News: Hilton winter hotel sale, Opodo flight discount, congratulations Anika

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• Chris Heyes says:

  27 Dec27 December 09:34

  Hi, everybody I’m a bit lost with the “new code” Congratulations Anika
  is it an offshoot ?
  bytheway Congratulations Anika

• DT says:

  27 Dec27 December 09:50

  Book direct, not having to deal with a middle man when things go wrong is much easier. If you do have to book through a TA, never go with Opodo, no matter how good the deal. They’re a trash company, complete garbage and ruining your holiday is not worth whatever you save by booking through them

  • Nick says:

    27 Dec27 December 09:58

    ‘Book direct’ is often best but not always – it’s really not fair to tar all agents with the same brush. Trailfinders won praise for the way they handled covid refunds, for example, and Amex Travel has always been a decent outfit. The message should be ‘if you use an agent, pick very carefully’.

    • Mikeact says:

      27 Dec27 December 10:32

      But why would you book a flight only through a TA… is there one giving a substantial discount on current BA sale prices for example ?

      • Nick says:

        27 Dec27 December 10:55

        There are many reasons you might buy through an agent. Some do occasionally have better fares than direct, some for corporate travel reasons and/or ease of servicing (some agents are easier to contact than airlines!), some because they have decent packages (either high quality integrated ones such as Kuoni or pile-em-high cheap bucket IT fares such as Expedia), sometimes consolidators have a place, and some people just prefer to search at an aggregator rather than each airline separately. There’s no reason to avoid every single agent, there’s plenty of reputable ones out there who do have a place in the market, but there are lots of reasons to avoid the bad ones like a plague, they’re just not worth it. It’s not as simple as ‘always book direct’, much though airlines would love this.

        (Before anyone asks, no I’m not a travel agent!)

      • Rob says:

        27 Dec27 December 11:00

        Yes, airlines occasionally offer discounts to agents they do not offer direct, especially those who do not sell online.

        We promoted high profile one a couple of years ago when Malaysia gave Expedia a £1500 Sydney return exclusive.

        Unfortunately some discounted fares you see are simply scams and no flight will appear, or only after a demand for a surcharge which takes the price back to where it was.

        • Mikeact says:

          27 Dec27 December 11:17

          But if you’re a regular tourist down under with an issue, the airline will invariably point you back to your TA…..fine maybe, if the TA has a 24hr helpline like your insurance company, but otherwise… a bit of stress.

  • Peter K says:

    27 Dec27 December 12:34

    Not quite true to completely avoid OTAs. 7 years ago (before I discovered HfP) I found an a LHR-LAX-JFK-MAN itinerary in economy for about £580 per person on Opodo. I had spent many, many hours looking at other sources to get a deal and nothing was within even a few hundred of this per person.

    I wouldn’t go for them at the moment due to the uncertainties of flights even going, but you can’t completely rule them out as when things go well they can be super useful.

    • Alex Sm says:

      27 Dec27 December 14:56

      I got a great fare from Opodo once – in April 2010
      LCY-AMS-YYZ…YYZ-DTW-DCA… JFK-LHR – for £430 in economy! Still can’t believe it was a genuine fare and it worked! Even with the volcano ash disruption in the middle

  • Doug M says:

    27 Dec27 December 12:39

    If that middleman is Amex and they’ve offered me £200 off £600 then that’s fine. Over the years Trailfinders have always been fine in my experience.

• Bruce says:

  27 Dec27 December 09:57

  thought Opodo used to be owned by BA? or have a quite big tie with BA. used them a decade ago and all seem fine. what changed now the online travel agent?

  • Nick says:

    27 Dec27 December 10:06

    They were never owned by BA, but they did used to be part of Amadeus and in those days were very good. In 2011 they were bought by Odigeo (aka edreams) and it all went downhill fast.

    Odigeo are a cowboy outfit if ever there was one. But this was also spurred on by trends in the wider industry… airlines were turning away from leisure OTAs, slashing commissions massively in a push to get people to book direct (GDS fees were and still are astronomical). Amadeus knew this was coming so sold before it was too late. If airlines (rightly) won’t pay big upfront commissions, OTAs have to make their money elsewhere… hence the fees, charges and withheld refunds as described above. Odigeo (and their other brands) are the undisputed masters of this.

    • David says:

      27 Dec27 December 13:40

      Opodo was owned by a consortium of European airlines – including British Airways – before it was sold to Amadeus.

    • RussellH says:

      27 Dec27 December 13:45

      Opodo was originally part owned by BA (and others – see my earlier post).
      Amadeus took them over in 2004. Amadeus was originally a pure GDS owned by Air France, Iberia, Lufthansa + SAS.
      After a spell under private equity, it is again a public co. listed in Madrid, and very much more than just as GDS..

  • memesweeper says:

    27 Dec27 December 10:08

    Lastminute.com used to be a genuine innovator with unique packages and good UK call centres. Now a an abysmal shadow of its former self following two changes of ownership. Good companies go bad, but it’s rare that bad companies go good.

    • RussellH says:

      27 Dec27 December 13:39

      Bad companies do not become good because the reputation of a bad company would always be a millstone around its neck. Much easier to start from scratch.
      But it is quite easy for bad management to ruin a good company.

• Nick says:

  27 Dec27 December 10:08

  Love Rob’s optimism in assuming everything will be back to normal in spring and we’ll all be able to go back to offices!!

  Also think he missed a big trick by not devising a ‘Challenge Anika’ feature. Hopefully there’s still time…

  • Rob says:

    27 Dec27 December 11:03

    I can go back to the office whenever I want but there is no point if no-one wants to come over for meetings.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    27 Dec27 December 13:50

    I think you’ll see lots of employers pushing for some sort of return to the office 2 days a week perhaps from the spring.

    Guaranteed the work from home advice will be the first measure to be reversed if the vaccine is successful in protecting the vulnerable.

    • Nick says:

      27 Dec27 December 16:47

      Not saying you’re wrong about offices, more that I don’t agree about the timescale… I don’t think spring is realistic, it’ll be more like summer. The effect of Christmas travelling/mixing will knock us back 4-6 weeks, then another mutant will emerge while the govt cocks up vaccine rollout, then they’ll have to test transmission among the vaccinated before finally people are confident enough to go back to offices in significant numbers. I don’t think 3-4 months will be enough for all of that. Hope I’m wrong of course.

• Nick G says:

  27 Dec27 December 11:02

  Why do I never see the Hilton sale rates in my Hilton app? I have to go through whatever special sales pages are currently on

• Liz says:

  27 Dec27 December 14:32

  Congratulations Anika!

• Lyn says:

  27 Dec27 December 15:54

  Congratulations Anika and family!

  And thank you, Anika, for your own reviews and your “My Favourite Hotel” series with some unusual choices.

• ankomonkey says:

  27 Dec27 December 16:15

  Congratulations Anika!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.