Cheap flights to spain

Hey Val, look here

(Just posted this elsewhere, but thought it may be more approriate here. Sorry if this has already been discussed - I haven't read all this thread.)

easyJet pricing works on the basis of the more popular a particular flight, the more the price goes up. Everyone knows that. But, how many people know how they determine the popularity of a particular flight? Ask Justin how this works, but it seems that it's not, as I previously thought, based purely on how many seats have already been booked, but on how many enquiries are made at any given time. I tried booking a flight online yesterday, and had a problem with my card details. The website instructed me to "return to step 4 and try again", which I did, twice, encountering the same problem. On the third attempt, I noticed the price had gone up £20 - in the space of 5 minutes or so! I got p*ssed off to say the least, and had to go outside to cool off with a cold beer. I returned for a final (successful) attempt about 3 hours later, and lo and behold, the price had gone down again!

I haven't tried this yet, but maybe the best time to book is something like 4 in the morning, when nobody is enquiring?!

well thats interesting Roberto .... im going to have a look and see whether there's any difference ... that seems a very odd way to do it, especially as they have that pricing policy thingy that someone was talking about earlier!

Will let you know what happens!

 p.s Val, your glittery name looks lovely!

Had another look at Easyjet website and they are still looking for £300 for 2 return flights (newcastle to alicante) so i will stick with the others (since im not as rich as Bobaol!)

When i started looking Easyjet cost was £230 - its went up £70 while i surfed!

Hi

I think its the luck of the draw. We have been using Jet2 from Leeds to Murcia because that's the one that goes to Murcia from South Yorkshire. We did try Doncaster but the txes were pretty huge so gave up on that. Manchester is ok but quite a long drive from where we are.

We have booked with BMI to Alicante in January for £142 for the 2 of us & are going to try Easyjet in March, got those for £118, one flight had actually gone down by £5. My daughter is looking at Jet2 for August & managed less than £400 for 4 people. So I think its down to chance.

Good luck, hope you touch lucky.

Eileen

Going to Almeria [ near Mojacar] next Feb

Just booked 27/02/08  from Liverpool [ Ryan Air] to Granada [ drive time circa 2-1/2 hrs] ..for 2 weeks

Price 1p but with high UK tax and 1 bag  for each of us & CC cost

Paying £85.18 for 2

Not bad!!

Hi,

Last week i got the cheapest flights so far,booked with Ryanair,East Midlands-Murcia return flights Jan 24-30th ,it cost me £17 including taxes etc(£10 going out,€10 coming back) INCREDIBLE!!!! Keep it up low cost airlines

Regards

Lynda

Linda - That is a good deal, the last time I booked 1p flight with Ryanair a return flight worked out around £23 from Stanstead and that was before the additional departure tax we now have to pay.

Don't know if they have abolished it or if it only applies to Stanstead but they used to list the taxes which included a £7.50 wheelchair tax.  Times that by the number of people flying, when I flew it was a full flight, so good profit to be had.  Plus the fact that they will only take a minimum number of disabled passengers.

Just went to book a BMIBaby flight from East Midlands in December.  Flights are reasonable (£57 each return including taxes etc) but the cost of a hold bag is now £9.98 per bag.  That's £19.96 for two bags!!!!! What is going on?  Is this the new milch cow for airlines to rip us off for even more??  I know they don't do it for free anymore, but that's a 100% increase on the prices they charged in August !!!! Easyjet bag prices are cheaper but the flight costs are £15 each more.

And they both charge for booking by credit card and debit card.  As they are both internet booking companies, how the hell else am I expected to pay?  I can't shove the extra fiver down the phone line, no matter how hard I try.

I hear some of the airports are charging extra so you can go through the "fast lane" security checks.  This means you'll get into the overpriced cafe earlier and spend more money in the shops buying bottled water for £1.50 because they don't let you take it through security in the first place.  What next?  Will they be charging us for the privilege of being searched at security?  Or how about a quick fiver to clean your shoes they make you take off before before being searched? 

Why don't they just tell us what the price is before going through the booking process and adding on all these extra "luxuries" like bags to carry your clothes in.  The Easyjet boss says he can go on holiday for a fortnight with just hand luggage.  Yeah, right Stelios.  Just as long as I don't have to sit next to you on the plane back.  Being a man, I can do with one pair of undies for a week (two weeks if I turn them inside out) but the Missus gets through half the stock of M&S per week!  And how am I supposed to bring back all the booze and fags in hand luggage?  Not worth going without getting them.

Huh.  Grumpy old man now going to try and find non-rip off airline company.  Not holding my breath.

Bobaol

By the sound of your posts over the last few days, you need that holiday!!!

I didn't think Stelios (that's "Sir Stelios" to you & me) was Mr Easyjet any more??

It is getting to be a bit of a joke with all these add ons & I agree about the charge for payment - it's not like you have a choice.

Unfortunately, we are flying to Almeria with Ryanair in 2 weeks time, not looking forward to the journey at all, but they were just too cheap!!!

Noreen

Mentioned it on another thread, but relevant to this one: my partner was booked to fly Malaga to Liverpool & back last weekend with easyJet, but the outbound flight was cancelled (but only after they kept everyone guessing for nearly 8 hours!) Fortunately, a mere 40 minutes on the phone to easyJet in Luton on Monday morning secured a refund for both outward and (now useless) return flight. They did ask if she would be still using the return flight, which was quite amusing really.

Now, considering they are, as Bobaol says, an "internet booking company", isn't it a little curious that you can only obtain said refund by phone? And guess what? Those sneaky little €2.20 debit card charges aren't refunded - only the cost of the flight itself! Luckily, they don't charge again for crediting your account - yet. Surely only a matter of time before someone notices this obvious opportunity.

To add insult to injury, this week I received an e-mail from an independent market research company carrying out a survey on behalf of easyJet. It began thus: "Our records show that you recently flew with easyJet, and we would be grateful for your feedback on how well you think we performed."

Arghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone know when BMIbaby are scheduled to release their summer 08 flights?

Also has anyone else had the nightmare with XL flights that have aparently cancelled their daily Summer 08 flight to Malaga from Manchester, just 6 weeks after releasing the flight times and prices onto the web,

Having used skyscanner.net to determine the prices we found XL to be about £20 per passenger cheaper than Monarch at that time, so went ahead and booked 2 one way seats seats at a total cost of £86 inc taxes.

How annoying to then get a call to say we were being refunded as the flight was cancelled. On checking all other flights for the past 7 days we have just had to bite the bullet and book with Monarch at the vastly inflated cost of £190 for 2.

What really gauls me is that we all know that XL have really just sold all their seats at too lower yield, so by cancelling and we know that they will not have cancelled their flight schedule with manchester Airport, they will put these seats back on resale in 6 months time at £100 a seat saying that demand had forced them to look at extra flights to malaga again.

What can we do about this blatant rip off?

I for one will not be using XL ever again, i'd rather pay a little more and know that i'm going to get there on time/.    

Last year BMI were advertising Summer 2007 flights in September 2006, so they are quite a bit later this year.

I assume that because they've raised Winter 2007-08 fares so much that they are holding back flights for next Summer. Last Christmas and New Year we paid £85 each for 2 weeks, where as this Christmas they were £162 each when they came out and are now  £289 each, which is a huge increase.

There is a new airline due to start at Cardiff Airport in the near future so I think that BMI will have a lot of competition, which I suppose if very good for us.

Regards Ann

Ann

Please keep us posted if and when a new airline start from Cardiff. I keep checking for end of April but BMI are only doing until end of March at the moment. Still the bristol run isn't too bad. I'm presuming you do mean to Murcia? Would rather do the longer drive over here than the long one from alicante to Murcia.

Gina

We normally fly to Cardiff to Alicante as we are only 20 mins from there in Almoradi. Tomorrow we fly from Bristol with Easyjet as the flights were so much cheaper, only £100 each over half-term, which is reasonable. Can't wait although the weather isn't particularly good.

Ann

Must have been Ryanair.......................I go from Murcia to East Mids next week with them for 50 pounds all in and booked from Murcia to Luton in January for 2 for 65 pounds all in for 2 of us.

Not too keen on the airline, but can't beat the prices.