talking to a holiday advisor online on TC just now...be warned..

Leanne: ok i'll try them! any idea why it might have jumped up £300 in price in 3 hours?!

*****: Prices are subject to change I'm afraid, the tour operator can change their prices every hour

Just come in from work armed with my holiday brochures. Decided to price a few up on liner with Thomas cook and it's still coming up no holidays available but it will let me look at hotels which are????? I don't get it???

cazz you can look at which holidays are on the system at the minute but when you select them to get a full quote its giving an error message, TC say they are working to sort this problem! Also, not all their holidays are on the website yet, the one I want isn't even though I know its on their internal system because i've had two quotes today on the phone lol!

Thanks Leanne, I'll wait till a bit later then, just sniffing another brochure...don't you just love the smell

Well I've just called First Choice to see when their flights will be released and basically they have no idea! They said they are still loading packages onto the system and flights will go up after that, but they couldn't tell me if that would be today, tomorrow, this week or this month.

Pain in the bum.

looks like TC has dropped some resorts

i'd give it a few days before coming to that conclusion, i know they're doing the hotel I want because it's in their brochure and its on their internal system because i've had two quotes already this morning, it's just not on the website yet because they've not got everything loaded at the minute. I've been told it should be fully up to date by 5pm tomorrow, monday at the latest!

I am giving up for now and might do a late booking next year, the prices coming through are steep and I am not prepared to pay the silly prices, since the mergers the two bigs boys are trying to bleed us dry. They are using the euro to £ to slip in some hefty price increases, I think prices will go down as we enter the summer and if booking are low by the time we hit the end of august then I see prices being slashed. Thomas cook and direct holidays couldn't run a brothel between them, can't get their web site ready to go live on the day holidays are released, they had weeks to have everything loaded. Just imagine if the were public companies they would of been slaughtered in the press.

Well I have managed to get booked up and with a good price, went to Thomas cook first with the hotel I wanted to see what price they had and was quoted £1612 for 2AD and 2CHD for 14 nights to Gran Canaria in september, asked if they could throw in free insurance was told well we can't call it that but basically yes and got £100 knocked off so £1512, then went to Thomsons and they quoted me £1872 for the same hotel same dates etc, asked if they could match Thomas cook and she went and had a word with her manager and was told the best they could do was £1700 as it's a Thomas cook only hotel ,

So off I went back to TC and told them I had a quote for £1450 but to a different hotel but that I really wanted the one in there brochure and they give it to me for £1430 with free insurance so i'm happy

shazajo

My problem is I have to pay 4 adult prices and I have 1 of my off to college sep 2010 and the other off to university, so dates for me are arkward and I am looking at the beginning of july, I have prices ranging from £3500 to £5000, I am spending £4000 this year and don't want to be spend £4000 every year. I can afford it but I ain't willing to pay the silly prices

And with direct holidays web site not updated I am not willing to keep on paying to ring them up for a quote.

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Is that why the prices are so high? as you have to pay for 4 adults,and are those prices for AI? because they do seem rather high but I would expect that is because of the dates your tied to aswell, i'm dreading when my kids are older and having to pay for 4 adults one of mine is 15 next year so it won't be long before I'm paying those prices.

I also agree with what your saying about paying £4000 this year and similar prices for next year even if the money is not a problem it is still a lot of money when you work out your spending money too, my other half always says god I could have a good car with the money its cost us for this holiday(previous hols) which is true in some ways but to me a holiday is something you never forget .

shazajo

My holiday for this is £4000 for 5 adults A/I early august, in september I can get the same hotel in a apartment A/I for not a bad price for 4 adults and I can get the Alba resort A/I for 4 of us £2400 but its the september dates the low price for the alba resort falls bang in where colleges and universities start lessons, I can't plan anything for those dates, so I need to look at early july because all the exams will be finished and the prices are high, god knows what the prices are like for school

I believe the price are high because of the mergers and everybody knew this would happen, on the news they were saying how much more spending power the 2 big tour ops would have to keep prices cheap, they might be getting the hotel rooms and flights cheaper but we aint seeing it and they know apart from monarch holidays there is nowhere else we can go for a holiday. So we get high prices.

Mike i'm getting horrendous prices . At least 4 of mine will be adult prices + a 14 year old that a few places only will treat as a child .
I'm getting silly prices of close to 5K even for hotel's with no facilities and crudy reviews that you would have to pay me to stay at on an A/I basis .
Anything decent and i'm adding a minimum 2K on top of my £3700 price for the Hemera this year .
We arn't looking to go back to turkey next summer as hubby wants a change but on comparing prices these are making the Lykia world price of £5900 with Thomsons look like a steal . I won't be paying those inflated prices , they can poke them where the sun don't shine and if it came to it I would book some easyjet flights to anywhere and take my chances at finding a decent hotel .

Will be interesting to see how cosmo/monarch fair when they release . I've had a DH brochure just arrived in the post and unless i'm missing something there ain't an A/I for less than £1000 per adult . Interestingly a few child prices up to 14/15 in the Balerics though .

I'm wondering if it's just the A/I hotels that have seen the huge increases

can't think of a username

apart from monarch holidays there is nowhere else we can go for a holiday.

Remember there are also independant companies such as Olympic, Cosmos, Libra, Balkan, Anatolian Sky etc plus also some of the airlines are also doing holidays e.g. FlyGlobespan, these might be worth looking at when they are released.

Mrs Kiltie and I booked for the Maldives for Oct 2010 when the longhaul holidays were released and I notice the price of that holiday is now almost £1000 dearer

Well I've managed to get a quote at Titanic Hotel in Lara beach for two weeks from 23nd may 2010 ,then when I went to book it I got this message

Sorry, rooms at the accommodation you have selected have now sold out. You can chose an alternative holiday for the same departure date or change the dates of your stay and search again. We apologise for the inconvenience. [Error Code: c122]

Sold out..what all 586 rooms, since 9am this morning.....how can that be possible
Lara Beach is exactly the same.

Yeh - I got the same (I was curious!) What a hash they've made of things!!!!!

It's the same for every hotel I click on, why didn't they just put hols on sale in May as they usually do, don't think they'd have had half this bother

well ive just booked my holiday
on FC site for 2 adults,2 kids and 1 infant to the egypt holiday village for 2 weeks they were saying just over £3850,that was online
so i went into thomas cook this afternoon and she has quoted me £2778,thats with sitting together,flight meals,everything all in.
so im made up now.
they got me a free kids place and half price on the 2nd child,im glad i asked her to check because i had gone off it after seeing the online price.

I might have a shoot off tomorrow to a TC and FC shop and see what I can get.