Try going on the Airtours website - on the site you can get prices for summer 05 and 06 so you'll be able to tell for certain. Subject to the site working properly of course.

Good luck.

DA

Same 2 holidays for me next year with direct Greece are dearer than this
year roughly the same time too.
Rick.

the tour company kosmar always seem to have about the same prices
for greece from year to year but i,m not really sure about all the others.
i work as a travel agent and have noticed a big difference in the late deal holiday prices with companies like argo and libra for this year, in previous years they would sell late deals for example £99 plus £10 or £15 tod charge and not much else but now they are adding on tod, transfer costs
there own booking fee plus under occupancy and a £99 holiday can easily almost double in price.

ok now i see. thing is, as i told before, that the hotel owners here are ''pussed'' every year since 2000 to reduce or keep the same prices but they dont see any increase in numbers of tourists.
i have lots of them as friends that are complaining to me and some are actually thinking of closing down for next year.
there is an owner in crete (no need to mention hotel name) that gave the same price like last year and had no bookings at all. he went over to the head offices of the tour operator back home and pretended to be client. he asked to go to his hotel and they told him that it was full booked and nothing was free. you can imagine the rest and i will simply add that the police had to go in, to take him out of the office.
i knew about the extras that they add in special offers but i remembered they were less than what i hear now.
anyway i will let those that asked me know as they really wanted to know what is happening. thanks all for answering

Is is terrible how the travel companies have abused their positions....I've recently come back from Kalymnos - an island whose mainstream tourism has been severely affected by tour companies pulling out, due to "difficult transfers/night flights into Kos (who charters the flights....????), with a dire effect on the local economy

We stayed for one night in a beautiful setting in a very quiet village....which used to be the haunt of the more up-market tour operators - the last ones pulled out last year.....when the room owners refused to take a big cut in the rates paid. Responsible tourism.......

Hopefully long term this will make more and more people go independent
and teach these greedy a lesson.
Rick.

i am not agenst major tour operators or pro for individual tourists as each one has its goods and its bads, and its good to have your options there to pick from. I just dont like the way things are turning now days and especially after so many take overs in the market that has left around two - three major players controling everything.

The price of Malia has gone up loooads since last year!
Last summer in Aug I paid £400 for 2 weeks, this year I'm paying £580 for the same hotel!
Crazy!

I can't comment on other tour operators but Kosmar's prices do not rise much each year.We go with them to various islands and to the mainland at least twice a year and the prices for the same weeks each year have gone up very little over the last five years.What has increased the prices are the security levy(after 9/11) and the fuel surcharges which is £15 for 2006.

hi well i think its the same as we went for one week twice this year a week in may and a week in september but next year we are going in may for 2 weeks now it was only 20 more to go for two weeks and the week prices were a lot cheaper than what we paid this year so theres my opinion

I've been going to Ag Nik at least twice a year since 1990...... During this time I've seen the packages from UK tour operators offering deals there deminish to 1 page in some brochures! The reason is simple - the Uk operators are basically "ripping" the Greek owners off! There are 2 hotel owners near my friends bar in Ag Nik who did not even attempt to open for 2005 (despite having contracts with "big" UK Co's previously). They were offered 4 Euros a night per room!!! The area where my friend's bar is has turned from a vibrant jolly place to a ghost town - I may be biased because her trade has also suffered because of it, but I think the UK Tour Operators had better stop trying to take advantage... I, for one, no longer do packages - I book my own accommodation, and think many more do so also.......

i have been comparing prices with thomas cook over the last few years. This year they are offering the exactly same deal exact flight, hotel etc and is cheaper than the past 2 years!!

it does not surpise me that some operatiors are offering lower prices for this year or with a small increase. what worries me is what the owner takes after all that. in most cases they are ''pussed'' to reduce or keep the same. some times i think that if things like that happen within the EU what is happening with owners in other small countries in Asia or Africa!!!
maybe i should change my job to something else..

Heya, goin to malia this year after my mates said it was awesome last year, the majority are coming again we have paid an extra £50 on top of last years its costing £495 for two weeks ina class A apartment, teh galini apartments hope this helps

A few response posts to this thread state that KOSMAR prices have not risen as much as others. Ordinarily KOSMAR would be my first option, as it has been for several years, the problem is that the KOSMAR operation includes last minute or no notice re-routing of flights and a particularly poor Customer Service. A KOSMAR flight to Crete can stage via the Greek mainland or Santorini with passengers held on board for over 1 hour, all this without any consultation (because "its not their policy" nor "do they need too inform the customer") with the paying customer!

The KOSMAR operation, which on the face of it provides better value for money only if the flight is direct, does have its flaws! I opted for MANOS for September 2006 at an additional overall cost of £55.00 or so compared to the KOSMAR price, this however with an assurance that I would not be Island Hopping, a small price to pay I think!

Buying a holiday, like buying anything else, gets more expensive with each year ............. sadly! Some Tour Companies are getting greedy! I suspect a lot of it is down to Tour Companies having had it so good and a feeling or perception that Property/Hotel owners are held by the proverbials and holidaymakers will accept almost anything! Only 2 groups out of the 3 can put it right.

Perhaps one solution for the hoteliers would be to form their own co-operative. If they were to set their prices and negotiate with airlines for charters they would be far better off. One snag with that of course is that they could get greedy and finish up charging more the major TO's.

Just me stirring it a bit - or is it?

Restaurateurs have hiked up their prices over the last few years and I know that is a lot to do with conversion to the €. Is it down to greed or just plain old profiteering?

The crazy thing is that in most areas there is a union or something of the hotel/apts owners that in theory ask them not to accept each year lower prices but it never works. one of the reasons is that the ''head'' of those unions are mainly owner/managers of big hotels that do not really care about the small owners as the big brand names always have clients.
Another trick used by the Tour Operators is that around Feb/march they inform the owners that their bookings are not going well and ask for a better price in case they have already made a contract from last year with the same prices. In most cases it works!
what can i say things like that happen. some times i think that its a free market. so if you want to work you have to do it in order to make money. what i dont like is that in most cases clients pay more, the owners get less and the middle man makes the profit.

Parky and Sokin,

I reckon you have captured it perfectly.

I took a late break in Gouves (Sep 04) via Teletext with Golden Sun who went bankrupt half way through the holiday. I was astounded to find at the subsequent meeting (Golden Sun, ABTA rep, Hotelier and Guests) that the agreement Golden Sun had with its Hotels/Apts/Studios was that payments were made 3 months in arrears and that the Hoteliers were receiving payment for May in August, June in September, July in October etc. Golden Sun were sitting on the monies paid by the holiday makers and collecting the profit in interest! In the case of the place I stayed the owner was apparrantly owed 50,000.00 Euro by Golden Sun, implication being that some Golden Sun Director was sat on a beach in Rio counting his dosh whilst a Hotelier prepared for a cold winter and unable to meet mortgage payments!

The Hotel/Apt Union referred to should at the start of each contract/season take a more robust stand against the Tour Operators, us holiday makers should also take a stand and vote with our feet, the words nose, cutting, face and spite spring to mind here however but I dont know any other way!

What is clear is that the owners do get less, we pay more and the Tour Operator takes a greater wedge!

I am afraid to say it but the only way the message will be delivered would be to boycot, we would suffer as we lose the quirky quaintness we love about Greece, the Hoteliers would suffer and the Tour Operator would raise its prices initially to cover its losses before making mass redundancies in August and September ......... but then what are the alternatives:

1. Bulgaria for a 14 night AI deal for £350.00 pp - To eat boiled pigs fat and chips, with Mafioso Hoteliers, run the risk of inprisonment for a crime we did not commit, suffer the Bulgarian weather were if its raining dont worry as it might change to being dry but cold in the next 5 minutes.

2. Spain - To see the worst of British Youth, eat sausage and chips, have a real "Sunday Dinner" in the Union Jack British Pub, we may as well go to Blackpool

3. Turkey - Prices rocketing there too.

I wonder what would be the result if Stelios started doing flights at £30.00 return to Heraklion and Chania where accommodation was booked direct by the traveller? Would the Hoteliers/Owners hike up the prices for a 14 night stay?

I wonder what would happen if the small owners broke away from the owners of the big hotels and formed their own Union!

i will reply to your points from the end to the start.
the small owners or apts/hotels etc tried (at least here in Ag Nik) last year to form their own union in order to be able to ''puss'' things. they were told off from the big ones and along with some really nice political ''presure'' nothing happened as in theory that move would have split the spirit of a common interest in two which would have not been good for the local economy etc
So we should not keep our hopes on such things as there is always a way to stop them. If it took them 30 years to realise it i keep my hopes up that in another 10 years they will have make it happen.
I personally do not thing stelios will start such flights as he runs normal flights and not charter ones (different policies etc). besides it will cost lots just to get the right to land a plane in one airport. There was one poor guy that invested almost everything he had to send small charter planes from Germany to the airport in Sitia... You know the rest of the story. the greek goverment had said yes we will make the airport as it should for the planes to land and they never did. the guy had invested everything he had, sold out the flights and he was never able to take off from germany. eventually he was taken to court in Germany and now he is taking the greek goverment to court. once more lovely.
Regarding people not booking their holidays so as they will puss the TOs i dont see that happening. the message will never reach the public and if it does the TOs will fight back the losses by cutting the prices from the owners to make up the loss.
Spain-lovely country. wish i could go. I will not accept as a reason not to go, the young holiday makers, as those go everywhere regardless the country. in Greece alone we have 3 resorts for that tourism.
Turkey. another very interesting country with lovely beaches and things to see. well prices should go up as they invest and somehow they have to take back what they put in. still low prices tho.
Bulgaria. never been but it will be the hot spot in a few years along with the dalmatian resorts.
Regarding the policy of payments from TOs that is another story. stories like yours has happened and will happen again. the big ones make the money in which ever way they can and the small ones will not make any as always.