Is it worth putting together a pickage holiday?
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Pickage holidays sometimes called dynamic packaging or DIY holidays are when you put together your own trip instead of buying it as a package. I decided to give this option a try for my “traitor to the cause” November Winter sun holiday to Fuertaventura in the Canaries. In the past we’ve just purchased a package holiday for Winter sun as it seemed as cheap and much simpler. However I found a hotel on the On the Beach site which offered a one bed sea view apartment on half board for around £250 and had reasonable reviews on several sites. I thought it would be great to have an apartment rather than just a bedroom. The accommodation was actually supplied by Medhotels and I was surprised that the same accommodation cost £275 on the Medhotels site.
I went to a couple of travel agents but none of them had this hotel available as a package so decided to put together our holiday.
I thought I should book the flight first so found the cheapest charter flights, £284 for the two of us, on Travelsupermarket.com. I was very careful to spell our names exactly as on our passports. That all went smoothly and I printed the tickets within minutes of paying.
I attempted to book the apartment straight away on the On the Beach site. I put in my credit card details and nothing happened, no booking reference, no confirmation. I assumed that perhaps I’d entered my credit card details incorrectly so tried again, still nothing. At this stage I began to panic slightly, thinking what if I’ve booked the accommodation twice. I emailed On the Beach and 24 hours later they got back to me to say that they had no record of my booking,
I checked the price again on the On the Beach site and it was now coming up at almost £300 for the accommodation so I booked with Medhotels which was still priced at £275.
One important point to note is that you don’t have the same level of protection if you assemble a pickage holiday compared to booking a package holiday. One way to protect yourself is to use your credit card to pay for any purchases made over £100 and to purchase travel insurance from a company such as 1Stop Travel Insurance which includes cover for dynamic packaging.
At the moment my answer to the question, “is it worth putting together a pickage holiday?” is yes but with some reservations. The cost of flights and accommodation is £560 and travel agents did quote similar prices but all the hotels they offered had pretty negative reviews and the half board options were based a twin bedroom rather than a one bed apartment. However by going down the pickage route I was able to book my preferred accommodation with more space at a similar price. If my initial booking with On the Beach had gone through smoothly the whole process would have been pretty painless but I was worried for a day that I’d paid twice for accommodation. At least when you book with a travel agent you know there and then that your accommodation in booked.
What’s been your experience of putting together a pickage holiday?
October 4th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Is it worth putting together a pickage holiday?…
Is it worth the time and effort of putting together your own pickage holiday rather than buying a package holiday. A look at the pros and cons….
October 7th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
[...] of Travelsupermarket they did find the cheapest flights from Manchester to Feurteventura for my pickage holiday in November, saving me around £28 on two return tickets from the price quoted by [...]
October 12th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
[...] strange thing is that the charter flights I booked with flythomascook.co.uk for our pickage holiday are covered by ATOL. Therefore if the airline goes bust before we fly we’ll be reimbursed and [...]
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:51 pm
[...] I wonder is how soon? I’m hoping it will be in the next couple of weeks before we go on our pickage holiday. I like to take a capsule wardrobe on board with me, just in case my luggage is lost, so [...]
November 6th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
[...] as I had a problem in the last couple of months trying to book accommodation with On the Beach when arranging a DIY holiday to the Canaries. I thought I’d booked the accommodation twice in error, as when nothing [...]
November 7th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
[...] the cost of the flight is a determining factor is whether it is worthwhile putting together you own pickage or DIY holiday. There seems to be a great choice of low cost accommodation available in most [...]
December 5th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
[...] want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!We spent the last week of November 2007 on DIY holiday in Fuerteventra. We like going on a Winter sun holiday at this time to get some sunshine in the [...]
December 5th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
[...] do they actually save by spending all this time online? I know when I did my research for my recent DIY holiday I was looking for value for money but also a one bed apartment on half board, so we’d have [...]
December 5th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
[...] Onthebeach within 24 hours, when I didn’t know if my online booking for accommodation for our DIY holiday in Fuerteventura had been [...]
October 28th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Hi,
I have been for the last few years (since 2001) i have booked my flights and hotels and transfer seperatly. it does take time but if you spend enough time searching and after a some time you will know when and where to look for the cheapest deals on flights and hotels and transfers. i have used online companies to make all my bookings…. and always check for previou experience i used sites such as http://www.holidayguardian.com.
October 29th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Renaldo - thanks for your comment, I do usually put together my own holidays and always read some reviews.