Always shop around before you book a holiday

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about finding cheap holidays in the UK and one of the things I suggested was to shop around, and perhaps even contacting the owners directly when you’re booking a holiday home.

New research from Which? Travel reveals exactly why.

They looked at six cottages around the UK that are available on different rental sites and compared the prices for a week-long stay for the same dates in September and found that prices varied enormously depending on who you booked through.

In one case, the difference was more than £600.

Which? Travel just spot checked the prices in this case so it’s by no means representative of pricing across all holiday cottages.

In many cases, the price may well be the same or very similar across the board. But nevertheless, it clearly pays to shop around.

I would add that as well as the price, you should also be comparing refund and cancellation policies.

Even though we have a roadmap out of lockdown, things can still change and it’s good to know that you have options should you have to cancel or postpone your trip.

The one good thing that’s come out of the refund fiasco from last year – if you can call it that – is that the Competition and Markets Authority has already preemptively written to the 100 most complained about travel firms to effectively say get your act together on refunds, or else.