You know the situation. You book your family holiday months in advance so you can secure the best possible price. Problem is, the dates and holiday booking are non-refundable. Agents like to know who is travelling and when so they can bulk-buy beds from hotels in advance.
The closer you get, the more you fidget. Your holiday will almost certainly crossover with all-important wedding season, meaning you have divided loyalties if you need to be at both events at the same time.
Under EU rules, holiday bookings are actually fully transferable (albeit with a name change fee) as the agent doesn’t care who travels, just that they get their money so they can pay your hotel bill. However, how do you find another family who wants to go on holiday to the same destination as was in your original booking?
There’s a new solution, a website called Transfer Travel, which has been setup as a shopping site for cancelled holidays and bookings. There are all kinds of options, such as flights which were booked and can’t be refunded, complete holidays and even festival tickets.
Some of the discounts are better than others. A seven night trip to Ibiza, for two people, was only 23% less than the original booking price (which was most likely already discounted). Looking at the options, you are presented with the dates, flights, the hotel and all the information you need to figure the best booking. However, we found accommodation-only bookings to be more highly discounted than others, including 50% off a seven night stay in New York.
Our initial observations are, be wary. Do some research. Although the prices list the discount, you need to figure out where they were purchased and did the original purchaser do some research on the possible booking options? For example, we noticed a four night trip to Santorini in a fantastic hotel, in November, then did some research ourselves and found the same hotel could be booked through a regular online discounted website for the same price offered via Transfer Travel.
There are also few options, but perhaps the website simply requires more publicity. We went to the cruises section and there was only one listing. We guess there’s nothing stopping commercial companies using this website to offer last-minute discounted package holidays, too.
Go to Transfer Travel for more information.
