If you're a student or just under 26, you can get some good deals (including Gap Year round-the-world tickets) via STA Travel, 36 George Street, +44 (0)1865 792800.
Fly Travel, 66 St Clements, tel. 202038 often has seasonal bargains worth looking at.
www.laterooms.com has bargain last-minute hotel deals in the UK and abroad.
Click here for current currency conversion rates.
The most recent addition to the world of cheap flights is www.opodo.co.uk which is the result of nine or so major airlines clubbing together in an attempt to undercut not only the competition, but also their own individual prices. Such is life post Sept 11th. Worth double checking with some of the below on European flights, as Opodo have no truck with discount firms who won't pay them commissions and hence may miss bargains. If the web is down, or you simply crave the sound of a human voice, they also have a 24 hour helpline: 0870 241 7051.
Next is the innovative procedure adopted by a company called Priceline (priceline.co.uk), who invite you to choose your destination and dates of travel and then make a bid of how much you're prepared to pay. They then shop around the airlines on your behalf and if your bid is accepted, lo and behold, cheap flights are yours!
Naturally, it isn't quite that simple. Airport taxes and Priceline's fee (£5) will be added to your bid. In addition, you are not allowed to specify flight times or preferred airlines.(They only deal with "World Class, full-service" airlines) Children's tickets are not available and frequent-flyer miles cannot be used. Furthermore your bid, once made, cannot be retracted-they have your credit card number and will use it! The only other major stumbling-block is the measure they have taken to prevent you, for example, starting at a fiver and inching your way upwards until accepted. To avoid this you are required to change a detail, such as a date, when returning with an improved bid.
Having said all this, it remains possible to find yourself a genuine bargain by this route. You are advised that homework is the key. Compare published and discount prices (perhaps using the Fare Compare system at expedia.co.uk ) for the route in question, then make a bid of just over half the lowest pre-tax fare and hope for the best. As of now (Feb 2001) the company are relatively new to Europe, hence accepting a few very low bids to generate word-of-mouth advertising.
Another site with similar intent is www.easyvalue.com , who likewise offer to shop around on your behalf, flights being just one of their many areas of expertise. At the time of writing (Oct 2001), they were experiencing technical trouble due to being swamped by excessive demand, so it might be advisable to give them a week or three.
First Resort Holidays UK offers Holidays, late deals, cheap flights. They have commercial deals with the tour operators i.e. Airtours, JMC, First Choice.
www.tnt-cheap-flights.com, offers information on cheap flights to and from a variety of locations within the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and beyond.
There remain, of course, other firms who offer discount travel. Popular recently are the internet-based, no-frills airlines such as Ryanair (ryanair.com), EasyJet (easyjet.com), Buzz (buzzaway.com) and Go (go-fly.com), who often have very low prices over particular time periods. Another is www.lastminute.com, which, as the name suggests, promises discounts for those able to travel at short notice.
www.skyscanner.net and www.travelsupermarket.com are two new price comparison sites, dealing with Europe only. The former offers a chart which can show you price changes over a whole month at a time, if your plans are suitably flexible.
For research purposes consider Kelkoo (kelkoo.com), who will search through a number of travel firms on your behalf. Other useful stops are discount travel agents such as cheapflights.co.uk, trailfinders.com, ebookers.com, dialaflight.com, telme.com and 1stnetflights.com. Additional companies such as bargainholidays.com, beachtowel.co.uk and www.travelcare.co.uk work by watching the tour operators to see when charter bargains become available.
As if that weren't enough, you might also wish to consider the travel auction sites: qxl.com, and lateescapes.com, all of which sell tickets to the highest bidder.
And if you want to hire a car when you arrive at your holiday destination, then consider the merits of www.holidayautos.co.uk, through whose site you can reserve your wheels, paperlessly, to await you anywhere on the globe.
Despite its length, this list makes no claim to be exhaustive. If you find another way to escape, please send us a postcard from your exotic destination bearing your comments and suggestions. We wish you a safe journey!
