Good – easy to use meta search tailored to your specific requirements with simultaneous search of standard and dynamic packages which delivered competitive prices

Bad - very little information about the accommodation or resort provided

Rating out of 10 – 9.5 This is how travel search should be – user friendly delivering results based on your criteria.

When I read that Holiday.co.uk claims to “find exactly what you want”, I thought I’d give it a test run to see if it lived up to that claim.

I decided to search for a Winter Sun holiday flying from Scotland for one week on 21 November 2008, plus or minus 7 days. I started off searching for a beach holiday with no destination specified. The cheapest holiday, a dynamic package ( where the flight and accommodation came from different suppliers) was £120 per person for flight and self catering studio at the 3 star Mediterraneo in Nerja, Spain. An upgrade to a one bedroom apartment with balcony took the price per person up to £165. The apartments receive pretty favourable reviews.

Nerja seafront by Sonti Malonti

I thought I’d compare prices with a couple of other suppliers. The cheapest offering from Travelsupermarket.com was £176 for a one bedroom apartment at the 2 star Vistamar in Benidorm. Reviews of the Vistamar were varied with a few reviews from hen/stag parties (enough to put me off).

I tried to get a price on Expedia and although I entered the dates in November it came up with options in July. When I returned to home page to start the search again, I noticed that I had to either select to search for a standard package or a dynamic package, when on Holiday.co.uk one search brought up results for standard packages and dynamic packages.

By that time I was fed up with Expedia so decided to try Holidaywarehouse.co.uk where I’ve found cheap holidays in the past. The cheapest option with them was a self catering standard package in Gran Canaria priced at £293 per person. However when I clicked through this came up as sold out, very annoying. Now I acknowledge that the weather will probably be warmer in the Canaries in November than in mainland Spain and it is a much longer flight which makes the holiday more expensive.

I have to say that I was very impressed with Holiday.co.uk. It did come up with the cheapest holiday with accommodation which is rated as reasonable in user generated reviews. I think I’d rather stay in Nerja than Benidorm, as Nerja iss not quite so touristy as Benidorm. Holiday.co.uk was the easiest and most detailed search to perform, out of four sites that I tried.

There are also further search options on Holiday.co.uk where you can search by keywords such as quiet, kids entertainment, history etc. You can also further refine your search by criteria such as average temperature, specific tour operator, board basis etc.

My only criticism is that there was not much information about the hotel, only a pretty brief description, one tiny photo and no reviews. However I don’t consider this to be a serious defect, as I always look for information and reviews on several different sites before I book accommodation.

So based on my trial run, I’d rate Holiday.co.uk as excellent, delivering on their claim to find exactly what I wanted, a cheap Winter Sun holiday, with the no hassle or laboured searching. This is how I want travel search to be, user friendly and with personalised results.

Have you used Holiday.co.uk, how would you rate it?