Can you keep a secret...
 Mar 25th, 2003
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AMAZING bargains
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Reluctant to share the knowledge !
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Yes
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  clemenza
About me:
Member since:05.05.2002
Reviews:14
Members who trust:9
Review rated by 25 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
This review received a counterstatement by a party concerned
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I hate annoying people. You know what I mean; people who walk too slowly infront of you on a crowded pavement, someone who sits next to you on a train then proceeds to open up a broadsheet newspaper in your face, people who think they're naturally funny purely because they can remember every line from the 2nd series of 'The Office'. All pretty horrendous and every example a good reason why abolishing the death penalty might not have been such a good idea, but nothing incurs the wrath of the majority of British people than someone who has found a holiday cheaper than themselves. With that in mind you can imagine my trepidation as myself and my girlfriend boarded mytravel flight MYT049 from Birmingham to Gran Canaria having paid just £101 each for a return flight and a week's accommodation thanks to the auction section within mytravel's website (www.mytravel.com). Girlfriend was
dead chuffed with the deal I managed to snag and wanted to broadcast this to the whole plane, but sometimes these things are best left unsaid.
The website is an affiliate of Airtours and the majority of the holidays advertised in the auction section are part of their Sundeals packages which usually consist of cheap, late, but not last, minute deals to popular package holiday locations including the Med., Florida, Mexico, Jamaica etc. There is an option of searching for location, departure airport, dates of holiday, length of stay, and price range. Obviously the more flexible you are, the better deal you can get. However, I was pretty rigid in my conditions in that I wanted to fly from Birmingham to the Canaries from between the 6-8 March for 1 week and yet I still managed to get a fantastic deal.
I would advise you plan in advance as much as possible when using this website, prepare for disappointment and don't get carried away! I started searching for holidays from about 6 weeks before I wanted to depart with a maximum price of £120 per person (not including booking fees, taxes and any extras) and I made several unsuccessful bids for holidays before getting this one. When you find you have been outbid by someone else then the temptation is to bid again and again (the reason the website can remain profitable), but resist that urge and stay within your agreed maximum price before you started bidding. Provided you have allowed plenty of time to bid for holidays you will get plenty more opportunities. A lot of holidays start bidding at £1 each, with bidding increments rising by £20 each time. From experience it is unrealistic to expect to pay less than £100 each for a package deal, but occassionally this does happen! Proxy bidding is a great way of ensuring that you do not get outbid without placing your maximum possible bid first. In my case when I first bid for the holiday it was only £41 each, but I informed mytravel that I was willing to pay up to £120 each should someone else subsequently bid for the holiday. Proxy bidding simply means that the website will place a bid on your behalf up to your maximum price should a counter bid come in for the same holiday from someone else. This was vital in my case as someone placed a bid of £100 each at the VERY last minute of the auction which would have meant I would have lost the bid if I hadn't had Proxy bidding.
The price includes return flights and accommodation (often not allocated until arrival), but doesn't include airport transfers (about £15pp each), optional in-flight meals (about £10-£15pp each) or booking fees (about £10pp each). Girlfriend and I opted to make sandwiches and hire a car which meant that the inflight meal and transfer charges were avoided. If you choose to buy your holiday through mytravel auctions you will not get the lap of luxury - the flights are cramped, but tolerable and the accommodation is clean, but basic. If, however, you are on a really tight budget and don't fancy another weekend in a drab caravan park in Rhyl or you just fancy a cheap getaway before your main summer holidays you really can't get any better than this.
We got flight, accommodation, car hire and insurance in a island that boasts year-round sunshine (average 28 degrees C when we were there) for £165 each. Don't you just hate annoying people?!
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by (84%):
21.04.2006 23:57
Thinking of using mytravel in the next couple of days... this has been very helpful, cheers!
16.03.2005 15:55
Holy fucking shit!!
27.09.2004 18:42
Great op - hadn't heard of ths before. Joy