Booking online Package deals

Which? Archive

This article, Booking online, was last updated on 11 May 2007 and is now out of date and held in our online archive for reference. Explore our latest Money articles.

Book a package deal without a travel agent

Booking a package holiday online is easy - you can look at brochures, pick your resort, choose your hotel, and buy your package, all without visiting a travel agent.

A good website should...

• Give you flexible search options
• Let you sort the results how you want
• Show accurate prices upfront
• Offer named accommodation
• Have lots of information about the resort and hotel
• Let you create your own e-brochure

If you don’t have time to search yourself, why not let the holidays come to you? On many travel websites, such as travelsupermarket.com, you can sign up for email bulletins advertising last-minute deals and bargain breaks.

There are essentially two approaches to searching for a package online. You can still go down the traditional route of looking through brochures to find your ideal resort, or you can simply look at what’s available at the time you want to go away.

Brochures

View your brochures online at Thomson

Many tour operators’ websites include electronic versions of their paper brochures, so if you get inspired looking through glossy brochures, you can now do it online – and once you’ve picked your holiday, you can book it on the same website.

Thomson and Thomas Cook's websites both include a facility to create your own e-brochure that is automatically emailed to you. So if you only want Gran Canaria, you get just those pages – plus the small print, of course! Thomson’s website also has plenty of internet extras, such as customer reviews and short video clips of resorts and some hotels.

If you want to browse through more than one operator’s brochures on a single site, go to onlinetravelbrochures.com – however, when it comes to booking, you’ll still need to visit the operator’s own site.

Searches

Many travel websites (see 'Booking tips'), offer a range of package holidays in addition to flights and hotels. Such websites act as intermediaries, using their own specialist search engines to trawl through a multitude of other websites on your behalf.

You can make your search as broad or as narrow as you like – eg ‘All summer sun destinations’ or ‘All Greece’ or just ‘Corfu’. If the site you use doesn’t have much information about the resorts and hotels, go to the relevant tour operator’s website for full details before you book.

The better tour operators’ websites also allow you to search by price and hotel category, but nearly all of them only offer their own holidays. Thomas Cook does show rivals’ packages, but you have to click on ‘More great holidays’ to see them.

Booking

Read brochures carefully and be wary of sites that don't show room photos

The booking process on most websites is fairly straightforward, but at each stage double check the details. It can be easy to misread flight times or type the wrong surnames.

Discounts Most websites offer online discounts over the brochure price, but deals like free child places may not always come up automatically.

Board basis You’ll be offered everything from self-catering to all-inclusive – make sure you only end up paying for what you need.

Supplements Things like under-occupancy, sea-view rooms, weekend flights or single travellers usually incur an (often hefty) extra charge. Some are optional, but you may have to remove them yourself. For example, in-flight meals are often included by default; if you don’t want them, you will have to ‘un-tick’ a box to remove them from your bill.

Information Read the brochure descriptions carefully and be wary of sites that don’t show room photos or even tell you which hotel you’ll be in. For honest hotel and resort write-ups worldwide, visit Virgin Media's travel website, or see ‘Accommodation’ for our recommended websites. If anything isn’t clear, always phone the tour operator for clarification before booking.

Last-minute checklist

• Do the flight times suit you?
• Are you charged extra for in-flight meals?
• Are transfers to your hotel included?
• Have you seen a picture of a typical hotel bedroom?
• Is it self-catering or are meals, including breakfast, part of the deal?
• Are there any supplements to pay?