Cheap travel offers for
France : tips and warnings
Cheap.
Or not so cheap? Don't
be taken in !!
Survey reveals "cheap ferry" scam
"Cheap ferries?" Don't be fooled by Internet
sites offering "cheap" ferries; they may not be as cheap as
they
seem, they may well not reflect all the special offers that
the
ferry companies have on their own websites, and they may even charge
inflated rates.
About-France.com recently
checked the cost of a number of cross-Channel standard return
trips, getting quotes for identical journeys offered on the ferry
company sites and on eightprominent internet sites
supposedly offering cheap ferries. None
of these Internet sites offered any
of the journeys we checked for a price lower than the actual ferry
company itself; in other words, none
were offering discounted ferry tickets. On the contrary two
of
the eight sites supposedly offering "cheap" crossings actually charged more
than the ferry companies themselves. One of these supposedly "cheap
ferry" sites was indeed more expensive than any of the other sites
tested for five out of six of the journeys for which quotes were
obtained. Moral of the story: you're certainly no worse off,
and
may well get better bargains, by booking directly on Ferry company websites .
About-France.com
survey carried out in Feb. 2010. Quotations for six different standard
cross-Channel return journeys operated by three different ferry
companies were obtained from eight prominent online booking sites and
from the operators themselves. The journeys tested ranged in time from
Spring to Summer 2010. A new test in 2011 produced similar results.
There
are hundreds of sites out on the Internet, claiming to
offer you the "cheapest
fares",
the "best deals", the "lowest costs", and the best special offers. But
don't be taken in! Agencies and resellers will offer you special deals,
maybe, but since they are only offering what the airlines and the ferry
companies are offering in the first place, there's a fair chance that
you may end up paying more than necessary for your trip. A lot of
"cheapest deals" are certainly
not what they claim to be, and "low cost" airline tickets and ferry
tickets can be considerably more expensive than necessary, when booked
through a third-party site than when booked
directly.
For instance, there are plenty of "cheap
travel" or "travel bargains" sites that only
propose flights, ferries, packages and hotel rooms from operators who
pay them a commission. They simply fail to mention services provided by
other operators, that may be cheaper, but on which they do not get a
commission.
And if you're wanting to book a flight last minute,
take note! Seats with so called "low cost" carriers may well turn out
to be more expensive than with established airlines. Whether you're
booking seats to France, Spain, Italy or wherever, the same is true.
In many cases, particularly
for ferries and hotels, but sometimes for flights too, you'll find that
the
best prices can be had by booking directly with
the operator (see below for direct
links
to operators websites), and by doing so as early as possible.
And
if you book directly, then there's no chance of losing your booking
when some internet booking agency goes bust, as happened last year with
more than one....
Don't be fooled by the "50% discount"
scam ! What does 50%
off actually mean?.... 50% off what?
You can find plenty of "cheap hotel" sites on Internet offering such
apparent bargains as "up to 50% off".... or even more. But read the
small print; it's "up to
50%" ! not "50%"! That could mean just 5%.... or nothing at all.
Sometimes hotel reseller sites will offer you "50% off full room
rates"..... forgetting to mention that in fact the "full room rate" (or
rack rate) only applies at the busiest time of the year, and then only
to people who turn up at the door for a last-minute booking. Otherwise,
no one pays it !
Of course it does happen that sometimes you may
get a special deal from an Internet booking site, better than you can
get anywhere else. Internet portals use "loss leaders" to attract
customers in the same way as supermarkets do; but the chances are that
this will not be the case.
Book
direct and cut out the middleman
Bying direct from the operator (ferry, hotel, etc) means cutting out
the middleman, and is often the best
solution, in terms of price and reliability. There's no risk of being
left stranded by some travel website that goes bust between the time
they take your money, and the time they issue your ticket.
In the list below, you will find direct links to
cross-Channel
ferry and transport sites, and to the sites of some of the main hotel
chains in France. Click the links, and you'll get taken directly to the
operator's own website, where you can check out their special offers
and book
directly, at their prices.
Book
directly with the operators.... Ferry
companies and Channel tunnel service operators
Eurotunnel
(Putting your car on the train from Folkestone to Calais)
Eurostar
(Train service from London to Paris or Brussels)
The most
convenient means of travelling by train from London to
Provincial France is to
take the Eurostar (click for prices) from
London, Ebbsfleet or Ashford to Lille, and connect at Lille
to a French TGV. There are direct TGV connections from Lille to a large
number of French towns and cities, including Bordeaux, Rennes, Nantes,
Dijon, Besançon, Avignon, Aix en Provence, Marseilles,
Montpellier, Perpignan or Nice. By changing at Lille, travellers do not
need to change stations and haul their luggage across Paris. At Lille
Europe station, Eurostar trains from London and Brussels use the same
platforms as French TGVs going all over France.
The Rail
Europe
booking form on the left allows you to book your European rail journey
from London, Paris or other major European locations. If the departure
city or destination you are looking for does not come up in the
roll-down menus of the booking form, click on the link below for
further options and offers.
