Only my opinion but....

I have always been led to believe that if you arrive in your resort via a "Night Flight" and your room is ready for you an arrival that, that counts as your first night (unfair I know) we arrived about 6am and went straight to our room and then on leaving we sat around in the hotel foyer untill early hours to picked up...

again only my opinion...

KatysClan is right I am afraid. Unfortunatley in "Holiday World" the day tends to run from 12pm to 12pm, and not 12am to 12am like the real world. This is one of the reason as to why I tend to avoid night flights, even with the temptation of not paying extortionate supplements. I am afraid you would not have any grounds for a complaint.

I would personnally prefer to wait around in the evening and not in the early hours of the moring (we arrived in Crete at 7am one morning, the bed was the best i have ever slept in!!!)

Hi - and thank you both for a speedy reply. I guess we may just have to 'live & learn' from our experiences from the sound of it - but it does make me mad that it means hotels are rakin in extra cash.

Ironically - while we were sat in reception waiting to be picked up at 4.00am, 'our' room was booked out to a couple arriving at 3.00am!

Had we refused on arrival to check in early, the room would have needed to be vacant for our 14th night, so they had clearly adjusted their bookings accordingly.

I sometimes think we accept things as consumers that are truly unaccpetable.

shazzer, how many nights did you actually spend in the room? 13 or 14?

Hi Magster - we actually spent 13 nights in the room. As we arrived at 8.00am, they considered the night that had just passed (11/09/05) as our first night.

Although we didn't actually arrive in Turkey until 12/09/05 - and our flight back was at 7.45am on the 26/09/05.

Just checking Shazzer. It is as you have been advised. The night you flew out counted as the first night of your holiday although I haven't come across a hotel giving you a choice before of waiting to check in until 2pm and then allowing you full use of the room on the final night!

All that waiting on a final day is a total pain. Even for earlier flights say at 8 or 9pm can mean a long wait without a room. We always make our own arrangements for the final day, to rent a room elsewhere if we are on a flight after late afternoon. It works out cheaper than using a Rep. £50 is excessive to say the least. If you take a night flight again then ask around at the place you are staying and see if you can share a room with someone else and share the cost or even better make friends with someone who is departing at a later date to yourself yourself!

We went to Alcudia in Majorca 5 years ago, and flew at 11.00pm. We got there in the early hours, so this counted as our first night.
We werent scheduled to be picked up on our return journey to the Airort, until 11.30 at night....... wont do night flights again. . We stayed at the Bellevue - we had to vacate our room from 10.00am on our last morning. Thirteen hours before we were picked up by the coach taking us to the Airport . Luckily, the Belle Vue had a seperate room where you could leave your cases, etc all day. To be honest we never considered getting a room for our last day there........ we just left our luggage there and went to the beach one last time. We freshened up with a shower and went out for a meal. We didnt get back to Manchester Airport until around 4.30am....... then there was the drive back to Leeds . Got back around 6.00am.... then straight to bed!

Blimey - it's beginning to sound as if I expected far too much for my money. I guess it's about being wiser when booking then really - but I never expected to sit around in reception from 6pm until 4am.

I read all the small print, and saw that if the flight left before midnight, then that would be considered your first night. I phoned Cosmos and checkedthis point as our flight left at 12.20am - and they said that this did not apply. The rep, said differently though on our arrival.

I think it's pretty disgusting - and that the hotels are making a fortune out of this.

Hi Shazza, I remember the first time this happened to us. It was actually are first time abroad, and although we knew it was a night flight, it didn't even cross our minds it could be an inconvienience, not to mention very tiring!! (Especially with young children)

We arrived at our hotel in gran Canaria, at 5.30 in morning, this was classed as our first night there!!! On departure we had to be out of our rooms at 10, and we wasn't been picked up until 1.00 in morning, and there wasn't even a curtersy room available (15 hours in total),Talk about totally knackered!!!

This was the first and last time we ever booked a night flight, although we wanted to go to gran canaria next year, but the flights were almost identical to the times we went first time, so no way!!! We booked to go to tenerifge instead, with lovely early afternoon flights!!!

Shazz, you live and learn love, at least, you'll know better for next time (We certainly did!!!) BBB.

Shazzer, why did you sit in reception from 6.00pm until 4.00am
Couldnt you have gone out, and left your luggage? All apts and Hotels let you leave your luggage there until your coach is due....... last year, where we stayed in Protaras, it was only a small accomodation, so we just left our cases in the foyer. Nobody would take your case, full of dirty laundry! We spent our last day at the Marlita (we werent staying here) then just came back on the afternoon, freshened up in the showers available (near the Pool) then waited for the coach to pick us up.

Hi bellyballyboo - you are SO RIGHT! I'm 48 and my husband 53 - this was our first holiday together abroad and we had no clue that this kind of thing happened. I thought I'd covered everything by phoning them to check.

We arrived at Gatwick at 9.30 am - 24 hours after getting out of bed and having had o sleep since! I phoned my daughter to ask her to feed the cats one more time as we'd be later home than we expected. Heaven knows who I phoned, but she never got the message!! My brain was utter sawdust by that time!

We booked into a hotel near the airport and slept for 14 hours non-stop.....

The b******s won't get the chance to do that to us again I can tell you.............!

Many thanks to all of you who replied to my appeal - I've lived and learned! x

Cromwell, nobody may take a suitcase of dirty laundry in Europe but believe me, they will in further flung, poorer places. My problem with leaving my suitcase anywhere that is open to the general public is one of security. Those questions they ask at check about anyone having put anything in your case. How on earth can you put your hand on your heart and say no, when the case has been open to anyone who fancied the idea of planting something inside it? In years gone by, it was drugs I worried about because there are ways that smugglers do this. Now I am more concerned with bombs and the like. For a professional, be they a drug smuggler or terrorist, you would never know they had been in your case.

The TO really need to get their heads around this situation and offer something a little bit more reliable regarding collection and storage of luggage. For example in Rhodes this year, on departure day, we were asked to leave our bags outside the villa, on the pavement. This sort of situation is ridiculous.

Cromwell - we had planned to walk itno Bodrum for the evening - but that morning I'd taken Imodium for the second time during the holiday and hadn't wanted to stary far from the 'facilities'.....

...sorry - my spelling could have been better on that last post.......brain still fuggled!

I'm a bit confused because I can't work out why you think the hotel is raking it in and getting paid for 15 nights for every 14 booked. This problem arises because the hotel is only ever booked and paid for in either 7 or 14 night blocks by the TO. I accept that the info given to you at the time of booking and by the rep on arrival was confusing but it sounds to me as if the rep initially gave you the option of actually choosing when you wanted your 14 nights in the room begin which is highly unusual and I'm not surprised that the hotel said that they couldn't let you have the room for a 15th night even if you paid for it because it was needed for those incoming guests who arrived at 3.00am and understandably would be wanting to get into their room immediately.

I appreciate that you ended up having an uncomfortable time hanging around the hotel foyer but you didn't lose a night - though you probably would have done if you'd taken up the rep's offer of delaying your check-in inorder to try and keep the room for the night at the end. But as it is, you paid for 14 nights use of the room and that is what you had in the end becasue in the hotel world a room 'night' runs from noon til noon and if you check-in before midday then that does count as a 'night'. This is why many of us will not consider night flights at any price and why I'm always prepared to pay more for a morning flight that means an early afternoon check-in on arrival and usually an early morning check-out after a refreshing night spent sleeping in my room without an interminable wait in the hotel's public areas before the pick-up to go to the airport.

SM

SM

You are completely correct in everything you say, and I for one have had my fingers burnt in exactly this way in the past, so would not consider night flights ever again!

Thats the beauty of these forums, members who are not regular travellers can be made aware of these issues, BEFORE they book, and learn from others experiences.

thanks for drawing it to our attention

this has happened to us many a time, the night you travelled was your first night, the room was prob cleaned late the night before ready for your arrivel after 13 more nights you woulkd have to vacate your room.

Hi All - thanks for your advice - what a shame I didn't know about this forum before we booked!! Retrospect is always 20:20 isn't it!?

This was our first package deal holiday - I had checked it all out with Cosmos - and there had been no mention of this noon <> noon principle. It's clearly accepted practice amongst you more seasoned travellers - most of whom are seasoned as you too have been bitten before.

Ahhh well - I live and learn eh?!

Shazza, Hindsight is a wonderful thing eh?

When I booked holidays years ago I used to think "oh well it doesnt matter what time the flights are, we will be so excited at going on holiday it doesnt matter you are arriving in the early hours of the morning!"

But now its one of the first things I check, because its a nightmare checking out at 10.00am and flying out at 3.00am the next morning.........a horrible end to the holiday

Not so bad if you are leaving about 9pm, because you can make an extra day of it, and have a nice meal out before you leave......