Europe a la Carte Blog

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Has travel insurances gone bananas? Well Quotebanana.co.uk appear to think that a zany name is going to attract buyers of travel insurance with a strapline of “Don’t monkey around, pick the best of the bunch”. I hesitate to call Quotebanana a price comparison site as it predominately features insurance companies which are part of the AA group of companies. However I decided to give it a go for annual travel insurance in Europe for a couple. The cheapest quote of £59.10 was with Only Insurance.

I did a search with Direct-Travel.co.uk, from whom I purchased our European annual policy and it was priced at £46.  The morale of the story - it’s always worth shopping around on more than one site and checking exactly what is covered by a policy, payout limits and excesses.

photo by Darren Hester

Having just booked some of my autumn holidays and enjoying Karen’s review on holiday.co.uk, I just realised that my preferred airline ticketing website is probably a bit obscure to many of our readers. Having lived in the Netherlands for many years, I have picked up a trick or two from the locals about getting a deal, and the website Cheaptickets.nl was probably one of the best tips I took with me to Edinburgh. Lucky for you, the website is now available in English but with the same great fares as before. Keep in mind, fares are quoted in Euros so be mind full of the ever-fluctuating currency rates, as noted in Karen’s recent post about the drop in the value of sterling against the Euro encouraging more Eurolanders to visit the UK

Rome Awaits - Copyright Andrew Hayes

Good

• Seamless displays of traditional airlines as well as low cost carriers, excellent for those localised services that you might not even be aware of
• Consistently competitive fares (although it wouldn’t be on here otherwise, right?)

Bad

• Not able to select individual flights and recalculate fare
• ‘Deals’ section highlighting destinations with super-low fares that are actually available don’t always apply to your home airport

Rating out of 10: 9

If you are worried about the Euros, you can at at least use the site to get a feeling for the flight schedules and airlines available for your journey. I have found flight options here that did not readily appear on other sites.

I tried a search for an Edinburgh-Rome return ticket for the first week of October. As fares rise and fall on a constant basis, you might have different results, but mine included:

- eBookers.com: from £219

- Expedia.co.uk: from £204

- Cheaptickets.nl: from £197 (1 GBP = 1.25 EUR)

So, not saving a huge amount in this instance, but if you really need to squeeze your pennies, it is always good to have another option. Do you know of other country-specific travel portals with great fares or good travel information that are translated in English?

Roman Vines - Copyright Andrew Hayes

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?

I’ve often thought it would be great to have a social news site solely for travel and here it is Travel off the Cuff. On a social news network like Digg or Stumbleupon readers can submit articles that they like and members of the social news site can vote on the articles that they like.  Articles with a lot of votes are listed near the top of the page.  Travel off the Cuff’s founder, Mark writes a blog about his travel experiences for the site.

I like the ethos of the site that you can have a “great trip without having to plan every minute of the day”. Of course there is planning involved in putting together your trip. I believe that you should leave time for spontaneity and wandering around, not have an itinerary that is so crammed that you end not seeing anything properly as you dash around. I hope that the articles on the site will encourage this attitude to travelling.

I’ll be visiting Travel off the Cuff over the next few weeks to vote and comment on stories that appeal to me and submitting stories which I think deserve some publicity.

If you fancy yourself as a budding cinematographer here’s your opportunity to showcase your work and win a holiday to the European destination of your choice in the “My favourite European video contest“. The contest is only open to US residents aged 18 of over with a closing date of 1 October 2008. The maximum length of video is three minutes. Your video should tell a compelling story shot during your travels in Europe, whether that be humourous, romantic or melodramatic.

The European Travel Commission chose CompulsiveTraveler.tv to host the contest. CompulsiveTraveler.tv features “videos for travelers by travelers” to inform, educate and entertain viewers. I thought that the videos I watched were pretty high quality.

One of the conclusions of the recent live blog I hosted was that videos are becoming an increasing important feature of travel websites as visitors like to see destinations in 3D. I’ll certainly be using ComplusiveTraveler.tv videos were appropriate on my Europe a la Carte site. It’s really easy and quick to upload the videos to your site or blog, you just need to register on the CompulsiveTraveler.tv site, select the video you wish to feature and then copy and paste the code. Below is the video, “Monet in Normandie”.

When I was reading the Twitter updates of my friends in the travel sector I came across a link to Travel Alltop a collection of stories from all the top travel sites and blogs in the web.  Well imagine my delight when I spotted the Europe a la Carte blog near the top of the page, in the left hand position of the second row.

What I really like about the site, apart from the fact that my blog is prominently listed in a collection of around 60 travel blogs and sites, is that I can click on the headline of the feed headlines and read the first few sentences of the post and then click if I want to read the whole post.  I think that this is great, as it means I can skim through all the latest travel content on a daily basis.

There are loads of other categories too such as wine, food and photography. So if you want to have a single source to the top stories on your favourite topic Alltop.com is for you.

Airlinedestinations.co.uk aims to help you find which airlines fly which routes from every UK airport. The site claims to be an independent, impartial, money saving guide, assisting you in finding the cheapest and/or the most convenient flight to meet your requirements, listing all flights with all airlines from all UK airports. It can be time consuming and confusing trying to work out how best to fly from A to B, so any resource which makes this simpler and quicker is a bonus.

You can search for flights from UK regions such as Scotland or north east England. Personally I’d rather be able to search from a specific airport such as Edinburgh or Newcastle as well as the regions. I live in between Newcastle and Edinburgh so like to be able to compare destinations available and prices between these 2 airports as flights from Aberdeen or Leeds Bradford aren’t of interest to me.

I decided to test the site for flights from Scotland to Germany. In the listing it said that German Wings fly from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Cologne-Bonn but instead of linking to the German Wings site it was an affiliate link to ebookers. German Wings only fly from Edinburgh. There were direct links to the Ryanair, Flybe and Easyjet sites for several destinations such as Berlin and Bremen.

I’d say that airlinedestinations is a useful resource from which to start your flight search to list the possible airlines with which you can fly. However if you are flying with an airline other than a low cost carrier such as Ryanair or Easyjet, where you can only book directly on the airlines own site, you should have a look around several sites to find the cheapest fares. I would dispute airlinedestinations claim to be a money saving guide as they don’t offer a flight price comparison facility.

Have you used the site, how did you find it?

I’m looking for a hotel for a weekend break in Lake District at the end of February. My husband had mentioned the Shap Wells hotels near Penrith, which is part of the Best Western group. I did a search for Best Western hotels in the Lake District & Cumbria. Best Western guarantee that you’ll find the cheapest hotel rates on their site. I found a room at the Shap Wells Hotel with breakfast for only £45 on the Great Getaways B&B rate where you can cancel up to 48 hours before arrival without penalty. The hotel receives good guest reviews.

Shap Wells Hotel

There is an advance booking option where the payment is non refundable. For our dates the advance non refundable booking option was £40.50 for room only, the flexible rate, where you cancel up to the day of arrival cost £45 for room only, the advance purchase B&B was £55 and the flexible rate B&B cost £61.

Strangely, on a search for “All Rates” and “Best Available Rates”, the advance purchase rate of £40.50 didn’t appear. I’d to change the search option to “Advance Purchase Rates” to view that option. So if you want to see all the booking options you need to try using a few different search criteria.

Beware of confusion and double check before you make the booking, as I initially booked the flexible room rate instead of the Great Getaway B&B rate as they both cost £45.  The flexible rate room appeared on my search for best available and I clicked book without checking carefully.

I checked the prices for the Shap Wells on the HotelsCombined price comparison site and Hotel.com came up with the £40.50 advance purchase room only, £45 flexible room only and the £61 flexible B&B but not the Great Getaway at £45 for B&B.

If you’re looking for great rates you check out Best Western UK Hotels website. My experience reinforces my advice that you use a hotel price comparison site in conjunction with the hotel’s own website to ensure that you find the best rate.

It can be pretty difficult and time consuming to find a good hotel online. We’ve all been there trawling through lists, wondering which hotel to book. Yes you can shop on price alone with price comparison sites such as HotelsCombined but most of us would like to book something of reasonable quality too. This is where Skoosh comes to the rescue, aiming to take away the risk of booking a dodgy hotel.

Every hotel on their database has been personally visited with a description added alongside guest reviews. Only guests who stayed at the establishment and booked through Skoosh can enter a review. Hotels which consistently receive good reviews are awarded “Tried & Tested” status. You can specify only to view these hotels during your search.

You do have to pay upfront when you make the booking and cancellation policies vary.

I’ve used Skoosh and I found a really low price for good accommodation. They have some early booking and free nights offers. Skoosh was awarded 5 stars by the Good Web Guide and 4 stars by Web User. I like their site as it’s simple and easy to navigate.

Pontins have been offering seaside family holidays in the UK since the company was founded by Fred Pontin in 1946. They have seven holiday centres in the UK. Blackpool and Pakefield in Suffolk offer half board holidays. The five other centres, Prestatyn Sands in North Wales, Brean Sands in Somerset, Southport, Helmsley in Norfolk and Camber Sands in Sussex, have self catering accommodation.

The website has information about each of the holiday centres, such as accommodation options with floor plans of the apartments, centre facilities, activities and nearby attractions for days out.

Pontins have some great deals on UK breaks with half price offers on self catering holidays. There are also free child places available on selected dates on half board holidays. You can claim a free two night Euro 2008 break between 2 - 29 June if you book any Summer holiday or short break. However be aware that you have to pay a £30 booking fee for the Euro short break but you will receive £30 of Pontins voucher when you check in. If you book a Schools Out or Summer break you qualify for half price festive breaks. You must book before the end of February 2008 to be eligible for the offers.

I carried out several searches on the site and there was good availability for half price holidays. You can only carry out a search by holiday centre, month and length of stay. I’d have liked to see a date specific search where you could search several different holiday centres simultaneously, so you could easily compare prices at the various centres.

I was pretty irked when I clicked on the “50 Free Activities” bar in the left margin and every activity which came up on page one was subject to an additional charge. This is misleading for potential guests. I think most people realise that activities such as go-karting and quad bikes will be subject to a charge but why list them in free activities? Better to have two categories, one for free activities and one for charged activities. A fair number of activities are free such as indoor swimming pool, table tennis, cabaret shows, play station area, indoor soft play areas. You need to check the availability of activities at each holiday centre.

I do think that Pontins offer good value for UK holiday breaks. Their website is fairly easy to use, although the addition of a general site search box and a more flexible holiday date search facility would be useful.