It doesnt suprise me to be honest, Thomson already have their own discount operator Portland so they wouldnt want another.

As for the planes being all FC its way to early for anyone to call that, it is likely to be a completely new named airline anyway.

Ah I got the letter too when I got home from Benidorm yesterday. Very sad but I agree that there hasn't been much of a price difference between FC and eclipse recently. Perhaps they are preparing us all for what is ahead?

We got our letter as well and were really disappointed.

(Infact, we were disappointed when they teamed up with Thomson full stop- )

Must admit when we have compared Eclipse with First Choice and / or Portland with Thomson there never seems to be that much difference now - at the end of the day, am sure that none of them give anything away !

Cynical me!

I think over the fast year FC and Thomson have gradually eroded the price advantage they gave when we booked with their direct sell arms of Eclipse and Portland, to get us used to the idea that they are all now going to be one company.

Although I did notice better savings between Porland and Thomson than FC and Eclipse, the laters savings seemed to disappear all together for months.

Just enquiring to see if anyone has heard anything from eclipse yet, I have seen a holiday that I would like to book for summer 2009 (in the first choice brochure) , I have got it down to a good price. But if I could get a discount on it that would be great!, I know that the price will go up tomorrow as they will be adding fuel supps. If anyone has any news or can help in any way that would be great, look forward to all of your replys.
vickie

Hi Vickie Just spoke to them and they said online prices will now be up on 6 May. They gave me a price over the phone and offered me a discount.

Vickie, according to the previous posts Eclipse will not be operating after April 2009. Might be best to get in quick if you think you have a good price. Although having priced up loads of holidays for 2009, I thought First Choice were really pricey. A little I know but have you checked out Thomas Cook? They are offering some Free Child places and a web discount. I went into my local TC shop and they reduced the hol by a further £80 on top of the internet price. Just thought it might be worth mentioning, regards, Nic.

We have been trawling the eclipse site for a holiday for my daughter. We found the right one and went through the booking process only to fall over between validating the bank details with the bank and processing the order on the website. I was told this is a known problem and to try later as they would not match the web price on the phone. Exactly the same thing happened again with a different browser so I printed the page of holiday details and my daughter went to the first choice shop the next day, who immediately booked the holiday for her and at the web price quoted.

Constantly comparing the FC site with the Eclipsedirect site did not show any notable gains and was more likely the same price, but I still use it just in case. Her holiday did actually go down nearly £100 pp after 4pm on the day we decided to book it.

The advice has to be that if the holiday is:
what you want,
where you want,
at the time you want

and

at a price you want to pay,

then book it immediately and never check the prices again.

There are probably get outs that allow fuel supplements to be added on afterwards if they so desire anyway, but with Eclipse disappearing soon there will probably not be much discount offered compared to the FC site itself.

As to whether it will go up or down later, it is a risk you take.

I do know that I was a dedicate Eclipse fan until last year when I could not get a decent price for my grandson. We eventually had a holiday in Mexico along with a couple who had booked through FC, but by using the Caribbean Warehouse we ended up with mostly the same holiday at more than £150 pp off the best Eclipse Price let alone what they paid. We paid around £850 pp for 2wks A/I at the Coba.

The differences were we flew MYT rather than FCA and we had a private transfer to and from the hotel, rather than the FC coach, we obviously had different reps, but ours was always on a one to one basis.

Starry, does that mean you have a proper number for them or were you paying the 10p/minute charge?

Yes, sorry I should have explained. I was put through to someone with the new booking system for next year, so was a FC price.

Hi all,
If you go to the First Choice forum you will see what happened to me and my booking for 2009 holiday, as always been an Eclipse Direct customer,I had First Choice Direct call me who has now taken over from Eclipse Direct. Its amazing all the merged companies are vying for ones business so you can get cuts off each holiday price with each company.

Just spoke to FC/Eclipse, apparently next years prices will be online as of Monday 19th May.