Thomson Flights - very cheap

dowtchaboy

If you want to get to some sunny places and make your own arrangements re hotels or whatever, it's worth checking out Thomson Flight i.e. flight only with Thomson holidays.

http://flights.thomson.co.uk/en/index.html

I happen to want to go to Madeira (maybe I like a bit of rain) - it was an arm and a leg with scheduled airlines but only £99 return including taxes from Birmingham, East Midlands and Gatwick (and others). Thomson seem to have virtually their own terminal at Gatwick and the last time I went with them it was a doodle, no queuing, check in at a machine for hand-luggage only passengers. Big disadvantage is getting to the UK airport- most of these flights are maybe once a week and leave very early in the morning so you will end up with at least one overnight in a UK airport - no biggie if you can get a late flight in and get some kip for a few hours before the 6 am departure. Planes were nice and clean, legroom no worse than Ryanair. Spain, Greece, Turkey - some great deals though they have gone up noticeably in the last week.
Probably a lot easier to do the UK leg if you are leaving from Dublin - the lousy selection of flights and times from Cork is frustrating.

flutered

i traveled with them last year, they were using a german plane and crew, nice flight, the grub was not too bad, on time foe each leg, we had a mighty time the hotel was unreal, everything was spot on, the mistake we made was we never cchecked out the depature time home, which meant we were collected at 4am.

Helpneeded86

Ya the UK is the way to do these package holidays if you dont mind an inconvenience.

Berberis

We booked family holiday to Salou through Thomson UK site earlier in the year for half the price than Thomson IE site (falcon)
Flying from Belfast at the end of the month.
Not a big inconvenience for a saving of over €1,200