin, Soho House West Hollywood and Soho Beach Miami later this year. See www.sohohouse.com for more.

Soho House's Nick Jones

Make way for the mancation
Sod the staycation. Thanks to the hit Hollywood film The Hangover, 2010 is all about the man-cation. More and more hotels and resorts are offering all male bonding holiday packages while man-friendly destinations like Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Riga have also reported a surge in popularity.

Flying high
Air New Zealand certainly are having been named airline of the Year for 2010 by Air Transport World – the leading monthly magazine covering the global airline industry. The Auckland based airline won praise for its superb commitment to safety and operational , its groundbreaking customer service and environmental record.

Take a trip to Troncones –
To ensure full holiday bragging rights book a break to Troncones, Mexico pronto. Why? Because according to TripAdvisor’s TravelCast – which identifies up and coming destinations based on site data – Troncones is the top destination for 2010. Nairn in Scotland, El Chalten in Patagonia, Patara in Turkey and Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany round up the top five.

Troncones - this season's hot shot?

Devon’s delights
Planning a mini break in Devon? Visit Devon has launched a new guide to the region’s attractions and events. To view the hotlist – which amongst other suggestions includes a private beach hut with its own hot tub and Europe’s first surfing museum – check out www.visitdevon.co.uk.

Not
Trinidad and Tobago
The Caribbean islands have been hailed as “one of the most dangerous places on the planet” according to researchers studying global gun crime. There were 502 murders in Trinidad and Tobago in 2009 – akin to one killing every 18 hours. The Foreign Office is urging visitors to “be aware that there are high levels of violent crime, especially shootings and kidnappings. British nationals have been victims of violent attacks, particularly in Tobago where law enforcement is weak.”

Blackpool
Blackpool Pleasure Beach – one of Britain’s best loved seaside attractions – has been seriously hit by the recession, recording a £3.9 million loss in 2009 compared with a £4 million profit in 2008. The amusement park – famed for its rollercoaster rides Avalanched and Infusion – said 2009 had been “the worst summer for many years.”

Snow-lidays
The unexpected ‘snow-lidays’ were fun at first but now we’re all thoroughly fed up of the big freeze. White skies, crisp twigs that snap underfoot and air so cold you can see your breath might sound terribly romantic but the reality – travel hell, extra heating costs etc – is otherwise. Roll on spring.

Customer Satisfaction Among Tour Operators

adrian — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:59:34 +0000

Looking out of the window at the large dollop of snow that has fallen overnight, it is easy to think of warmer parts of the world and getting away from the cold and bleak view I see. Where to go is one issue but who I go with is another.

You could be forgiven for thinking, after seeing the Which? Holiday report on tour operators that you should avoid the big companies like Thomson, First Choice, Thomas Cook, Cosmos and Virgin because they haven’t done very well in the report.

You would be wrong.

This is not to say that the survey is wrong. The Consumers Association, (CA), publishers of the different Which? Reports has strict and solid research techniques and knowledge. No the problem is the sample. It is drawn from members of the CA which is largely upmarket, middle class. These are not the sort of people who tend to book package holidays with the large tour operators so the number of people surveyed who have holidayed with those I mentioned earlier is proportionately much lower. Low response means a few positive or negative responses can affect results.

The whole survey is only 4,507 responders so the people responding per tour operator could be low. A minimum of only 30 have to reply for each tour operator to be included. Thirdly, smaller tour operators like VFB, which came top (and congratulations to them), move comparatively small numbers of people compared to the millions moved by the big companies. It is always easier to get better customer satisfaction ratings from smaller companies than larger ones and that applies to whichever industry you survey. And to be fair, Rochelle Turner, head of research at the CA said that it might be harder to provide the attention to detail in big companies. Finally it should be said that the tour operators interview people during their holiday. The CA interviewed people after they had returned home and, in some cases, holidays could have been quite a long time ago. Answers may vary as time elapses.

I should make an admission. I have worked with most of the big tour operators over the years on their customer satisfaction programmes so I know how much time effort and money goes in to it and the responses they make to problems.

The big tour operators try as hard as the little ones to make your holidays as enjoyable as they can. And if there is a problem, they will try, by and large, to resolve it. I cannot remember, over the last 10 or so years, of any of the biggest tour operators ever being voted number 1. And I wouldn’t expect them to in any survey of CA members