Booking Holidays Online

I have now booked another trip to Paleokastritsas, in May, with a company called Manos. I booked it online and it cost me £197.50 all in, the cheapest I could find for where I wanted to go.

But whilst looking for it I tried just about every site there is and came to the conclusion that most of them are a complete rip off. Now when you go to Manos, or any other their other sites, My Travel, Going places etc, or Thomsons, you put your dates in and where you want to go and you get a price. Unless you want to add inflight meals or buy their insurance then thats it, that is the price you pay.

But then you go to any of the others and it's a different story. You get your price then go to the next page and it's gone up. Then you go to the final page and it's gone up again.

Then you get a site like Thomas Cook. they search all the other operators as well. So you find the same Thomson or Manos holiday. And most of the time it costs more! If the holiday is the same price, very rare, then the extras are more. For example, Thomsons charge £17 for insurance. Book a Thomsons holiday through Thomas Cook and the insurance is £24!

And a lot of them don't include transfers at the other end. So even if the holiday looks cheaper, when you add a cab either way at the other end it works out dearer.

Then you get the guarantees. We guarantee we are cheaper etc. Well yes they are on the basic price of the holiday but by the time you get to the payment screen they are not. The two cheapest are Thomsons and any of the Manos, My Travel, Going Places group. Which is probably why they do give you the price up front!

It's a con, pure and simple. Unfortunately Thomas Cook have now bought out the Manos group so once it is all sorted the only way you are going to get the full price up front is with Thomsons.

Shouldn't this sort of crap be illegal?