Me and my boyfriend recently visited the Greek island Kos and stayed in a luxurious 4 star half board complex which (for once) really was worthy of its 4 stars! We booked through First Choice and were lucky enough to get a last minute deal and our holiday had been reduced… bargain we thought! However once at the hotel we got chatting to a few other Brits – two of whom had booked through First Choice in advance and paid over £100 more per person than myself and my boyfriend and also another couple who had booked over teletext and paid half of what we paid! (I just felt sorry for those that had paid more than us!)
And so, a little dubiously I must add, that’s how I came to be looking at teletext holidays last weekend – now there’s 2 options here, ITV text has a wide range of channels covering holidays – from last minute bargains, to deals of the day, to advance bookings and secondly, www.teletextholidays.co.uk which is the online version.
* A beginner’s guide to Teletext *
* TV Teletext *
Step 1: - It’s always beneficial to understand the shorthand used by travel operators, who automatically assume you are fluent in cost codes and such! The majority of holidays on teletext will be displayed in the following format of destination, location, departure point, duration, board and price. Quite confusingly the British airports are shortened LGW (London Gatwich) and MAN (Manchester), which all at once confused me in my half awake state! Secondly the board and starring, there’s the option of RO (room only), SC (self catering), HB (half board), FB (full board) and AI (all inclusive). So once you’re mastered the deciphering you’re half way there!
Step 2: - Always master basic teletext techniques – for example learning where the hold button is on your remote (not every TV has one of these and that’s where it gets tricky). There’s nothing worse than being halfway through writing down the holiday details and phone number when the page flits to the next one and you’ve got to wait for another 30 pages to bypass before you get back to the original! It’s also useful to learn your own version of shorthand to become a quick scribe! Before ringing up one of the holiday provider’s it’s necessary to write down the departure airport, the destination, the date, the no. of people travelling, the given price as well as the board and star rating – without this, you’re plain snookered!
Step 1: - If you’ve got your basic Internet skills mastered then you’re going to be a dab hand at this! On the internet site you have the option of searching for holidays that match your requirements, now to me this is much preferable as it doesn’t mean trawling through tens of teletext pages to find what you want. On the opening page you’re asked to input you holiday destination (from Africa to the Costa del Sol, everything is here), your departure date as well as a date range (+/- 3 days), the duration (under 7, 7 nights, over 7), the number of people travelling, the price range you’re looking at, your choice of board and your departure airport – what could be simpler! By selecting search a whole array of holidays will be brought up that match your requirements.
Step 2: - So you’ve got your holiday list, now what? You can select certain options that are a “must” to your holiday, for example, if you want a 3* accommodation by clicking on a 3* on the results list you’ll automatically delete everything that isn’t 3*. Once you’ve found something that takes your fancy you can select it and see the operator, the contact details for that operator and also the particulars of your holiday. Then it’s simply a matter of following on as you would from the manual TV teletext below.
Step 3: - So you’ve found your holiday and you’re ready to ring and enquire a little bit more about it (I should just point out here that if you’re searching over the internet there’s often the option to email the operator – beware they often take weeks to reply though). Now here’s a technique that we’re all good at, making a phone call! Most of the operators will put you on hold, which can be a little frustrating, but at least you’re sat in the comfort of your own home for this rather than in a stuffy shop! Once you get through you give in the holiday details and you can get the exact resort location, accommodation name and flight times. They’ll also give you the final price which is often about £20-£30 more than quoted as it includes a booking fee and transfers.
Step 4: - It’s often a good idea to go away and research your holiday a little more. There’s a great range of sites available including Trip Advisor and Holidays Uncovered that features almost every hotel out there and you can read reviews from people who have been there previously. It’s a good idea not to leave it too long before ringing back as the deals usually get snapped up pretty quickly – generally within the hour! I’d definitely recommend researching the accommodation a little though before booking – just to check it’s clean and decent really!
Step 5: - You’re then ready to book and to be honest it couldn’t be much simpler. Simply redial the number, quote the details already given and then say you want to book! You can either pay by bank card (no charge) or credit card (2% cost) and all you do is give the details of your card, your address details for all correspondence and you’re done! You’ll generally find the money will be taken from your account within 1-2 days.
* The Actual Web Site *
This actual review is based on teletext.co.uk but I thought I’d give you a much wider picture and include the television version as well. I’ve already given you a run down about how easy it is to book a holiday on teletext but now I’ll tell you all about the actual website itself.
Upon the website loading my first impressions were how cluttered it was! It’s quite easy to see the search option as this is in a yellow box on the top left hand side of the page but apart from that it’s all a bit of a mess. There’s hardly any white space anywhere, everywhere you look there’s links to other sites, links to other holiday options, etc. From the first homepage there’s the option to search for a holiday, for a late minute deal, to browse the deals offered and to look at TV advertisements on the internet. As well as this there’s the option to search and book cruises, skiing breaks and UK breaks. Further down the page there’s a large blue box entitled “Offers too good to last” which shows the latest best deals, all departing within 3 months, their location and price. Also on the page is the chance to register to have holidays and information sent direct to your email as well as “Featured Holidays” – in this instance it’s holidays to do with the Olympics.
In my opinion the facilities offered by the site extend far behind simply booking a holiday, there’s car hire and insurance options as well as guides to different resorts and the option to find out the current and expected weather if you’re off on your jollies in the next few weeks!
The navigation is quite easy once you actually get into your search but when trying to browse all the special offers on the homepage it can get very messy indeed - a bit of a nightmare even! Loading is also quick; I was quite surprised by how quick you actually get your holiday list after searching – within about 10 seconds!
And so there you have it, a guide to booking through teletext to get that dream holiday! But I can hear you all asking why should you book through teletext, isn’t it safer and also a lot more reliable to book on the high street?
* PROS of Teletext *
~ The top advantage of booking over Teletext has to be the cost, for those of you that haven’t ever been on Teletext it’s worth having a look just to see the savings you could have! We’ve just booked a 3* all inclusive holiday for 10 nights to Majorca in early September for 2 people and it’s cost us £710 for the flights, accommodation, transfers, insurance, etc. We went into Thomas Cook the day before booking and were quoted £984 for the 2 of us to go to Costa Brava for 7 nights 3* all inclusive and £1120 for 10 nights in Menorca on half board. My boyfriend’s mum has also booked a cruise for 2 weeks to the Maldives (1 week cruise, 1 week stay in a water bungalow) in October and paid £1100 for her and her partner – find anything below £2000 on the high street for the Maldives and I’ll pay for your holiday! So there you have it, you’ll definitely save money and I challenge you to find a cheaper deal on the high street!
~ Ease of booking, this has to be another advantage as you can book from the comfort of your own home, the majority of the phone numbers are free so you’re incurring no cost in excess of the holiday and it can be booked in a number of minutes! Or if you’d rather trudge round the high street for a few hours and wait in queues, be my guest!
~ And lastly I’d have to say choice is a major factor over teletext, there’s every destination you can think of with every choice of accommodation you could want – from a self catering room to an all out 5 * all inclusive hotel!
* CONS of Teletext *
~ As with everything there’s always going to be a few cons, with buying anything online or over the phone you’re always got that small chance of credit card theft or the money they take being the wrong amount but that’s a risk incurred with buying anything over the phone or internet.
~ Some holidays won’t fly and have accommodation with the same operator, therefore you’re not going to have a holiday rep so any problems you may have you’ll have to sort out yourself. The holiday we’ve just booked is flying with BMI and then staying in a hotel run by Thomas Cook so it’s not ideal in that we won’t have the reassurance of having someone to sort out any difficulties but hey, at that price you can’t have everything can you!
~ You have to be quick, there’s a much higher turnover on Teletext than in a high street store and by that I mean that you can find a holiday, ring up and it’ll already be gone! The only positive from this is that they’ve always got a similar holiday with a similar price to offer you so you’re not at a total loss.
~ The site itself isn't updated that often (probably about every 24 hours) so quite often you will ring up and the exact holiday will have gone!
* My Experience *
Last Sunday morning, myself and my boyfriend still feeling a little worse from wear from the weekly Saturday night out drinking decided to book a holiday – a spur of the moment type thing! His parents have just bought him quite a run down house to work on and I’m back to uni in September so we thought we’d catch a quick bit of sun before we got down to work. After locating the correct pages on the TV (ITV around 300 channels and upwards) we began our search and quickly realised the internet option was the way forward! At least here we could control where we looked at and study each deal individually for as long as we wanted.
So Sunday afternoon, feeling a little better by now we began our search. As described above it’s quite a simple facility to use, we popped in the dates around which we wanted to travel (using the last minute facility as it’s only 2 weeks away) and clicked on search! We were presented with a choice of around 60 holidays and found that they were mostly Greece, Spain and the Balearics. We managed to narrow the list down to about 8 that were within our price budget and set about ringing different operators up, and this is where it got stressful!
We did find that the majority of places we rang had already sold the holiday advertised, but were quick to offer us several alternatives, which suited us fine. It’s a good idea to ring up as you can vary your choices, for example if the holiday advertised is for 7 days (but you fancy 10 days) you can ring and ask if they have any available for this duration, or this price, and more often or not they do!
We finally found one we liked as it was well within our budget, morning flight times (7.30am) which is always a bonus for me and went away to look at reviews – about 20 minutes later we were satisfied that the price was very good value and that the hotel looked clean and had great facilities! We rang back our particular operator “Sun4U,” where the lady promptly took our payment details and address details and told us information would follow in the post! We’ve since had a fully comprehensive set of details, no different really to those you get in a travel agents and are eagerly awaiting our holiday on 5th September!
So there you have it - a quick guide to Teletext holidays, fairly pain free and easy - why not upgrade your usual high street purchased holiday - for the same price on Teletext you'd be amazed at what you could get!
Thanks for reading & happy holidaying!
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Quality of the Content
Good
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Satisfactory
Purchase Tracking Function
None
Speed of Delivery
Satisfactory
Ability to Customise
Poor
Customer Services Support
Good
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