I think that's how it works when you ask a travel company to put together a holiday for you. They don't do it free.

Don't know if you are entitled to a price breakdown, others working in the travel industry might.

Peter

I find your post a little strange. Surely at the time of booking they went through what you were being supplied with and the cost per item. Flights were X Accommodation was Y and car hire Z.
If their figures were different to yours did you not question it at the time? Or are you saying that after the event you did a calculation that came out £500 less?

fwh

On the basis of the information that you provide, I can't see that you'll get anywhere with this. I have regularly used companies that provide customised/tailormade packages and they have rarely provided a breakdown of the costs. I tell them what I want, they quote a total price and I decide whether I think it's a fair price to pay and then either book or don't book. In deciding whether to book with them or not I have sometimes priced up a DIY package for myself in order to get an idea of whether what they are quoting looks like good value or not. I don't know whether if you had asked in advance of making the booking whether Virgin would have provided you with a breakdown or not but now that you have booked and entered into a contract with them, I doubt that they are under any obligation to provide you with one now. They quoted you a price, you accepted it and made the booking and I don't think that there is really anything that you can do about it now having realised after the event that you could have booked it all separately yourself and saved £500. If they offered you some sort of price-matching guarantee then you might be able to negotiate some sort of refund but I ahve never come across those sort of guarantees with tailormade packages.

I would usually expect there to be a mark-up between what my costings came to and their quote because they are after all running a business and need to cover their costs and make a profit. Virgin's mark-up of £500 in this instance will be covering amongst possibly other items:

- The staff time and associated costs in putting together the holiday package for you,
- A proportion, however, small of the overall business overheads including office premises etc and other 'backroom' staffing costs,
- The cost of support and assistance from Virgin that you will be entitled to in the event of problems whilst on holiday,
- A proportion of the cost of their ATOL bonding that protects you in the event of them going bust.

Avoiding paying for the cost of above is one of the reasons why going DIY can save us as consumers a lot of money but saving that money also means that if things go wrong we are are usually left on our own to deal with the consequences. Only you can decide whether you are prepared to take the respective risks - ie do you want to pay what seems at first glance an over the odds price for your holiday and receive peace of mind in exchange and the benefit of their knowledge and expertise or do you want to save cash and accept the risk of having to go it alone in the event of problems?

Weighing up these things means that when doing the annual trip family trip to La Gomera in the Canaries I do a fully DIY job - I know the island well, book the same apartment direct every year and know my way round the low cost airlines booking systems to ensure that we get decent flights at a decent price. On the otherhand, I've never gone DIY to Cuba and instead hand over the arrangements to one or other of 2 companies that I know are charging me more than a true DIY would cost but which provide a level of support and expertise that I consider worth paying for and still represents value for money for what I get in return. I would imagine that I would get (and deserve) short shrift from them if I expected to only pay what I could do a DIY for but still expect them to provide the 'value added' service that comes with booking a tailormade package from them.

SM

If your fly drive holiday was booked as a 'package' you won't get a breakdown. A package is only such when it is quoted at an inclusive price - no breakdown for different components, irrespective of whether it's straight from a brochure or put together for you.

Yes - you cannot get a breakdown as an ATOL bonded holiday has to be shown as a 'package' price.

Also, airlines offer IT (Inclusive Air) flight prices that are cheaper / more flexible that the normal flight prices you and me might book to Tour Operators on the condition that the flight price is never revealed - it has to be 'packaged' with other components (i.e. hotel, car hire).

This does not apply to all airlines, and all routes, but it applies to all Virgin flights to all US & Asian destinations.

You will not get a price breakdown unfortunately.

Can I ask if you checked the price after you'd booked it or before?

if you mean you did the maths on a list of items that appeared in a Virgin pricelist/brochure and it looks like they added it up wrong you would have a complaint that ought to be answered. Presumably if this was a tailor made holiday then this process has occurred at some point.

But if you simply found out what you could have paid by booking direct then that's life! Virgin can charge whatever they like as long as that is the price you agreed before they took your money.

I always assumed packages to be lower than DIY We generally always DIY but have recently booked a cruise with Virgin because we almost lost our cruise last year when BA went on strike. A lesson to be learnt....dump the Tour companies and browse the web, lots of good hotel booking sites.

I'd always recommend comparing DIY and Packages as there is no hard and firm rule.

If you exclude one option, you exclude the possibility of saving money.