The answer is in the phrase up to £500 off some holidays. Problem is they are never the ones you want or look at. If like me you only go in hotels and the discount is off self catering then it is no good.

It is not only TOs - it is the same with all businesses. Asda might have 4,000 lower prices than Tesco but that does not say they are the things you buy.

fwh

Mmm it's clever advertising on their part, and probably gets people through the doors to book, and agree not just down to thomson and the like think of DFS with its endless sales.

its back to the same old adage up to ????? could be anything off..... WHAT normally the brochure price the same applies to 50% off OFF WHAT

I came up against this many times when in business our normal price was say £100 and a competitor would offer 30% off on a fly sheet but it didn't say off their one off list price which could be say £150 which would be £105 all they ever see is XXX OFF and they still assume the general public is thicker than 3 short planks let alone 2 [unfortunately many are] but the vast majority are now becoming savvy to these tactics...

if you are offered £xxx or ZZ% off always ask off what price, in many cases it will be the same as the normal [not list] price but with larger companies it could be a lot higher and unfortunately in the holiday industries it usually is

Brian

Think you should go in and ask, waht holidays have the £500 of, as this is the one you want to book

If they dont have any, tell them you going to call trading standards, from the shop

I think holidays are like everything else. You just have to look at the bottom line of what you pay. If you do that its not to difficult to work out who to book with.

Same with comparing say a ryanair flight to a thomson flight. Add all the gubbins in and then look at the bottom line on both products and go for what suits you best.

I don't really take much notice of 'sales' they dont mean anything these days.

Doe

FWH

It does not say upto £500 off some holidays but all summer holidays with extra savings off June and July holidays

Its impossible for the consumer to see if they are getting a genuine saving.

The other thing what annoys me, say turkey, 10% off selected holidays, the selected holidays do they even exist, try and find one, the tour op doesn't have a special page showing the holidays with a 10% saving. They have a page showing late deals.

Its misleading the consumer and there plenty of people who are duped into thinking they got a saving when what they have paid is the normal holiday price. I have seen it on here somebody looking for a value holiday and somebody posts look at thomsons they are offering £200 off a couple.

It's a marketing ploy, thats all it is, to get people through the doors.

Like in one shop, they say 20% off selected items, its 20% of the RRP not the price they usually sell it at so in the end you may only get £1 off instead of say £2.

It's the same with free child places etc, the child is not normally free, the adult price has been inflated to cover the cost of the child and then you have an under occupancy supplement so quite often, the child isn't exactly free, it is a marketing tatic that make people think they are getting something for nothing when they are not.

There are very few genuine sales to be had, for example, today i was in boots looking at the suncream and it was buy one get one free, looked at what they had and thought i can get it just as cheap in wilkinsons without the offer, so really, its not buy one get one free in my eyes.

Ta

I have no doubt that they will have had at least one holiday with the saving they claim. They are well aware of the consequences if they do not. The way in which they advertise puts the responsibility on you to find it.

Many years ago we quoted discounts as -25% -20% -10% -5% which is a total discount of 48.7% - strange thing was people actually thought they were getting 55% - they added up the numbers.

When I got a quote for car insurance earlier this year I was told they were giving me 12 months for the price of 10. I asked them to prove it. They could not because again it was a marketing ploy.

I do wonder at the way in which they teach maths these days if so many are falling for the hype. You do not get anything for nothing.

fwh

A simlar example recently was British Airways offering a "buy one get one free" on business class seats. On the face of it looked a good deal, however I read in a couple of forums of people who had priced certain flights before this so called sale and the price after the sale were exactly the same.